TruePicture Awards 2026.
Four of the five grants go to alumni of the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography programme. Each receives 15,000 Swiss francs for their photo project.
Yngsjö, Sweden, 2025. Photo: Florian Sulzer
Hånsa Olofsson and Mats Andersson haul an eel trap into the boat. The picture comes from Florian Sulzer’s portfolio reportage on the European eel.
Abu Dhabi, 2025. Photo: Hannah Aders
Diehl Defence stand at the IDEX arms fair in Abu Dhabi. In her portfolio, Hannah Aders examines the arms industry.
Dresden, 2024. Photo: Julius Schien
Marwa El-Sherbini was murdered by a neo-Nazi in Dresden Regional Court. In ‘Rechtes Land’, Julius Schien documents sites of right-wing violence.
Loire, France, 2025. Photo: Florian Sulzer
Yann Taillandier fishes for glass eels on the Loire. This picture also comes from Florian Sulzer’s reportage on the European eel.
Four of the five TruePicture Awards 2026 go to alumni of the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography programme: Hannah Aders, Nerea Lakuntza, Julius Schien and Florian Sulzer won through with their project ideas against competition from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. All four recently completed their studies with us. Each receives 15,000 Swiss francs and will spend the next 18 months working on their photo projects with the support of experienced mentors.
The Swiss funding programme TruePicture does not reward finished work but plans: what counts is a project’s originality and social relevance, together with the applicant’s portfolio and educational background. Since the first call for entries in 2022, a total of 192,500 francs (around 206,000 euros) has gone to current and former students of the programme – 60,000 francs this year alone. That makes TruePicture by far the largest funding opportunity for our students and alumni.
From 33 nominated talents, the jury – project leader Manuel Bauer, NZZ picture editor Nicole Aeby and Sarah Girard, former director of the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography – selected five award winners and two honourable mentions in a multi-stage process. Sixteen of the nominees are currently studying in Hannover or graduated here. The programme itself nominates only current students and graduates from this year and last; alumni and students can also be put forward by other nominators. ‘The winning reportage projects put their finger on social flashpoints and impress with the high quality of their visual language,’ says Girard.
Award winner Hannah Aders
Award winner Nerea Lakuntza
Award winner Julius Schien
Award winner Florian Sulzer
‘A última nuvem’ is the title of Hannah Aders’s project: the photojournalist documents the rapid expansion of AI data centres in Latin America, in which corporations are investing billions – while their growing demand for energy and water puts pressure on local ecosystems. Indigenous communities and the rural population are at the centre of the project. Aders trained at the Lette Verein in Berlin, then studied with us and now works as a picture editor at DER SPIEGEL.
Up to 300,000 newborns are said to have been taken from their families in Spain between 1939 and the 1990s and secretly placed with others. In her project, Nerea Lakuntza combines portraits of those affected, historical sites and archive material into a visual investigation of memory, loss and identity. The Basque photographer came to Hannover to study – and stayed.
Seville, 2025. Photo: Nerea Lakuntza
Carmen Llorente is searching for her child. At the hospital she was told her baby had died at birth – years later she found the burial niche empty. From Nerea Lakuntza’s investigation into stolen children in Spain.
Gardelegen, 2025. Photo: Hannah Aders
NATO exercise at the German Army’s combat training centre: two soldiers handle a Panzerfaust 3. From Hannah Aders’s portfolio.
Cádiz, 2025. Photo: Nerea Lakuntza
Only a few infant burials are registered at San José cemetery. After it closed in 1994, many graves were exhumed – a large number of them were empty.
Dourados, Brazil. Photo: Hannah Aders
‘This is where the bullet hit me’: Simão shows a scar on his chest. From Hannah Aders’s portfolio.
This is the second time TruePicture has recognised Julius Schien: in 2023 he received an honourable mention for ‘Rechtes Land’, his documentation of sites of right-wing violence. Now the programme is funding his long-term project ‘Deutscher Hass’ (‘German Hatred’), which traces the roots of racism and exclusion from imperialism to the present day. Schien lives and works in Hannover.
In ‘Paradiese im Untergang’ (‘Sinking Paradises’), Florian Sulzer follows people from Pacific island states whose homes are disappearing into the rising sea – from saying goodbye and migrating to starting afresh. The reportage documents one of the first state-organised routes of climate-driven emigration. Sulzer did his bachelor’s degree in Hannover and now photographs from Vienna for magazines such as Mare, Spiegel and Zeit.
The fifth TruePicture Award goes to Swiss-Portuguese photographer Jessica Dreier, a graduate of ECAL in Lausanne. For ‘Margem Sul’, she follows people on the outskirts of Lisbon who are resisting displacement, and asks how Portugal’s colonial past shapes today’s inequality.
The two honourable mentions, each worth 2,500 francs, go to Switzerland: to Anna Arnet, who follows people with eating disorders, and to Jonathan Labusch, who photographs on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Overview of all winners
TruePicture Award
Hannah Aders
Jessica Dreier
Nerea Lakuntza
Julius Schien
Florian Sulzer
Honourable Mention
Anna Arnet
Jonathan Labusch
Nominated students and alumni of Hochschule Hannover:
Florian Sulzer, Carlotta Steinkamp, Nora Schwarz, Moritz Schorpp, Julius Schien, Alexander Nowak, Stefan Nieland, Nerea Lakuntza, Lisa-Maria Gruber, Jonathan Funk, Emil Eichinger, Serghei Duve, Bastian Betz, Kseniia Apresian, Hannah Aders, Armina Ahmadinia
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