Grant for a new humanitarian perspective

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE ITS CREATION IN 1979, ACTION AGAINST HUNGER IS OFFERING A GRANT FOR A NEW HUMANITARIAN PERSPECTIVE.

 

Its objective is to launch a reflection on the future of humanitarian imagery, with its actors, in order to think together about its future evolution. We wish, by this means, the creation of a new look. A look that would go beyond the usual reproductions, that would be fairer, more balanced, more ethical and that would allow a more balanced exchange with the people represented.

This scholarship is intended to be a place for the exploration of new narrative and iconographic processes. We invite those who would like to propose their project to free themselves from the assimilated conventions, to be creative and daring in order to feed a collective reflection around the development of the multimedia language in the humanitarian field.

In addition to promoting the work of photographers, videographers and content creators, this grant aims to increase the visibility of the people we support, as well as the situations they live in, wherever Action Against Hunger intervenes.

Following this call for applications, a pre-selection will be made by Action Against Hunger.

The pre-selected projects will then be submitted to an international, multidisciplinary and joint jury, which will choose the winner. The winner will receive a grant of €10,000 to carry out his or her project, which will be exhibited from October 2024. He/she will also receive mentoring from the President of the jury of the grant, documentary photographer and artist Cristina de Middel.

 

For more information: boursemultimedia@actioncontrelafaim.org

 

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. THE RESULTS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY.

 

 

the jury

 

Cristina de Middel

President of the Jury and President of Magnum Photos

© Maria Pia Bernardoni

 

For Cristina de Middel, visual arts, whether photography, drawings, paintings, or other, are all languages. They are a way for her to communicate ideas and stories with people beyond the limitations of words, grammar, and syntax.

Referring to herself as a visual storyteller rather than a photographer, Cristina de Middel’s work investigates photography’s ambiguous relationship to truth. She blends documentary and conceptual photographic practices and plays with stereotypes and symbols in order to build a more layered understanding of her subjects.

She has now published more than thirteen books, including The Afronauts, Party, This is What Hatred Did, and The Perfect Man. She has exhibited extensively in major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. Her work has received numerous recognitions, including the ICP’s Infinity Award, Spain’s National Photography Award, the Prix Virginia, and finalist status for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. De Middel became a full member of Magnum Photos, as well as its president, in 2022.

 

 

Azu Nwagbogu

Founder and Director of the African Artists’ Foundation

© Damilare Adeyemi

 

Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. In his practice, the exhibition becomes an experimental site for reflection, civic engagement, ecology and repatriation – both tangible and symbolic.

Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas.

In 2021, Nwagbogu was awarded “Curator of Year 2021” by the Royal Photographic Society, UK, and also listed amongst the hundred most influential people in the art world by ArtReview.

In 2021, Nwagbogu launched the project “Dig Where You Stand (DWYS) – From Coast to Coast” which offers a new model for institutional building and engagement, with questions of decolonization, restitution and repatriation, the exhibition took place in Ibrahim’s Mahama’s culture hub SCCA in Tamale, Ghana.

Most recently in 2023, Nwagbogu was appointed “Explorer at Large” by National Geographic Society to serve as an ambassador for the Organization and receive support to continue his storytelling work across Africa and globally, a title bestowed on a select few global change makers. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large.

 

 

 

Runa Khan

Founder of Friendship

© Friendship

 

 

 

Claudi Carreras Guillén

Independent curator, editor, and cultural manager

© Juan Brenner

 

Claudi Carreras is a photography researcher, graduated and doctoral candidate in Arts from the University of Barcelona. He has curated numerous solo and collective exhibitions which have been showed around more than 50 countries in 4 continents. Among them: Laberinto de Miradas, Resiliencia, E.CO, Cuba Mía, Transnacionales, Cotidiano Latino/US, Fotonovela, Arquivo Ex Machina and Ciudades Visibles, Africamericanos…

He directed the first meeting of Latin American Photographic Collectives in Sao Paulo, and the E·CO (Encounter of Photo Collectives), from The Ministry of Culture of Spain, which was an exhibit project that led to the first Encounter of Photo Collectives in Europe and Latin America which traveled across the continents and continued in Brazil. He was also a jury for the World Press Photo, POY Latam, National Price of Photograhy in Spain, and several biennials and contests.

He is a founding partner of the publishing house Madalena in Brazil, which has published over 20 titles so far and he has been involved as an editor in several of these. He collaborates as well with international publishing houses such as RM or Gustavo Gili, where he has engaged in various projects.

He is currently curator and editor of the National Geograhic Society’s Inside The Curve project about Pandemic, advisor for the National Geographic Storytellers Collective and director of the VIST platform, for the production, exhibition and distribution of contemporary visual narratives in different formats and director of the Africamericanos and Drugs, Politics and Violence project.

 

 

 

Rachel Alessandri

Deputy Regional Director of Operation for Asia for Action Against Hunger France

© Rachel Alessandri

 

Since December 2020, Rachel is Deputy Regional Director of Operation for Asia (ACF France). She started her humanitarian career with 9 years involvement with Médecins Sans Frontières in different roles (Country Director, Emergency coordinator, Fieldco, HR and finance coordinator) in several countries such as Cameroon, Niger, Myanmar, South Sudan or Haiti. Willing to engage in more longer term programming, she has joined Medecins du Monde in Burkina Faso for 2 years before joining ACF in Ivory Coast for 3 years as Country Director.  

Concerned by women and young girls specific needs, building from her experience with MSF and MDM on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Right based approches, she has been working to design and develop gender programming. 

She has also been working to develop new ways of working with partners and through community based approaches.