Italian photographer Alessandro Imbriaco is the winner of The European Publishers Award for Photography 2012. The Award was established in 1994 and celebrated its 19th year in 2012. Previous winners have included Bruce Gilden, Simon Norfolk, Jeff Mermelstein, Paolo Pellegrin, Jacob Aue Sobol, Ambroise Tézenas, Klavdij Sluban and Davide Monteleone.

The competition requires the submission of a substantial, completed and unpublished photographic book project. The winning project is then published in book form simultaneously by five European publishers — and thus in five languages. For several past winners the Award book has been their first publication and has proved to be of significant benefit in the development of their careers. Additionally, in recent years the winning photographer has had their work exhibited during the following Rencontres d’Arles.

The other shortlisted photographers for the 2012 Award were:

• Luca Desienna – My dearest Javanese concubine
• Zoltán Jókay – Mrs Raab wants to go home
• Fernando Moleres – Behind Bars. Juveniles in Sierra Leone Prisons”
• Kosuke Okahara – Ibasyo
• Guillaume Simoneau – Love And War
• Kurt Tong – The Queen, the Chairman and I

Over the last five years Alessandro Imbriaco has been photographing issues around the housing problems in Rome. This led him to explore the peripheral and hidden spaces of the city.

“The Garden” is one of those places. It is a small swamp under a flyover on the ring road circling the eastern outskirts of Rome – a failed nature reserve that ended up protecting other living creatures: Angela, a six-year-old child, was born here and grew up here with her parents Piero, from Sicily, and Luba, from Russia.

Alessandro Imbriaco was born in Salerno, Italy, in 1980. He currently lives in Rome and works on both editorial and personal photographic projects. He has already won several awards – the 2008 Canon Award for Young Photographers, World Press Photo 2010 Conteporary Issues 2nd prize stories, Premio Biennale Giovani Monza and Premio Pesaresi 2011. In 2011 he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass.

The book will be published in Autumn 2012 by the five publishers

• Actes Sud (France)
• Blume (Spain)
• Dewi Lewis Publishing (UK)
• Kehrer Verlag (Germany)
• Peliti Associati (Italy)