Magnum Foundation 2023 in Review
Clockwise from top left: Qiana Mestrich, River Claure, Yael Martínez, Gayatri Ganju, Ali Al Shehabi, Sara Younes, and Sydney Ellison. Center: Sean Sirota.
Storytellers are essential.
As human rights and press freedom are under ever-increasing attack, we remain committed to the importance of photographers who illuminate the critical issues in their own communities. We are grateful to the artists and activists who bear witness and organize in mutual support and advocacy.
In 2023, our grants and fellowships supported over 87 photographers from 31 countries whose projects challenge dominant narratives and bring forth new ways of seeing and understanding.
Below are some highlights of the breadth of activity and achievements of our creative community over the past year. We’ve been honored to provide them with the space to collaborate, experiment, and deepen the impact of their work.
We launched a new fellowship exploring creative approaches to climate narratives
Our 2023-2024 Photography Expanded Fellowship focuses on the topic of heat and climate crisis. In December, we announced the cohort of nine photographers whose projects reimagine what a critical and ecological photographic practice might look like. With projects on topics including climate-based migration, pollution-driven health disparities, and indigenous origin stories and collective memory, this international and interdisciplinary cohort is expanding the discourse around visuality, heat, and the climate crisis.
Hashem Shakeri, An Elegy for the Death of Hamun
We supported long-term projects from the Arab region
Founded in 2014 to combat stereotypical representations of the region, the Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP) has gone on to support over 85 photographers, and continues to play a critical role in fostering nuanced visual narratives across the Middle East and North Africa. The projects from the most recent cycle of the program can be viewed on the program’s Arabic-English website.
Ali Al Shehabi’s As I Lay Between Two Seas explores family, intimacy, masculinity, and vulnerability in Bahrain
Amid the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Palestinian photographers from the program are providing essential reporting in the face of immense personal danger. Meanwhile, their peers from the ADPP community across the Arab region have organized print sales and other mutual aid initiatives, and continue to amplify the perspectives and lived experiences of their Palestinian colleagues.
Palestinian children looking towards the sky at the sound of airstrikes as families seek refuge from the northern Gaza Strip in UNRWA schools. October 7, 2023. © Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times — Featured in Three Voices From Palestine Curated by Myriam Boulos on the Magnum Photos website
Over 400 Gazans have found refuge at Ramallah’s Nadi Al-Sarryieh, typically a sports club but transformed into a shelter for Gaza’s day laborers who were working inside Israel when the war began. October 10, 2023. © Maen Hammad — Featured in Three Voices From Palestine Curated by Myriam Boulos on the Magnum Photos website
Magnum Foundation has supported two ADPP alums, Rehab Eldalil and Abdo Shanan, in organizing the new aka TAWLA collective for photobook makers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, and for the production of their new zine Tarweedeh featuring work by nine ADPP photographers from/in Palestine. The zine and other aka TAWLA publications have been featured at Paris Photo, Magnum Foundation, Cairo Photo Week, and beyond. Copies of the zine will continue to be available at Magnum Foundation's events in 2024. Proceeds from the zines are distributed by aka TAWLA to Samar abu Elouf and Nidal “Sameh” Rohmi, the two Gaza-based ADPP photographers featured in the zine.
“Tarweedeh is a tool of resistance, hope, and solidarity that came to exist through our belief in the power of images and self representation to create connections.”
Now entering its tenth year, the ADPP program – a joint initiative of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Prince Claus Fund, and the Magnum Foundation – recently closed the open call for the upcoming 2024 cycle, and launched a new alumni fellowship focused on second stage project support and alumni-driven collaborations.
We centered projects that engage with archives and reframe histories
In 2023 we continued to amplify projects that reframe the past to engage with urgent questions of the present and future. As the 2022 Counter Histories fellows wrapped up their fellowship terms, we provided them with further second stage distribution support, including discretionary grants for books, zines, and other activations. Under the Counter Histories umbrella, we conducted an experimental lab on live performance and photography and showcased Counter Histories projects in exhibitions at Magnum Foundation’s New York City space, Photoville, Rencontres d’Arles, and PHOTOFAIRS New York.
Rehab Eldalil’s The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken at PHOTOFAIRS New York. Photo by Tif Ng.
2022 Counter Histories Fellow Ethel Ruth-Tawe’s Image Frequency Modulation, IFM [Radio] Installation at Library Fetish. Photo by Wami Aluko.
2022 Counter Histories Fellow Naomieh Jovin with one of her images exhibited alongside other family archive projects in Magnum Foundation’s space. Photo by Irynka Hromotska.
2022 Counter Histories Fellow Andrea Carrillo Iglesias’s performance of Safety Blue based on archive from the 1980’s that documents the working conditions of women in the maquiladoras of the US-Mexico border. Photo by Guillermo Arias.
We provided project development and connection for local artists in our NYC community
Fall 2023 Magnum Foundation Fellow Laila Annmarie Stevens installing prints for their final fellowship presentation. Photo by Fall 2023 Fellow Destiny Mata.
Zine workshop with Lower East Side and Chinatown artists in Magnum Foundation’s space. Photo by Cal Hsiao.
Our Magnum Foundation Fellowship (NYC Work-Study Fellowship) supported three early-career photographers – Johan Orellana, Laila Annmarie Stevens, and Destiny Mata – with grants and mentorship to produce in-depth photography projects that speak to social issues in NYC-based communities. As part of their fellowship, they also gained arts administration experience working in the Magnum Foundation office, where they have been integral parts of the Magnum Foundation team in 2023.
We organized a series of zine workshops with local artists, activists, youth, and elders focused on histories of the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Two Bridges neighborhoods. Nine Magnum Foundation grantees featured in New York Now: Home, the inaugural edition of the photography triennial at the Museum of the City of New York.
