We are pleased to announce the recipient of the 2016 Inge Morath Award, Daniella Zalcman, for her project “Signs of Your Identity.” This year’s finalists are Gabriella Demczuk (US), for her proposal “Baltimore Sings the Blues” and Tamara Merino (Chile), for her proposal “Underland.”
Each year, the recipient of the Inge Morath Award is selected by the membership of Magnum Photos, Magnum Foundation, and the Inge Morath Foundation. The Award of $5,000 is given to a woman photographer under the age of 30 to support the completion of a long-term documentary project. This year, there were 114 applicants from around 30 different countries.
Kristen Lubben, Executive DIrector of the Magnum Foundation, says “Zalcman’s multiple exposure black-and-white portraits of native Canadian survivors of residential schools are layered with images that evoke the dislocation and cultural and physical violence of their shared past. We are pleased to be able to recognize Zalcman’s creative approach to addressing memory and trauma, and to support her in expanding this thoughtful and distinctive project. We join the membership of Magnum Photos and the Inge Morath Foundation in honoring Inge’s legacy through this award.”
In her successful proposal for the award, Zalcman writes that “In Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, various iterations of the Indian Residential School system were created — usually church-run boarding schools meant to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into Western culture. These students were punished for speaking their native languages or observing any indigenous traditions, routinely physically and sexually assaulted, and in some extreme instances subjected to medical experimentation and sterilization. The last residential school in Canada didn’t close until 1996. The U.S. government still operates 59 Indian Boarding Schools today. A disproportionate number of residential school survivors and their immediate family struggle with PTSD, depression, and substance abuse. I create multiple exposure portraits of former students still fighting to overcome the memories of their residential school experiences. These are the echoes of trauma that remain even as the healing process begins.”
Born in Washington, D.C., Daniella Zalcman studied architecture at Columbia University. She is the recipient of the 2016 Foto Evidence Book Award and a multiple grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, CNN, BBC, National Geographic, and Der Spiegel, among others. She is an alumna of the Eddie Adams Workshop and is a member of the Boreal Collective. Daniella is currently based out of London and New York.
Gabriella Demczuk’s “Baltimore Sings the Blues” takes a closer look at the issues and changes Baltimore’s underserved communities are facing after the national attention surrounding Freddie Gray’s death.
Chilean photographer Tamara Merino’s project “Underland” documents a town called Coober Pedy in the middle of the Australian outback. It is home to 47 different nationalities of immigrants, ex-prisoners, and veterans of World War II who have decided to escape their past lives and take refuge in this remote and unique place.
The honored proposals by Zalcman, Demczuk, and Merino, as well as projects by selected other applicants, will be presented in IM Magazine over the coming year.
For the past five years, I have photographed with unrestricted access the newsroom and printing plant of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Through a depiction of The Inquirer’s efforts to prevail despite depleted ad revenue, a steady decline in circulation, lay-offs, buy-outs, and bankruptcy, my intent is to reveal the challenges and harsh realities that face the newspaper industry today.
A close examination of the newspaper industry and in-depth story explaining the events that landed newsrooms in their current predicaments has largely gone untold. Having shed 30% of its workforce in the past decade newspapers are America’s fastest shrinking industry, yet more than half of American adults know little to nothing about the financial struggles that have eviscerated newsrooms. At a time when a third of U.S. adults get their news on Facebook, newspapers’ transition into a digital era has been mired in a dire hunt for sustainable online advertising revenue as papers nationally have lost $25 billion in advertising revenue over the past ten years and in 2012 newspapers lost $16 in print ad revenue for every $1 made in digital ad revenue.
As we find ourselves amidst a massive societal transition into an information technology economy of the future in which technological advances have eroded middle skill, middle class jobs, boosted productivity while reducing the labor force, what has been the human cost of these gains? The newspaper for centuries has served as a cornerstone of American society holding our country’s institutions, CEOs, politicians and big businesses accountable for their actions, upholding the values, laws and morals that our democracy was founded upon. When we lose reporters, editors, newsbeats and sections of papers, we lose coverage, information, and a connection to our cities and our society, and, in the end, we lose ourselves. Without the human investment to provide news content it becomes a zero sum game on the information highway to nowhere. The fibers of the paper and the clicks of the mouse are worthless unless the words they are presented on have value. The newspaper is much more than a business, it is a civic trust. - Will Steacy
Camilo José Vergara Documents Camden New Jersey’s Crumbling Economics
Camilo José Vergara’s 40-year project, “Tracking Time,” chronicles urban transformation in some of the poorest and most segregated communities in the Northeastern United States. In Camden, New Jersey, one of the poorest cities he regularly visits during his documentation, he captures what he calls “Paired Houses”: two dwellings that share a wall, one of them occupied, the other empty. Because each dwelling is part of the same building, Vergara is able to capture the stark contrast between deteriorated and maintained habitats, reflecting the declining state of Camden’s housing market. For some of the photographs, Vergara returns to a building he’s previously documented in order to chronicle the absence of formerly dilapidated buildings.
“The photographic work of Carl de Keyzer (Magnum, 1994) is a rare brand of documentation infused with a literary sensibility. The subject matter is former Soviet gulags in Siberia presently maintained as state prison camps. The names, such as Krasnoyarsk, Sosnovobosk, and Novobirusinsk, are as harsh sounding as the -50 degree reality of wintertime. De Keyzer is not clandestinely searching for 20th century atrocities hidden from the public eye. Rather, through a diplomatic demeanor and wily tenacity he manages to convince the military generals who run the various camps to allow him to photograph the daily rituals of prison life in all their melancholic absurdity. Trolley, the small but energetic publishing house based in London, needs to be commended here as well. The great majority of titles published by this young company address the trials and difficulties of the human condition, often extreme situations. They consistently marry profound content to elevated, respectful design, producing photography books that are elegant, educational, and most of all, important.”
