The final participants selected for ‘Beyond The Silence‘ collaborative project organised by Magnum Photos has been announced.
With the support of the Open Society Foundations and the Ukrainian Institute, and in partnership with Odesa Photo Festival (Ukraine), Vlast (Kazakhstan), Centro de las Artes San Agustín (Mexico), Africa Artists’ Foundation (Nigeria), and the Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops (Cambodia), the project’s goal is to provoke a dialogue about important issues of our time and give a voice to local authors from different regions.
“The Beyond The Silence project is complex both in terms of its structure and the topics that photographers from different regions will work on. Every participant will be developing their own project but in a dialogue with colleagues from other countries. For me, it is important that the authors retain their own identity and, at the same time, expand each other’s optics, look at the research topic from a different perspective,” said Kateryna Radchenko, curator of the project and founder of Odesa Photo Days Festival.
During the first stage of the project, 64 authors from 5 countries took part in a one-day online workshop with Fred Ritchin, Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP). The workshop was dedicated to discussing the development of long-term projects, visual storytelling, and methods of working with complex topics.
Following the results of the second stage of the selection process, 8 photographers have been selected to work together with each other and Magnum photographers for 3 months:
- Sasha Kurmaz (Ukraine) – Daniel Orlando Lara Garcia (Mexico) – Rafal Milach (Poland, Magnum Photos)
- Ira Lupu (Ukraine) – Fawaz Oyediji (Nigeria) – Newsha Tavakolian (Iran, Magnum Photos)
- Daria Svertilova (Ukraine) – Sai (Myanmar) – Antoine d’Agata (France, Magnum Photos)
- Mykhaylo Palinchak (Ukraine) – Yadykar Ibraimov (Kazakhstan) – Thomas Dworzak (Germany, Magnum Photos)
They will each receive a grant of $3,000 to create their project on one of the topics: “Censorship/Freedom of Speech,” “Territory. Occupied/Annexed,” “Kidnapping & Abduction,” and “Fight/Adaptation.” The online collaboration aims to share experiences from different countries, advice, and support from each other, as well as an opportunity to look at the research topic from a different angle.
The joint work and the Beyond The Silence project will result in exhibitions in Ukraine, and partner countries that will take place in late 2024 and early 2025.