Dzifa Peters, a German-Ghanaian visual artist and PhD former student in Culture Studies, is the winner of the “Thinking Photography” Prize presented by the Deutsche Boerse Photography Foundation at Paris Photo, the world's most prestigious photography exhibition.

‘It is a true honour to receive the ‘Thinking Photography’ Prize in recognition of my doctoral thesis, Tropes of Polarity: Visual Representation and Afrodiasporic Identities’, says Dzifa. ‘I am deeply grateful to the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the German Photographic Society (DGPh) for this recognition. My heartfelt thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Isabel Capeloa Gil, and my co-supervisor, Apl. Professor Dr. Michael Basseler, whose thoughtful guidance and unwavering intellectual support have shaped this research in profound ways’, says the artist, visibly moved. ‘Above all, I owe a great debt to the artists and scholars whose ideas and creative work have inspired and informed this project from the very beginning’, she added.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the German Photographic Society (DGPh) will jointly present the ‘Thinking Photography’ and ‘Writing Photography’ prizes during the award ceremony on November 14, 2025, at the Goethe-Institut in Paris. On this day, Dzifa Peters will present her research in a conversation with Lucia Halder, curator and director of the photography collection at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, Germany.

Portraits of contemporary witnesses of the independence movement in Ghana are packed for archiving. Dzifa Peters, in collaboration with Josef Zky, from the project ‘Being a guest’ (2015-present), C-print, courtesy of the artists.