Announcing the 2025 Counter Histories Fellows
Vi Nguyen, Vo Van Xuan, a tour guide at the Cu Chi tunnels, Ben Duoc, Vietnam on February 2, 2017.
Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce the participants in our 2025 Counter Histories Fellowship supporting projects that creatively reframe the past to engage with urgent questions of the present and future. The ten selected fellows will each receive a $10,000 grant, take part in virtual project development workshops, and connect with collaborative partners and networks. They are:
Glorianna Ximendaz | Costa Rica
Harlan Bozeman | United States
Jorge Panchoaga | Colombia
Kateryna Radchenko | Ukraine
Lina Geoushy | Egypt and United Kingdom
Maen Hammad | Palestine and United States
Maheder Haileselassie | Ethiopia
Musuk Nolte | Peru and Mexico
Showkat Nanda | Kashmir, India
Vi Nguyen | Vietnam and United States
Since 2018, Magnum Foundation’s Counter Histories initiative has supported artists who elevate suppressed histories, reframe dominant narratives, and challenge the power structures embedded in archives. By exploring the creative possibilities offered by the gaps, absences, and silences in historical records, Counter Histories offers an expanded and collaborative approach to historical inquiry and photographic storytelling—and suggests the radical possibilities of alternative narratives.
Most recently, our 2022 Counter Histories Fellowship supported twenty fellows, whose projects and related exhibitions and public programming can be seen here. To dive further into the ideas of Counter Histories, see as well our Spring 2024 “Counter Histories” collaboration with Aperture magazine.
For this upcoming 2025 cohort, the selected fellows were chosen from over 1,140 applications from 103 countries, via a hybrid open call and nomination process that helped reach applicants who might otherwise have been outside the range of Magnum Foundation’s immediate network. Following a multi-round review process that ensured several eyes on each application, the final cohort was chosen by a selection committee that included members of the Magnum Foundation team as well as Aldeide Delgado, founder and director of Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA); Bindi Vora, Artist and Senior Curator at Autograph London; and Lucy Gallun, Curator at The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography, MoMA.
Top Row, L to R: Glorianna Ximendaz, Harlan Bozeman, Jorge Panchoaga, Kateryna Radchenko; Middle Row, L to R: Lina Geoushy, Maen Hammad, Maheder Haileselassie; Bottom Row, L to R: Musuk Nolte, Showkat Nanda, Vi Nguyen
Vora shared: “The calibre of work submitted for the Counter Histories programme, was not only exceptionally high but each proposal provided a profound reflection of our times from a global perspective. I am always drawn to the counter questions that artists ask - questions that disrupt dominant narratives to reclaim the missing chapters of history.”
Over the course of the initiative, the fellows will develop and deepen their projects while coming together as a creative community to explore questions including: What could an archive of the future look like? What creative possibilities are offered by the gaps, absences, and silences in archives and historical records? How can artists engage with histories that weren’t photographed? How can found photographs and artist-driven archives contribute to fuller understandings of the past, present, and future?
On participating in the initiative, selected fellow Glorianna Ximendaz shared: “Through this fellowship, I hope to become part of a community of practitioners that can inspire me with new ways of seeing and approaching my work. I believe that growth is always collective, and that is why spaces like this are so vital. It excites me to know that a project so personal can continue to evolve and take new forms through the path offered by Magnum Foundation. This opportunity feels like fertile ground where a project close to my heart can take root and grow.”
This initiative is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Henry Luce Foundation, whose support for both the 2022 and 2025 cycles of Counter Histories has enabled us to continue our commitment to artist-led practices that challenge, complicate, and expand how history is constructed and understood.
Please join us in congratulating the 2025 Counter Histories Fellows, and read more about this outstanding group of photographers below.
Glorianna Ximendaz | Costa Rica
Inherited Injustices
A commentary on the intertwined legacies of modern slavery, colonialism, and environmental degradation in Sixaola, Limón, Costa Rica, where the banana trade established by U.S. colonialist Minor Keith has left behind contaminated environments and social injustices that continue to plague the local community today.
Harlan Bozeman | United States
In The E
A co-curated archive that empowers the Black community in Elaine, Arkansas to contribute to a collective representation of the town’s identity. Over a hundred years after one of the deadliest racial massacres in U.S history, the project illustrates how history has shaped residents’ lived experiences.
Jorge Panchoaga | Colombia
Erythroxylum. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961
Tracing the role of media representation and government campaigns in creating the stigmatization of the coca leaf plant and its traditional uses in Colombia during the period surrounding the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961.
Kateryna Radchenko | Ukraine
Invisible Archive
Visualizing the systematic destruction of visual archives in Ukraine—a pattern of intentional erasure going back to the Soviet era that has been renewed by the Russian military since their 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
Lina Geoushy | Egypt and United Kingdom
Trailblazers: An Inquiry Into Egypt's Feminist History
Reclaiming and inscribing Egypt’s feminist history through self-portraiture and performance inspired by Egypt’s Golden Age cinema, integrated with public and collected archives.
Maen Hammad | Palestine and United States
Amira's Castle
Tracing the intersecting lives of the artist’s grandparents, Amira and Mohammad Rabah, as they navigate exile and return in Palestine.
Maheder Haileselassie | Ethiopia
Barefoot, I remember you.
Investigating the brutal occupation period of Ethiopia by the Fascist Italian army (1936–1941) through a combination of archival materials and sites of memory in both countries, prompting us not only to remember but to reflect on where we stand today.
Musuk Nolte | Peru and Mexico
The Language of the Bones
Exploring mourning and memory tied to Peru's armed conflict (1980–2000), juxtaposing archives from Peru’s Place of Memory Documentation Center with documentary photographs from restitution ceremonies and survivors' funeral rites to deepen and contextualize spaces for post-conflict discussion during a time of renewed conflict, denial, political crisis, and persecution.
Showkat Nanda | Kashmir, India
Fragments Beneath the Earth: Reclaiming Kashmir’s Erased Family Albums
Tracing memory, loss, and identity in Kashmir through family photo albums that were hidden, damaged, or displaced during the upheavals of the 1990s. What everyday stories do these images hold? And what happens to collective memory when personal histories disappear?
Vi Nguyen | Vietnam and United States
Heart Size is Normal, Lung Fields are Clear
On the 50th anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, Heart Size is Normal, Lung Fields are Clear attempts to reimagine the dominant and violent visual narrative of war, the artist’s family’s refugee experience, and the poetry of healing.
The Counter Histories Fellowship is an initiative developed by the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit organization that expands creativity and diversity in visual storytelling. It is made possible with the support of the Henry Luce Foundation.