Launched in 2015, the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards are a biennial major commissioning opportunity open to all UK based artists using photography and within the first ten years of their career. The Awards offer the awardees the opportunity to make ambitious new work and significantly develop their practice at a pivotal moment in their career. Now in their fifth iteration, the awardees of the latest edition are Roman Manfredi and Sayuri Ichida.
Roman Manfredi’s work titled TRA exists in the liminal, hinting at transformation, motion without destination. It speaks to a state of being between, among, and within, an energetic space where masculine and feminine converge and dissolve, where categories blur into something more elemental. Using still and moving images, portraits, film and fragments, Roman journeys through Napoli, where the landscape is caught between time periods and the relationship between people, personal identity and place is intuitive, felt, embodied, and ancient.
Sayuri Ichida’s work, 空席 (Kūseki), meaning “empty seats”, addresses Japan’s rapid population decline, with rural communities among the hardest hit. Between 2002 and 2020, nearly 9,000 schools closed, with around 450 more shutting down each year. As birth rates fall and towns shrink, schools, once central to daily life, stand empty, their presence quietly fading from the landscape. The presentation of Kūseki spans across photography, collage, sound and sculptural installation in an effort to respond to this ongoing disappearance.
Roman Manfredi’s and Sayuri Ichida’s work will be presented as two solo shows within one UK touring exhibition throughout 2026 at the following venues:
- 10 January – 8th February: Drawing Room and Tannery Arts (London) with a preview on 9 January
- 21 February – 25 April: Barnsley Civic (South Yorkshire)
- 7 May 2026 – 4 July: Ffotogallery (Cardiff)
- 12 September – 6 December: Street Level Photoworks (Glasgow)
