The Jury 2026

Gu Zheng

Professor at the Fudan University School of Journalism, Shanghai (China)

Gu Zheng is a Professor at the School of Journalism at Fudan University. He received his doctorate degree from Osaka Prefecture University (now Osaka Metropolitan University) in 1998. In 2013, he was a jury member for the 56th World Press Photo competition. From 2017 to 2018, he was a Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholar, and in 2019 he held the position of 9th Heinz Götze Distinguished Visiting Professor of Chinese Art History at Heidelberg University in Germany. He acted also as Art Director for the Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival from 2020 to 2022. Gu has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary photography and art in China and abroad, and has published several books on the history of photography and modern art.

Portrait: © Sun Ruixiang

Jane’a Johnson

Scholar and Curator; Curatorial Assistant, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (USA)

Jane’a Johnson is a Curatorial Assistant at MoMA in New York. Previously, she was an editor at the Aperture Foundation in New York, and Artistic Director of Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. She is a former Assistant Professor of Art and Design Theory, History, Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design. Johnson received her PhD in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University, Rhode Island, where she directed the Photographic Archives Research Group. Her research focuses on archives and the art, design and visual culture of the African diaspora. Johnson is the author of Past Made Present: Dutch Shadows in the Black Atlantic.

Portrait: © Lindsay Calmettes and Mandy Draper

Celina Lunsford

Artistic Director and Curator of the FFF, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Germany)

Celina Lunsford is responsible for the exhibitions program and the FFF Academy, and is a Co-founder and Curator for the RAY Triennial of Photography in Frankfurt a.M. She has curated for organizations such as the Fundación Mapfre, Fundación Telefónica, the Photography Festival Łódź and the Lianzhou International Photography Festival, and has mentored for the Joop Swart Masterclass, ASEF (Asia-Europe Foundation) Forum for Young Photographers and Olympus Recommended Award. Recent projects and publications include, New Beginnings: Philippine Photographic Art (2025), Celebration Imagination, 40 Years FFF (2024); Aïda Muluneh, On the Edge of Past Future, (2024); Ideologies: RAY 2021 (2021). In 2022, the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt named her Honorary Professor.

Portrait: © Vitus Saloshanka

Paolo Pellegrin

Photographer (Italy)

Paolo Pellegrin was born in Rome, where he initially studied Architecture at the Università La Sapienza before taking up Photography at the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia. Between 1991 and 2001, the photographer was represented by Agence VU in Paris. In 2001, he became a Magnum Photos nominee and has been a full member since 2005. He worked as a contract photographer for Newsweek for ten years. Pellegrin has won numerous awards, including eleven World Press Photo Awards, a Hasselblad Foundation Grant for Photography, a Leica Medal of Excellence, an Olivier Rebbot Award, the Hansel-Mieth-Prize, the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award and the Leica European Publishers Award. In 2006, he was assigned the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography. His photographs, taken over most of the world, have been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries and published in many books. In his more than thirty years of work, he has been focused on issues connected to the human condition – from wars to the effects of global climate change –, and, as a human being and photographer, continues to strive to be a witness of our times. Pellegrin currently lives in Geneva.

Portrait: © Paolo Pellegrin

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann

Art Director and General Representative Leica Galleries International (Austria) 

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann studied German and Philosophy at the University of Freiburg. She also obtained her diploma at the Eurythmischen Hochschule in Stuttgart, where she subsequently worked as a Lecturer from 1982 to 1986. After the Salzburg-based, Austrian Capital Management Project Development GmbH joined Leica Camera AG in 2005, her long-standing passion for photography manifested itself in 2008 with the opening of the Leica Gallery Salzburg. Today, Karin Rehn-Kaufmann acts as Art Director and General Representative of Leica Galleries International and manages the 28 Leica Galleries worldwide. She has successfully curated numerous important photo exhibitions, such as the China Flight project with spectacular aerial photographs from the 1930s, exhibition concepts for the Leica Gallery as part of Photokina 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the exhibition 10×10 on the occasion of the 100 year anniversary of Leica Photography. She is responsible for the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar and has curated the exhibitions of photographers such as Bryan Adams, Werner Bischof, Joseph Koudelka, Thomas Hoepker, Steve McCurry, Rankin and Andy Summers.

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann has been a Leica Oskar Barnack Award jury member since 2008 and has played a key role in shaping and developing the prestigious photography prize. She is the publisher of the 40 Years of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award catalogue, as well as curator of the exhibition of the same name and the annual LOBA presentations at the Ernst Leitz Museum.