Announcing the 2026 Inge Morath Award
Dara Petrova
Magnum Foundation, Magnum Photos, and the Inge Morath Estate are pleased to announce Dara Petrova as the recipient of this year’s Inge Morath Award. Petrova will receive a $7,500 production grant to support the completion of her project, Circle. This year’s finalist, Alice Poyzer, will receive a $1,000 grant in support of her project Other Joys.
Born in 1997, Izmail, Ukraine, Dara Petrova is a documentary photographer. Petrova obtained a Master’s degree in Law from Odesa Law Academy in 2020, specializing in Social Security Law. She started photographing after fleeing Ukraine, and is interested in how individuals invent new forms of solidarity for themselves, exhaust themselves, fall into depression, or love one another.
Dara Petrova
Petrova’s project, Circle, captures the gaze of a local woman on everyday life in Ukraine during the war years, who, “like all the others, feels guilty for being alive, guilty for not contributing enough, guilty for not winning, guilty for being a woman and escaping conscription so easily.” Documenting Kyiv techno raves held between curfews, veteran rehabilitation, soldier tattoos, and funeral ceremonies, Circle channels the internal state of those living here. “The pain is no longer only in the physical or material damage of the war, it is in what we inflict on ourselves to show that we are still alive.”
This project was selected from a pool of over 100 applications by the members of Magnum Photos. Given each year to a woman or nonbinary photographer under the age of 30, the award honors the legacy of their colleague, Inge Morath.
Dara Petrova
Dara Petrova
On receiving the award, Petrova shared, “My initial reaction was shock, which gradually gave way to a warm sense of joy in my chest. This programme will allow me to devote myself much more calmly and freely to my photography without having to juggle it with my day job.”
This year’s finalist, Alice Poyzer, is being recognized for her long-term project Other Joys, which describes the joy behind her special interests and the difficulties she faces as an autistic woman.
Poyzer is a British photographer making post-documentary, constructed, and portrait images, working with both analogue and digital methods. Since graduating in 2025 with a Master's in Photography from the University of the West of England, Poyzer has gone on to win the British Journal of Photography's Female in Focus Award. Her images recently shown at Paris Photo under the Carte Blanche Award and WePresent's Spring Show at London's Copeland Gallery.
Alice Poyzer
Alice Poyzer
Alice Poyzer
On being named a finalist, Poyzer shared: “I am honoured to receive recognition from Magnum… The grant will make it possible to attend shoots across the UK that I previously have not been able to afford travel and access to.”
Congratulations to these two outstanding photographers. To follow more of their work, visit their websites at darapetrova.com and alicepoyzer.com.