Anouska Phizacklea, MGA Director commented that: ‘The Bowness Photography Prize uniquely captures what is going on in contemporary Australian photography as a reflection of the broader social and political environment within which we all live. The Sotheby’s Australia People’s Choice Award gives a voice to our audiences to vote on the work that resonates with them. This year we are delighted that Shoufay Derz has been chosen for a stunningly beautify large scale work that explores the scarred landscape of north-west region of Turkmenistan that has been heavily eroded over time.’

Shoufay Derz travelled to Turkmenistan to capture this incredible photographic image titled ‘Under erasure’. Derz explores monumental eroded landscapes to create what she calls ‘luminous voids’, a visual poetry of the unknown. By reflecting on the presence of the past in the present, this new work asks us to comtemplate intimacies of the unknown, as well as the ruptures between our experience and knowledge of the world.

Fragile landscapes, images of eroded sites, disappearing cliffs, are for the artist wordless poems and material representations of absence; terrains of emptiness that retain traces of geological scar, forms that are no longer there, subjects of periods of drought and flooding.