Welcome Fall New York City Fellows Mika Simoncelli and Walaa Yassien
Group of men from Al zaghawa tribe on Sanousi wedding at Waddy Hall. Brooklyn, New York. 2024. Photo by Walaa Yassien.
Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce Mika Simoncelli and Walaa Yassien as our newest New York City Fellows. Recognizing the challenges of making a living as a working photographer, this fellowship continues to serve a unique dual purpose: supporting the development of the fellows’ photographic projects, while also providing them with paid work experience in Magnum Foundation’s office.
Throughout the fall of 2025, Mika and Walaa will split their time between supporting Magnum Foundation’s programming and pursuing their NYC-based photographic projects.
Mika’s project is a personal and poetic exploration of queer and trans embodiment, building on images made in New York city over the last two years. On receiving the fellowship, Mika shared: “I'm looking forward to support and community from the Magnum Foundation staff and its incredible network of artists, and especially looking forward to sharing this experience with Walaa! While learning from other artists, the fellowship will allow me to prioritize my visual practice and dig deeper into my own work.”
Walaa’s project follows a Sudanese soccer team in New York and explores how rituals, gestures, and victories become ways of performing heritage and asserting community. “I’m looking forward to meeting new people, learning from their perspectives, and developing Among the Grass in a deeper way,” said Walaa. “This fellowship gives me the chance to bring visibility to the Sudanese-American team I’m documenting, and I hope to shape the project into something that can reach a wider audience.”
A warm welcome to both!
Miles, Prospect Park, 2023. Photo by Mika Simoncelli.
About Mika Simoncelli:
Mika Simoncelli is a photographer from New York. They are a graduate of the International Center of Photography's Teen Academy, and have a BA from Harvard University with a concentration in Art, Film and Visual Studies. Mika's work has been exhibited at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin (New York, NY) and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge, MA), and virtually with Arcanite Pictures and Pearl Press. Alongside their fellowship at Magnum Foundation, Mika is teaching two photography classes for middle schoolers this fall.
“I began photographing with a 35mm film camera when I was in middle school, at the same time as I was going through puberty. As my own body changed rapidly, I became interested in pictures of things that looked like bodies and bodies that looked like things. In my photographs, I continue to negotiate my feelings of distance and closeness to my body, which are shaped by experiences of gender dysphoria and euphoria. For the Magnum Foundation fellowship, I will continue to use this language to tell queer and trans stories, taking a personal and poetic approach to representation.”
19 year-old Abdulrahman Mussa, a Sudanese player from Seattle, Washington, with the Sudanese American Soccer Federation youth team at the SASF tournament in Ocean City, 2025. Photo by Walaa Yassien.
About Walaa Yassien:
Walaa is a Sudanese self-taught photographer who later studied Photojournalism in Denmark and New York. Her practice explores space, time, and memory, focusing on how individuals navigate their existence and the emotional landscapes that shape them. Through long-term projects and series, she uses photography as a way to reflect on identity, belonging, and heritage, often weaving dynamic movement into her work to capture both the stillness and flux of lived experience.
Walaa’s project Among the Grass follows a group of young men, born and raised in the United States but of Sudanese origin, who gather every Saturday at Caton park in Brooklyn to play football. While most have never been to Sudan, they carry its identity through their team while consistently winning the local league. The team, the victories, and the rituals create a space where identity and connection are actively practiced. The project explores a group of youth’s connection to heritage, their journey of finding a sense of belonging, building community, and asserting their presence in New York City.
The New York City Fellowship is a program offering a project production grant, mentorship, and arts administration experience to NYC-based early-career photographers and photojournalists. This fellowship is designed for early-career photographers looking for an opportunity to deepen, expand, and complete a New York City based project that speaks to social issues in NYC communities. In addition to producing a project, fellows gain arts administration by spending two days a week working in the Magnum Foundation office. Learn more here.
The New York City Fellowship is made possible with the support of the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation and the Select Equity Group Foundation.