The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Dresden-based association Portraits Hellerau e.V. are continuing their cooperation with the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK): in the winter semester of 2025/2026, the renowned Singaporean artist Sim Chi Yin will take up the temporary international guest professorship for photography at the university. She will also be appointed to the jury of the “PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award 2026”.

Following the successful launch with Laura El Tantawy in 2023, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and Portraits Hellerau e.V. are supporting this important initiative for the second time. The three partners share the common goal of expanding artistic instruction in photography at HfBK Dresden and introducing students to the perspectives of renowned international photographers through this guest professorship. It also contributes to strengthening Dresden as a location for contemporary artistic photography. The decision to award the guest professorship was made by a joint jury of the partner institutions.

The guest professorship is part of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation's comprehensive programme to support young photographers, which includes awards, scholarships and exhibition opportunities for young artists, as well as formats that promote the academic dialogue on the subject of photography. This guest professorship will supplement the existing teaching programme at the HfBK Dresden with a project-based workshop for master's and advanced students, led by Sim Chi Yin. An exhibition in December 2025 in the rooms of the university will show the students' artistic work created during the workshop.

The jury for the international competition “PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award” includes Sim Chi Yin, art historian Angela Matyssek, and curator and photographer Daniel Blochwitz. Together, they will select the entries for the final round of the award from the artistic submissions. Sim Chi Yin follows renowned colleagues such as Carla van de Puttelaar, Francesca Cesari, and Ute Mahler on this committee.

Sim Chi Yin’s research-based practice uses artistic and archival interventions to contest historiographies and colonial narratives and to reflect their complexity. She works across photography, film, installation, performance and book-making. Based in Berlin, Sim has exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) and at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2024), Camera Austria, Graz (2024), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023), the Barbican, London (2023), Harvard Art Museums, Boston, USA (2021), or 2Les Rencontres de la Photographie” in Arles, France (2021), amongst others.

Notes to Editors:

We will be happy to send you portraits of Sim Chi Yin in print quality upon request.

Media Contacts:

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation
Isabelle Hammer
media.foundation@deutsche-boerse.com
Tel. +49 69 21117014 

Dresden University of Fine Arts
Andrea Weippert
presse@hfbk-dresden.de
+49 351 44022616

PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award
Martin Morgenstern (DGPh)
info@portraits-hellerau.com
+49 351 79900000

About the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and promoting contemporary photography. The Foundation is responsible for the development and presentation of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, which now comprises over 2,400 photographic works by around 170 artists from 38 nations. It shows several public exhibitions a year in its exhibition space in Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main. The Foundation supports young artists through awards, scholarships or the annual talent programme of the Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Foam. Together with the Photographers’ Gallery in London, it awards the renowned Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize every year. The Foundation also works on exhibitions with international museums and institutions, as well as creating platforms for academic dialogue and research on photography.
www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org

About the Dresden University of Fine Arts

The HfBK Dresden is one of the most distinguished and oldest art universities in Europe. Approximately 550 students are currently studying at the Dresden University in five-degree programmes for fine arts, theatre-related studies and conservation/restoration. The 12 specialist art classes and one project class represent a broad spectrum of different artistic attitudes in the fields of painting, sculpture and media (sound, film). One of the special features of the HfBK Dresden is also the large number and excellent equipment of the artistic workshops.
www.hfbk-dresden.de/en

About the PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award

Founded in 2015 at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, the international competition for portrait photography regularly attracts submissions from over fifty countries. In addition to the large annual exhibition — on view until the end of October 2025 at the Technische Sammlungen Dresden — the Portraits Hellerau Association, founded in 2018, organizes numerous satellite exhibitions in galleries and off-spaces throughout Dresden. Until the end of December, this year’s artist-in-residence, Pasha Kritchko (Belarus), will present his work at Festspielhaus HELLERAU. The “PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award” is a collaboration between HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, the Technische Sammlungen Dresden, and the Portraits Hellerau Association. The guest professorship is co-funded by Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden.
www.portraits-hellerau.com