Since its launch in 2008, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Photography Award has provided support for contemporary photographic creation. Each year, the museum funds the works of two laureates, selected on the basis of an original project, in coherence with their personal aesthetic path. It also supports the final production of a selection of these works towards their entry into the museum's collection. The award is open to non-European photographers or artists using photography, with no age limit. It aims to promote the diversity of photographic practices and forms in international contemporary creation. Preference will be given to projects that demonstrate an original artistic approach and are not limited to traditional forms of documentary or reportage. The prize has no theme. Although this call for entries does not require a recommendation, it is not aimed at novice photographers. Particular attention will be paid to the quality of references and experience.

Since 2008, this support has revealed many talents and open the national collections to the whole world and its current creation. We can mention over the years the works of artists such as Sammy Baloji (2008), Hugo Aveta, Che Onejoon and Lek Kiatsirikajorn (2012), Guy Tillim (2015), Gosette Lubondo, José Luis Cuevas and Luis Carlos Tovar (2017), Emilio de Azevedo (2020) and more recently the collective Ritual Inhabitual, Gayatri Ganju (2022) and Felipe Romero Beltran (2024). In 18 years, the work of 49 photographers, or an approximate equivalent of 800 prints has been integrated into the French collections thanks to the Photography Award. This major collection constitutes baseline for the international contemporary creation, in such diverse aspects as ecology (137 Years, Zhao Renhui – Singapour), the migratory crisis (Cartographies of Escape, Luis Carlos Tovar – Colombia), the post-colonial memory (Imaginary Trip II, Gosette Lubondo – DRC), the deconstruction of the patriarchal model (La Etapa Bruja, Liza Ambrossio – Mexico) as well as the role of photography in the questioning of contemporary identity (Resident and Visitors, Brook Andrew – Australia).