Announcing our 2019 Grantees
Rahima Gambo
Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce ten new grants to photographers. Each of these projects represents innovative, socially engaged, and independent storytelling by diverse makers. Congratulations to the 2019 Magnum Foundation grantees!
Laia Abril
Stephen Ferry
Rahima Gambo
Brendan Hoffman
Heba Khalifa
Billy H.C. Kwok
Esther Mbabazi
Nadege Mazars
Robert Pluma
Pedro Silveira
Since 2007, Magnum Foundation has supported more than 250 photographers in over 100 countries. Nominated by our extensive international network of partners, our community of imagemakers reflects a vibrant range of voices and perspectives. This year, we extended an invitation to this community of past grantees to apply for support for new and ongoing projects. This year’s grants represent more than $130,000 of direct funding to photographers, and were made possible through collaborations with allied partners who share our commitment to expanding the visual vocabulary with which we describe and experience the world.
With the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, we are pleased to enable three projects that present new narratives about the complex nexus of religion and migration by Nadege Mazars, Robert Pluma, and Pedro Silvera.
We are launching a new partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP) to support visual storytelling about labor, poverty, economic insecurity, and regional issues in the US, and Brendan Hoffman is the first photographer supported through this collaboration.
Magnum Foundation president and renowned photographer Susan Meiselas is supporting a new grantmaking initiative, Counter-Histories, to foster experimental approaches to archival and historical research, with funds derived from recent awards for her own work. Long-term projects by Laia Abril, Stephen Ferry, and Billy H.C. Kwok are supported through this fund, and demonstrate photography’s ability to offer alternative accounts to both official and hidden narratives.
Rahima Gambo, Heba Khalifa, and Esther Mbabazi are engaging communities of women and girls who have experienced gender-based persecution. Mbabazi’s project is a partnership with the Gulu Women with Disabilities Union (Uganda), supported by the American Jewish World Service.
All ten grantees are currently working on their proposed projects and will submit completed work in the Spring of 2020.
Magnum Foundation expands creativity and diversity in visual storytelling, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grantmaking, mentorship, and creative collaborations, we partner with socially engaged imagemakers exploring new models for storytelling.
Our work is made possible through the generosity of Open Society Foundations, Foundation for a Just Society, Henry Luce Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation, Acton Family Giving, Compton Foundation, Cultures of Resistance Network Foundation, and Bertha Foundation, the Magnum Foundation's Circle of Friends and the generosity of individual donors. Additional program support is provided by the Achelis and Bodman Foundation, Rosenthal Family Foundation, Fledgling Fund, Andrew and Marina Lewin Family Foundation, Genevieve McMillan-Reba Stewart Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Three Guineas Fund, and The Henry Nias Foundation.
2019 Magnum Foundation Grantees
The Visual Legacy: Photographic Support for the Colombian Truth Commission | Stephen Ferry
Supporting the work of Colombia's Truth Commission by constructing a public photographic archive of the armed conflict, civic resistance to the violence and acts of peace
Tatsuniya II | Rahima Gambo
A visual storytelling workshop to support the growth and empowerment of female students at a school in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which was targeted by Boko Haram in 2013 and subsequently closed for two years in an increasingly dangerous insurgency
On Rape | Laia Abril
An ongoing visual archive of the systemic control of women’s bodies across time and cultures to explore how concepts of myths, power, and law relate to the constructions of the notion of masculinity and sexual violence
Journalism as a Social Practice in Webster City, Iowa | Brendan Hoffman
Undertaking a residency at Iowa's Daily Freeman-Journal to work with local residents on a visual conversation about identity and representation in America’s heartland (produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project)
Last Letters | Billy H.C. Kwok
Excavating the hidden history of the White Terror, a period of authoritarian rule in Taiwan, using final letters penned by victims of the regime
Tiger Eye | Heba Khalifa
Revealing gender related persecution in Egypt through the complex and intimate dynamics and lived experience of the mother-daughter relationship
Hidden Histories | Robert Pluma
Countering colonial narratives and reclaiming the indigenous identity of what is now southern Texas through the use of augmented reality and recorded oral histories told by mission descendants (produced in collaboration with creative technologist Kei Gowda produced with support from the Henry Luce Foundation)
Collaboration with GUWODO | Esther Mbabazi
This collaborative project aims to make visible the lives of women and girls with disabilities in Northern Uganda by engaging them in the creative process about how to best tell and represent their own personal stories (produced with support from Amercian Jewish World Service)
Sacred Diaspora | Pedro Silveira
Drawing on fieldwork and archival research to explore the presence of African deities worshiped on Brazilian lands in a region called All Saints Bay (produced in collaboration with visual artist Aislane Nobre produced with support from the Henry Luce Foundation)
Wolves, Swallows, and Ewes:
A Tale About Real Lives in El Salvador | Nadege Mazars
Exploring the intersections of violence, migration, and religion through the personal trajectory of individuals in El Salvador (produced in collaboration with tattoo artist Azul Luna produced with support from the Henry Luce Foundation)