Felix Schoeller Photo Award 2025 and German Peace Prize for Photography 2025 announced and honored
Exhibition opening at the Museumsquartier Osnabrück
On Thursday evening, September 25, 2025, the winners of the two photography awards, the Felix Schoeller Photo Award and the German Peace Prize for Photography, were announced and honored in a festive ceremony. Photographer Maximilian Mann (Germany) received the winner's check for €10,000 for the “German Peace Prize for Photography 2025,” awarded by the city of Osnabrück and local paper manufacturer Felix Schoeller, from Osnabrück's mayor Katharina Pötter. Maximilian Mann prevailed against high-caliber international competition from 88 countries with his work “Letzte Station Oberhausen” (Last Stop Oberhausen).
This year, the “Felix Schoeller Photo Award” was presented in two categories, each with prize money of €5,000. In the ‘Sustainability’ category, the prize was awarded to Axel Javier Sulzbacher. Sulzbacher is a German-Mexican photojournalist, born in Hanover in 1992, who impressed the jury with his series “Green Dystopia.”
Promoting young talent in the spotlight at the Felix Schoeller Photo Award
On the occasion of the seventh Felix Schoeller Photo Award, Hans Christoph Gallenkamp, CEO of Felix Schoeller Holding GmbH & Co. KG, looked to the future and emphasized: "As pioneers in the manufacture of photographic paper, promoting talent is particularly important to us. As a sustainable company, we will continue to focus on providing young photographers worldwide with a platform through the Felix Schoeller Photo Award. Here, they can express their talent, imagination, and convictions through their photographic achievements and showcase their work." Gallenkamp also emphasized that sustainability is not only an important category in the competition: “Sustainable business practices, sustainable product development, and social sustainability in our dealings with employees, partners, and customers are part of the DNA of our family business.”
The winning series and the works of the nominees for both awards will be presented in an exhibition at the Museumsquartier Osnabrück until February 22, 2026.
Felix Schoeller Photo Award
Category winner: Sustainability
Axel Javier Sulzbacher: Green Dystopia
The avocado has triggered a hype rarely seen in recent decades. The burden of rising demand is particularly noticeable in the Mexican state of Michoacán. There, forests are being illegally cleared by slash-and-burn practices to make way for avocado plantations. High international demand has led to ever larger and more numerous plantations. Over 300,000 jobs depend directly or indirectly on the production and trade of avocados in the region, which generates annual sales of $2.5 billion. In 2021, Michoacán alone produced around 1.8 million tons ft he green fruit. In the ongoing drug war, the cartels have become aware ft he revenue potential ft he avocado trade. Protection rackets and the general presence ft he cartels have put enormous pressure on what was until recently the only state in Mexico with an export license. In view ft he escalating violence, the government had to call in the military to maintain order.
Axel Javier Sulzbacher, born in Hanover in 1992, is a German-Mexican photojournalist.
He lives and works as a freelance photographer in Hanover and Berlin.
Sulzbacher's work has been published in numerous renowned magazines, including Stern, Geo, Das Magazin, Zenith, and The Washington Post. He has also been nominated for several international photography awards and has exhibited his work both in Germany and abroad.
Felix Schoeller Photo Award
Category winner “Young Talent”
Verdiana Albano: i ain't from no east coast
When you are constantly asked where you come from, you think about it more deeply. It was the time, it was the place. A couple in a Saxon bar, between the Cold War and civil war, between ethnicities and ethics, between plans and economics, between dreams and promises. I dismantled a dream with the wall: promises, norms, patterns.
And then—what next? The show is over. The dream remains. Let's go home. Experience generations. I find myself at the end of two cultures.
Not negative, neutral and without identity, in search of something new, something uncertain.
“Using her parents' Stasi files and personal and institutional image archives, Verdiana Albano explores her own fragmented and mysterious Afro-European history.” – Dr. Franziska Kunze
Verdiana Albano (1993) is an Afro-European artist who lives in Frankfurt and Berlin. She studied at the Offenbach University of Art and Design until 2021, specializing in photography and installation art. She is currently studying at the Ostkreuz School of Photography as part of the Master Class.
Albano's art and commitment have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Young Art and New Ways of Bayern Innovativ, the Neustart Kultur Scholarship 2022, and the Neustart Plus Scholarship 2023 from the Kunstfonds Foundation.
German Peace Prize for Photography awarded to Maximilian Mann
In his work “Letzte Rettung Oberhausen” (Last Resort Oberhausen), Maximilian Mann reports on a special place in the Ruhr region where the global crises and conflicts of this world take on a frightening proximity: the Peace Village Oberhausen. Here, the consequences of war and violence are manifested in faces marked by burn scars, injuries, and pain. These are the faces of children who are not yet teenagers and yet have already been through the worst. But this place is not one of resignation, but of new beginnings. Through medical care and the dedication of volunteer doctors, the children not only receive physical healing, but also a perspective – a moment of carefree laughter, a step back into life.
Maximilian Mann, born in 1992, is a German photographer with a master's degree in photography from Dortmund University of Applied Sciences. He specializes in documentary and portrait photography and focuses on stories that deal with social and environmental change as well as broader social issues. He was awarded the World Press Photo Award 2020. He is a founding member of the DOCKS collective, represented by the LAIF Agency, and an appointed member of the DGPh (German Society for Photography).
Image credits
© Maximilian Mann, winner of the German Peace Prize for Photography, “Letzte Rettung Oberhausen” (Last Rescue Oberhausen)
© Axel Javier Sulzbacher, winner of the Felix Schoeller Photo Award, Young Talent category, “Green Dystopia”
© Verdiana Albano, winner of the Felix Schoeller Photo Award, Young Talent category, “i ain't from no east coast”
Further information, as well as all other winners and nominees, can be found at www.felix-schoeller-photoaward.com
www.felix-schoeller-photoaward.com
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Über Felix Schoeller
Felix Schoeller macht die Kraft des Papiers nutzbar. Der Spezialpapierhersteller befähigt Kunden und Partner, Lösungen zum Wohl der Menschen und des Planeten zu entwickeln. Das 1895 gegründete Familienunternehmen mit 14 Standorten in 9 Ländern bietet bewährte Papierlösungen von Foto- und Digitaldruckpapieren über Dekorpapiere für die Möbel- und Holzindustrie, Trennpapiere für Medizinprodukte und industrielle Anwendungen und Sublimationspapiere für Mode, Sportbekleidung und Wohnen bis zu flexiblen Papierverbunden für Verpackungen. Neben bewährten Papierlösungen fördert Felix Schoeller die Verwendung von Papier in neuen Anwendungen und ersetzt begrenzte Ressourcen durch Papier als nachwachsenden Rohstoff. Getreu der Vision, mit Papier das Leben besser zu machen folgt das Unternehmen dabei dem zentralen Markenversprechen PAPER MADE FOR LIFE.
Seit 2018 führt Hans-Christoph Gallenkamp in fünfter Generation das Osnabrücker Familienunternehmen. felix-schoeller.com