We supported community-based storytelling around the world
Yael Martínez, documenting communities surrounding the pre-Aztec city Teotihuacan in Mexico, for our partnership documenting endangered heritage sites with the World Monuments Fund.
We provided project-development grants and mentorship to dozens of artists at various stages of their processes. We partnered with the World Monument Fund to award twelve grants to photographers to document endangered cultural sites around the world, highlighting their significance within their own communities. For the 2023 Inge Morath Award, we recognized Shirin Abedi as the recipient and Mihaela Aroyo as the finalist. We launched two editorial partnerships on critical issues in the United States: one on health equity in collaboration with The Atlantic and The Commonwealth Fund; and another on the changing shape of labor organizing in collaboration with Mother Jones and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Stories for both partnerships will be published in 2024.
We launched several publications, including extensive research-based projects and creative experiments with the book form
Alongside Aperture we co-published the visual biography Josef Koudelka: Next, written and edited by Melissa Harris. This year also saw the release of several Magnum Foundation supported books, including Alice Proujansky’s Hard Times are Fighting Times, Chris Gregory’s El Gobierno Te Odia, Claudio Pérez’s Spoken Portrait: Certificate of Presence, and Moises Saman’s Glad Tidings of Benevolence; as well as zines by Counter Histories Fellows Alan Chin and Agata Szymanska-Medina.
In addition, Nepal Picture Library’s The Public Life of Women - A Feminist Memory Project, which was supported by our 2018 Magnum Foundation Fund grants, was recognized as Photography Catalog of the Year by the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards, where Chris Gregory’s El Gobierno Te Odia was also a finalist for First PhotoBook.
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Dr. Deborah Willis at the February launch of Laylah’s We are Present: 2020 in Portraits. Photo by Tif Ng.
Nepal Picture Library’s The Public Life of Women - A Feminist Memory Project.
Chris Gregory’s El Gobierno Te Odia.
Alice Proujansky’s Hard Times are Fighting Times
We came together in support and celebration of our community
We close out 2023 grateful to have gathered in community with our global network of artists and organizers. In our first full year back in our newly renovated space in the East Village’s Fourth Street Arts Block, we hosted 47 events with over 2,192 attendees, both in-person and online. Events included the opening of our Counter Histories exhibition, public panels and book events (all hybrid in-person and online), fellow final presentations, online community calls, grantee roundtable discussions, visits from local photography classes, a grantee book fair (stay tuned for the 2024 edition!), and more.
In addition to our 2023 Magnum Foundation NYC Work-Study Fellows Johan Orellana, Laila Annmarie Stevens, and Destiny Mata, we also welcomed interns Irynka Hromotska, Julie Francois, and Erin Zhu, and team members Elio Alexander and Evan Walsh. In the Fall, we were thrilled to welcome Warsaw-based Magnum photographer Rafal Milach to our Board.
Throughout the year, we’ve been honored to share space—both in-person and virtually—with our community of vital storytellers and leaders.
Thank you to all of our partners, supporters, friends, grantees, and fellows for keeping us engaged, informed, and connected.
Counter Histories Fellow Mackenzie Calle’s The Gay Space Agency at Photoville. Photo by Irynka Hromotska.
2021 Photography and Social Justice Fellow Johis Alarcón with mentor and Magnum Foundation Board Member Newsha Tavakolian in front of her work at the World Press Photo Awards, where five grantee projects were recognized. Photo courtesy Newsha Tavakolian.
Xyza Cruz Bacani in front of her work at the opening of MCNY’s New York Now: Home. Photo by Sarah Perlmutter.
Participants at PhotoKTM’s 2023 South Asia Incubator, a two-year fellowship program kicked off at this year’s Photo Kathmandu festival, with travel grants for the participants supported by the Magnum Foundation. Photo courtesy PhotoKTM.
Lower East Side Yearbook projection activity by Magnum Foundation Fellow Destiny Mata at our end of year community celebration. Photo by Heriberto Sanchez.
Members of the Magnum Foundation team at the opening of MCNY’s New York Now: Home. Photo courtesy of MCNY.
Filming of a faux press conference for Counter History Fellow Mackenzie Calle’s The Gay Space Agency. Photo by Sarah Perlmutter.
Arab Documentary Photography Program grantee Nidal “Sameh” Rohmi with his final project presentation. Photo by Sarah Perlmutter.
Final presentation by Sara Younes (far left) during the Arab Documentary Photography Program ninth cycle workshop. Photo by Sarah Perlmutter.
Artist Betty Yu at Photoville opening night, where we screened a short video about her Family Amnesia zine. Photo by Tif Ng.
aka TAWLA collective organized by Arab Documentary Photography Program grantees, at Polycopies book fair during Paris Photo.
Experimenting with polaroids at our Lower East Side and AAPI History Month Zine Workshop at Abrons Art Center. Photo by Cal Hsiao.
Group photo from the ninth cycle of the Arab Documentary Photography Program.
Attendees at the opening of our Counter Histories exhibition. Photo by Irynka Hromotska.
Past fellows and members of the Magnum Foundation team at Rencontres d’Arles, where three grantee projects were recognized with awards. Photo by Marilou Chabert.
Studio visit by Alan Chin (left) with Fall 2023 Magnum Foundation NYC Work-Study Fellow Destiny Mata (right). Photo by Sarah Perlmutter.
We are grateful for your partnership as we sustain a creative home for visual storytellers whose diverse voices and visions will shape our communities and world for the better
Counter Histories Fellow Mackenzie Calle’s The Gay Space Agency confronts the American space program’s historical exclusion of openly queer astronauts and reimagines a history of the space program that celebrates queerness and highlights LGBTQIA+ role models.