Creative Finalist

The Palm, On Piru is a photographic series exploring the spiritual connections and collective identities of rappers from South Los Angeles with Pirus/Bloods gang affiliations. The work focuses on the people and places central to the origins of West Coast hip-hop's G-funk music genre, and California's parallel gang culture, examining the interplay of their environment, community and artistic expression. The series was shot on colour infrared film, with its distinctive red and pink tones creating links between the environment and the artists, members, and families that form the Red side of the cultural divide, and the backbone of West Coast Hip Hop.

Ben Brooks is a South London-based photographer whose character-driven work explores the people and culture shaping the contemporary rap music scenes of the UK and USA. He has been awarded in the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize (2023) and the BJP Portrait of Britain (2020, 2021).