For this edition of the competition, focused on the theme: “RESILIENCE”, the Estée Lauder Pink Ribbon Award Jury brought together professionals from the world of photography as well as actors committed to the fight against breast cancer. This rewarded 3 winners from a selection of 40 finalists. The Grand Prize was awarded to Margot Lestien and the two Accessits Prizes to Isabelle Mertens and Yéri Bérénice Ouédraogo. The Téva Audience Award was awarded to Julien Cresp.
THE LAUREATES :
Grand Jury Prize: Margot Lestien
Accessit Prize: Isabelle Mertens
Accessit Prize: Yéri Bérénice Ouédraogo
Téva Audience Award: Julien Cresp
GRAND PRIZE: Margot Lestien
« There was the icy cold of the announcement which threw me into death. There is the cool water in which I immerse myself and reminds my every pore that I am alive.
There was my river of tears. There are the furrows in the corners of my eyes every time I laugh.
My left breast had been cut out and sutured. There is my right breast which stands out of the water.
There had been my insensitive skin. There is my submerged scar that shivers.
There had been the radiotherapy rays burning. There are the rays of the sun that warm my body.
There was, there is and there will always be the current of water, of life which sometimes pulls me along and mishandles me, slips through my fingers and slips over me. But I also know how to split this current, rewind it, navigate it, immerse myself in it and, like it, renew myself.
And from this strange baptism my irregular bust emerges with the same name as that of this river: the Proud. »
— Patricia
ACCESSIT PRIZE: Isabelle Mertens
« Boasting to see my bare head.
John shaves the back of my head.
Hair falls out.
My face doesn’t change in the mirror.
My eyes sparkle. It’s a game.
Something we don’t do.
It’s also a double or nothing.
Beautiful or ugly?
Once the surprise has passed, I feel a certain strength in no longer having hair on my head.
As if being stripped down brought me strength, softness and femininity.
Am I naked?
Or on the contrary, am I less touchable, less attackable, less reachable?
Does this bare head make me this woman of humanity?
This billionaire lineage of years?
For sure, I feel strong of humanity when my skull appears.
The first men. The first women. I am the fruit of this lineage.
Privileged strip down.
Stripping of humanity.
Thank you Life for this experience that I would never have dared and which does me good.
I feel connected.
So connected. »
— Déborah
ACCESSIT PRIZE: Yéri Bérénice Ouédraogo
Do you remember Grandma from this moment?
At that precise moment, I became an adult. Until then I felt like I was five and a half years old, the age of our separation.
I then dared to tell you about this body hidden under your colorful loincloths.
Mom translated the intention of my project into the Lobi dialect.
I wanted to see, touch, feel and share with you this past ordeal; four years ago and far from me.
Your reaction matched what you could express, you, the mother of eight children, upright and proud, with a frank gaze.
You took off the top of your wax and presented yourself to me without a word. A heavy silence but shouting everything that we could not say to each other through the barrier of language. You impressed me and at the same time, I wanted to become your veil of protection.
I placed my hand not on this breast which is no longer but on the scar which replaces it.
You didn’t move and you offered me your soul. You understand the importance of my request.
Minafré (I love you).
THE TEVA AUDIENCE AWARD: Julien Cresp
« In the darkness of trial, facing the abyss of our weakness, a force emerges from beyond ourselves and offers us this opportunity: to choose life!
The shock of cancer made me want to bring together the best in me and around me, those I love, to climb this mountain of illness together: roped together to the summit, to the healing!
I believe that union creates strength, that communion transcends, that the other is a ferryman.
Like the asperities necessary for ascension, our faults are fertile. Light shines there.
In the lens of the photographer friend, they are there, invisible. They pull the rope, a tension, a dance. Complicity. Gratitude. Hope. Audacity can be read on my forehead: “Down with the retching!” “. My adage: “Hearts up”. Resilience.
As a milliner, twenty years ago, I worked on femininity around the head. Today, bareheaded, I embrace femininity without complexes.
The mountain undresses me to refocus on the essential: living! »
— Marie-Clémence.
More info : www.pinkribbonaward.fr
