SUPPORTING NEW PRODUCTION
“I’m super grateful to Magnum Foundation for helping me kickstart a project like this, which I only had as files stashed under my pillows! And for helping me to start important conversations like this that need to be had. My project has definitely challenged the way people perceive queer people in my country.”
Magnum Foundation is a nonprofit organization that expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grant making and mentorship, Magnum Foundation supports a global network of social justice and human rights-focused photographers and experiments with new models for storytelling.
Founded in 2007 by members of the Magnum Photos cooperative, Magnum Foundation was created to sustain independent visual storytelling on social issues. Since then, Magnum Foundation has made more than 250 direct grants to visual storytellers. Through production funds and project development assistance, we support both emerging and recognized artists at various stages of their processes.
Selected projects engage with a range of styles, from classic reportage to more conceptual frameworks, and explore new visual approaches, such as collaborating with other disciplines or experimenting with emerging technologies.
We work with an international committee of nominators to ensure we are inviting proposals from people whose authorship is underrepresented within the field of documentary photography.
Over 60% of grantees are from outside the US and Western Europe, with emphasis on photographers working within their own communities.
The Feminist Memory Project by the Nepal Picture Library seeks to create a visual archive of women’s movements in Nepal. Through gathered archival photographs, other ephemera, and oral histories from around Nepal that capture women in pivotal moments of Nepali history, it consolidates contributions made by pioneering figures who remain marginalized in our male dominated historiographies.
Eric Gyamfi’s Just Like Us documents the everyday life of Ghana’s LGBTQ community, of which he is a part. His quiet and tender approach challenges stigma and discrimination by portraying commonalities between neighbors. Eric uses his photographs for facilitating dialogue and community conversations in local galleries, universities, and spaces of gathering.
Endia Beal’s Am I What You’re Looking For? focuses on young women of color who are transitioning from the academic world to corporate settings, capturing their struggles, uncertainties, and experiences.
Mentoring the next generation
“Being one of Magnum Foundation’s inaugural fellows in 2010, and the foundation’s continued support over the years has been crucial in my transition from writing journalist to visual storyteller. It does such important work being the wind beneath the wings of photographers out there trying to tell stories of our complex and noisy world.”
Magnum Foundation’s fellowship programs train emerging photographers, artists, and activists from around the world who are passionate about challenging injustice, pursuing social equality, and advancing human rights through photography.
Intensive group workshops and long-term individual mentorship support fellows in using their creative skills to inspire movements, to witness, to resist oppression, to pose the difficult questions, and to stimulate debate and awareness about critical social issues.
Since 2010, we have trained 67 young image-makers from 42 countries to be effective storytellers, creative leaders, and change makers. Our fellows have become models and resources for other early-career practitioners, cultivating an international network of peer support.
Fellows edit and sequence each others work.
Fellows at the National Geographic Summit
Soumya Sankar Bose | India. My friends’ stories inspired me to work on narratives about their experiences being LGBTQ in India, and about their rights, dreams, and desires. In a society that prevents them from living a “normal” life, this work imagines a world in which freedom to live according to one’s own desires exists for all.
Experimentation and New Ideas
“We’re moving in a direction where we’re really thinking about what it means to tell a multi-layered and textured story and I’m really excited that Magnum Foundation is funding work like this that allows people to think about the boundaries of genres and the ways that pushing against those boundaries can allow us to tell better stories.”
Through project development labs, hands-on workshops, and an annual full-day symposium for over 300 attendees, Magnum Foundation is creating opportunities for image-makers to learn from one another across disciplines and explore new digital storytelling tools for increasing the impact of their work. Fostering experimentation and innovation in visual storytelling is critical for expanding the potential of photography to challenge the traditional perception of what documentary photography is and what it can achieve.
On such themes as data security, digital interventions, and augmented reality, participating photographers are able to work closely with coders, designers, and engagement strategists to most creatively and effectively push their projects beyond the still image. Oftentimes, these events are a catalyst for new projects and partnerships.
Immersive Storytelling Lab with the Brown Institute for Media Innovation
Yael Martínez and Orlando Velazquez | Mexico. The Blood and the Rain merges photographs and traditional engravings to explore indigenous spiritual practices in the artists’ home state of Guerrero, Mexico. Because the rituals themselves are not allowed to be photographed, Yael and Orlando sought a way to document and honor the community’s cultural expressions without exposing or violating them.
Billy H.C. Kwok | Hong Kong. During the White Terror––a 38-year period of political suppression in Taiwan beginning in 1949––150,000 civilians were arrested and more than 20,000 were executed. Through his research, Billy discovered that executed civilians were allowed to write goodbye letters to their families, which were concealed by the government and never sent. He is integrating the letters, and responses from family members that he’s been able to track down, in hopes that the current government will release all of the original documents and letters to the public
Our team
Kristen Lubben
Executive Director
klubben@magnumfoundation.org
Elio Alexander
Development Associate
elio@magnumfoundation.org
Ryan Buckley
Archive Manager
ryan@magnumfoundation.org
Jasmin Chang
Space Manager
jasmin@magnumfoundation.org
Africia Heiderhoff
Manager of Operations and Finance
africia@magnumfoundation.org
Sana Manzoor
Inge Morath Award, Grant Manager
sana@magnumfoundation.org
Tif Ng
Programs Assistant
tif@magnumfoundation.org
Sarah Perlmutter
Communications and Development Manager
sarah@magnumfoundation.org
Emma Raynes
Director of Programs
eraynes@magnumfoundation.org
Our BOARD
Susan Meiselas, President
Peter van Agtmael
Pamela Chen
Diana Cohn
Claire Davis
Sohrab Hura
Lisa Garrison
Mark Jackson
Jonathan Kartt
Rafal Milach
Eli Reed
Orville Schell
Newsha Tavakolian
Cynthia Young
Alice Sachs Zimet
Our Supporters
The work of Magnum Foundation is made possible through the generosity of the Foundation for a Just Society, Henry Luce Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, Acton Family Giving, Rosenthal Family Foundation, Fledgling Fund, Select Equity Group Foundation, Genevieve McMillan-Reba Stewart Foundation, Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Henry Nias Foundation, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, and Cowles Charitable Trust.
Support is also provided by Magnum Foundation's Board, our Circle of Friends, and the generosity of individual donors.
Our PARTNERS
Our programs and projects are produced in collaboration with partners including Magnum Photos, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Aperture Foundation, FABnyc, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, The Nation, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, the Prince Claus Fund, and the Bronx Documentary Center.