Announcing the 2024-25 Heat Fellows
Luis Antonio Rojas
Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce the participants in our 2024-25 Heat Fellowship supporting photography that expands discourse about heat and climate crisis. As increasingly urgent climate crises demand new paradigms for making and sharing images, this cohort features nine photographers whose projects reimagine what a critical and ecological photographic practice might look like. The selected participants will each receive a $10,000 grant, take part in two in-person workshops, and connect with collaborative partners and networks. They are:
Andrea Hernández Briceño | Venezuela
Fatma Fahmy | Egypt
Florence Goupil | Peru
Giya Makondo-Wills | United Kingdom / South Africa
Kunga Tashi Lepcha | India
Luis Antonio Rojas | Mexico
Ofoe Amegavie | Ghana
seth cardinal dodginghorse | Tsuut’ina Nation
Zumrad Mirzalieva | Uzbekistan
With projects on topics including climate-based migration, pollution-driven health disparities, and indigenous origin stories and collective memory, this international and interdisciplinary cohort not only offers intimate windows into the deep and wide-ranging impacts of the climate crisis, but also inspires pathways towards recovery and repair. Over the course of the initiative, the fellows will develop and deepen their projects while coming together as a creative community in exploration and collaboration under the guidance of mentors Eric Gottesman, Nandita Raman, and Newsha Tavakolian.
The 2024-25 Heat Fellowship is part of our Photography Expanded program which focuses on expanding the parameters of documentary photography and exploring creative models for narrative change. It is the second of two fellowship cycles on the topic of heat; projects from the first cycle can be seen here.
Like so many urgent global crises, climate change is a topic that is simultaneously widely covered yet persistently tuned out. With programs like this one, Magnum Foundation makes space for photographers shedding light on the profound impacts of these issues in their home communities to come together, experiment with new approaches, and deepen the impact of their work.
For this program, we partner with alumni from past Magnum Foundation programs to locally produce workshops in rotating locations that are relevant to that cycle’s theme. The 2024-25 cycle’s workshops will take place in Oaxaca, Mexico, and are produced in partnership with Centro de las Artes de San Agustín (CaSa) and Magnum Foundation alums Citlali Fabián and Yael Martínez. The 2023-24 cycle’s workshops took place in Amman, Jordan.
On participating in the initiative, selected fellow Kunga Tashi Lepcha shared: “I feel elated and grateful to have been selected for this grant. It comes as a validation of my efforts and work thus far. I am currently challenging myself to shift from documentary photography, and as such, in this project, I am focusing on changing my visual language and work more conceptually, navigating between fiction and documentary visual narrative. I am positive that this program will further hone my skills as a visual artist, and help me gain new perspectives and direction to deliver this project in an impactful way. I look forward to learning from the mentors, experts and other artists who will be part of this cycle of the fellowship.”
The selected fellows were chosen from the application pool from the previous 2023-24 Fellowship cycle’s open call, which garnered over 620 applications from 70 countries. The shortlisted applications were then supplemented by a nomination process that invited applications from a select number of additional photographers from underrepresented geographic regions. Following a multi-round review process that included alumni of our past programs, artists and researchers engaged with climate narratives, and photographers with particular geographic or community knowledge, the final cohort was chosen by a selection committee that included jury members Makeda Best, Yael Martínez, and Tanvi Mishra as well as members of the Magnum Foundation team.
This initiative is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Rosenthal Family Foundation, the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, and the Geneviève McMillan-Reba Stewart Foundation.
Magnum Foundation is grateful to our advisory committee, whose diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives have been invaluable in shaping the framework of this initiative: Raquel De Anda, Makeda Best, Heather Davis, Judith Helfand, Eugenia Kisin, Chelsea Michael Frazier, Emily Scott, Gregory Sholette, Nicole Starosielsk, and Maria Thereza Alves.
Please join us in congratulating the 2024-25 Heat Fellows, and read more about this outstanding group of photographers and artists below!
Andrea Hernández Briceño | Venezuela
Fire Becomes Spirit
Documenting how the indigenous Hüottöja community of Venezuela fights the advances of the mining industry through ancestral medicine practices.
Fatma Fahmy | Egypt
The Lost Lake
Exploring the ways climate change has transformed Lake Qarun, Egypt's third-largest natural lake and one of the oldest natural lakes in the world. In the face of environmental decay and rising temperatures, this once-thriving ecosystem has shifted from a freshwater to saline lake, causing overwhelming challenges for the fishing community who call it home—and find their heritage disappearing with these waters.
Florence Goupil | Peru
The Rain Callers
Documenting the practices of Jarawi singers, indigenous women in Peru who utilize polyphonic techniques to harmonize the agricultural cycle and heal the land from its drought.
Giya Makondo-Wills | United Kingdom / South Africa
New Scramble
Led by the fourth industrial revolution, South Africa is a new frontier where tech companies from Europe, North America, China and Japan jostle to dominate in the current tech boom by harvesting personal data, occupying indigenous lands, and exploiting labor and raw materials. This work asks, when we no longer control how we communicate, what are the stories of data saying?
Kunga Tashi Lepcha | India
Children of the Snowy Peaks
A visual exploration of Dzongu in Sikkim, India, through its mythical landscapes and contemporary ecology. This project explores the folk stories and spiritual beliefs of the Lepcha community and their relationship to the natural world, juxtaposing it with the present-day ecological crises along the Teesta River, brought about by hydel projects and climate change; and the “Save Teesta” movement which has been active for almost two decades.
Luis Antonio Rojas | Mexico
...here, there was a lake
Xochimilco is one of the last traces of the native communities and drying wetlands that once harmoniously co-inhabited in a balanced ecosystem over which Mexico City was built. The project reflects upon this living remnant resisting the constant menace of urbanization in the periphery of a neocolonized megalopolis, creating space to imagine Xochimilco’s past, present, and future.
Ofoe Amegavie | Ghana
Between Sand And Water
Exploring the resilience of the communities along the Ghana’s Volta river delta amid rising sea levels.
seth cardinal dodginghorse | Tsuut’ina Nation
our belly button
In 2014, seth’s family was forcibly removed from their homes and land for the construction of the Southwest Calgary Ring Road. Through portraits of themself and their family that will be placed on billboards along the Ring Road, this project visualizes a future in which this stolen land is returned to the Tsuut’ina Nation.
Zumrad Mirzalieva | Uzbekistan
Stolen Sea
Stolen Sea captures the social and economic aspirations of Karakalpak communities, which, despite being devastated by socialist economic policies, continue to rely on and form their identity around the Aral Sea even in its disappearance. Focusing on the ruins of the vanished sea and its continued symbolic presence in mundane life, the project delves into the profound impact of it on the community's imagination and sense of self and their land.
The Heat Fellowship is an initiative developed by the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit organization that expands creativity and diversity in visual storytelling.
Press Contact: Sarah Perlmutter, Manager of Communications and Development: sarah@magnumfoundation.org