Prix Pictet chooses Jungle as the theme of its twelfth cycle

The independent Geneva-based wealth and asset manager Pictet founded the Prix Pictet in 2008. Today it is established as the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. On 9 July 2026, during the opening week of Les Rencontres d’Arles, Michael Benson, Director of the Prix Pictet, announced the theme of the twelfth cycle: Jungle. The group published the announcement the following day.

One word, many readings

Every second year a new cycle begins, designed to promote discussion and debate on environmental and social sustainability. It opens with the announcement of a theme in Arles and culminates in a global exhibition tour. The themes have always revolved around a single word, from Water and Disorder to Space, Fire and Storm: one often abstract concept that highlights a particular facet of sustainability and is open to countless interpretations.

“The world’s jungles are the great green lungs of the planet,” Benson said of the choice. These huge carbon sinks play a crucial role in stabilising the climate, he explained, yet across the globe jungles are in crisis, threatened by deforestation, fires and degradation. At the same time, he sees the jungle as a mirror of today: cities, digital networks and social ecosystems have their own undergrowth, layers of complexity that obscure as much as they reveal.

The road to the twelfth laureate

Over the coming months, a global network of more than 350 nominators, including critics, curators and other photography specialists, will identify portfolios responding to the new theme. The independent jury will then announce a shortlist of twelve photographers in summer 2027. The twelfth laureate will be named in September 2027 at the opening of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and receives a prize of CHF 100,000. The exhibition will then tour to more than a dozen venues. The prize’s touring exhibitions have so far reached over 1.5 million visitors worldwide.

The new chair of the jury is the Dutch-born British businessman Sir Tim Smit, who helped create the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project. He replaces Sir David King, who has stepped down after nine cycles.

Alfredo Jaar and the Great Salt Lake

The announcement was followed by a presentation by the Chilean artist, architect and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar, who was named winner of Storm, the eleventh cycle, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September 2025. Appearing alone on stage, he reflected on his series The End (2025) about the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Because of excessive water extraction, the lake has lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area since the mid-nineteenth century. The Storm tour continues with forthcoming exhibitions at Fotografiska Shenzhen, the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach and RMIT Gallery in Melbourne.

Next stop: Paris Photo

In November the prize moves closer to the art market. The Pictet Group is an Official Partner of Paris Photo, and the Prix Pictet will present, for the first time, a curated selection of work by its laureates at the Grand Palais, on the Promenoir at the centre of the Nef. The eleven previous laureates are Alfredo Jaar, Gauri Gill, Sally Mann, Joana Choumali, Richard Mosse, Valérie Belin, Michael Schmidt, Luc Delahaye, Mitch Epstein, Nadav Kander and Benoit Aquin.