The Year's Most Beautiful Book 2020: Terje Abusdal and Gösta Flemming

November 4 2020

The Fritt Ord Foundation congratulates Terje Abusdal and Gösta Flemming on winning Grafill’s distinction ‘The Year’s Most Beautiful Book’.

Grafill has awarded photographer Terje Abusdal and Gösta Flemming/Journal the distinction ‘The Year’s Most Beautiful Book 2020’ for his photo book entitled Hope Blinds Reason. Fritt Ord provided NOK 20 000 in support for production of the book in 2017. The book has been published by Journal publishing house, with Gösta Flemming as editor. Abusdal has previously participated in the Fritt Ord project The Norwegian Journal of Photography.

The jury’s justification for awarding the prize begins as follows: “A project that really stands out from the crowd owing to its uncompromising quest for expressive power. Exquisitely effected as a flawless distillate of an obviously massive corpus of material. Insanely precise in every minute detail. Every theme hits you like a gut punch, striking a precise balance to avoid clichés.”

Grafill is an interest organisation for those studying or working within the field of visual communication in Norway.

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This year’s prize laureates for the Free Media Awards from the Fritt Ord Foundation and Zeit Stiftung Bucerius are:
The investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkach from Ukraine
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Is your master’s project about freedom of expression, social debate or journalism? If so, you can apply for a student grant from the Fritt Ord Foundation.

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The 2025/26 Monitor survey

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The Fritt Ord Foundation and the Institute for Social Research (ISF) invite you to the launch of a report and a subsequent discussion on Monday, 8 June 2026, from 9.00 to 11.00 am, at Fritt Ord’s premises at Uranienborgveien 2 in Oslo.

Where do people draw the line when it comes to freedom of expression, and what do they believe to be the greatest threats to an informed debate at a time characterised by unrest, crises and international conflicts? Do they feel there is sufficient diversity of opinion and enough room for divergent viewpoints? And how do people assess access to truthful and relevant information in a media landscape featuring new formats, new voices and artificial intelligence?