TIME Exclusive: Magnum Emergency Fund Announces 2014 Grantees

4 minute read

The Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund today announces, exclusively through LightBox, the winners of its 2014 grants. The fund, which began in 2009, awards annual grants to photographers from around the world to support anticipatory work that sheds light on under-reported issues and communities. The grants range from $4,000 to $7,500 for regional photographers who proposed covering stories near their homes, and $7,500 to $12,000 for photographers who proposed covering international stories.

This year’s winners are:

Qingang Chen (China) — Patients at Muli County
Kai Loffelbein (Germany)— Death Metals
Laura Morton (United States)— Wild West Tech
Zann Huizhen Huang (Singapore) — Remember Shatila
Christian Werner (Germany) — Depleted Uranium – The Silent Genocide
Alessandro Penso (Italy) — Refugees in Bulgaria
Carolyn Drake (United States) — Invisible Bus
Oscar Castillo (Venezuela) — Our War – Our Pain
Ed Ou (Canada) North
Edmund Clark (United Kingdom) — Unseen Spaces of the Global War on Terror
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These 10 grantees were selected from a field of more than 100 photographers nominated by 16 international photo editors, publishers, curators and educators. Along with funding, the winners will receive editorial guidance and research as well as distribution support to continue their work tackling issues of local, national and global concern.

The Emergency Fund, which was founded in response to the shrinking opportunities within established media for long-form, in-depth, socially conscious storytelling, is now in its fifth year of grant-making. Its mission is to enable a new generation of independent photographers to sustain themselves in the field long enough to witness and to fully document under-reported stories around the globe.

The proposals from this year’s grantees — a third of whom are regional photographers — cover a wide geographical range and focus on notably diverse subject matter. The projects the fund will support this year include Christian Werner’s documentation of the effects of depleted uranium; Carolyn Drake’s partnership with a radio producer Ashley Cleek to explore America’s racial divide through stories along an Alabama bus route; Oscar Castillo’s intimate look at the culture of violence in Caracas, Venezuela; and Qingang Chen’s work on the challenges of health care in the Muli Tibetan Autonomous County in the Liangshan prefecture of Sichuan province, China.

Philip Gourevitch, who has served on the Magnum Foundation’s independent Editorial Committee since the first Emergency Fund grants were made in 2010, says, “What all of this year’s wonderfully diverse grantees have in common is an essential gift for deep photographic story-telling. Frame for frame, their pictures open up whole worlds, but it is the cumulative effect of their work on the projects they are immersed in that commands our attention and informs us as the best narrative reportage must. You might think it would go without saying — but it doesn’t — that what sets these photographers apart is that they understand their task with images as Joseph Conrad described his with the written word: ‘before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything.’”

The Foundation not only funds photographers’ work, but offers other forms of support, as well. For young photographers who haven’t yet worked extensively with editors, this extends to teaching them to make their work more effective by providing an understanding of narrative structure and how to contextualize their stories with text and other points of view.

In the end, the Emergency Fund intends that the work it supports is disseminated and seen — both within and, as importantly, outside of the photographic community.

In addition to funding the work of established photojournalists, the Magnum Emergency Fund awards scholarships to emerging photographers from nonwestern countries; grantees attend a 5-week summer program at NYU’s Tisch to receive training documenting human-rights issues.

The 2014 Human Rights Fellows are:

Mohammed Elshamy (Cairo, Egypt) — Egypt’s Times of Turbulence And Blood
Abbas Hajimohammadisaniabadi (Tehran, Iran) — Fragile Minds: Inside an Iranian Mental Hospital
Yuyang Liu (Shanghai, China) — Auspicious Things
Pedro Silveira (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) — Efemérides da Gênese
Loubna Mrie (Syria) — The Merge of Civil and Military Life in Urban Syria
Sumeja Tulić (Bosnia) — Prison Monitoring: Zenica Prison

Phil Bicker is a senior photo editor at TIME.


A gang member controls the alley where they sell drugs and posses with a revolver that is classic for this gang due to the years that have been in their hands. Between 50 and 100 murders take place in Caracas everyweek for a population of some 5 millions people.
Oscar B. Castillo, Our War – Our PainMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeOscar B. Castillo
Rescue crews carry a survivor through the rubble of collapsed buildings, two days after the May 12 earthquake that devastated parts of central China. Officials said that 80 per cent of the old part of the city was destroyed.
Qinggang Chen, Patients at Muli County Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeQinggang Chen
Refugees in Bulgaria
Allesandro Penso, Refugees in BulgariaMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeAllesandro Penso
Remember Shatila
Zann Huizhen Huang, Remember ShatilaMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeZann Huizhen Huang
CW_DU-50.jpg
Christian Werner, Depleted Uranium – The Silent GenocideMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeChristian Werner—laif
Home
Edmund Clark, Unseen Spaces of the Global War on TerrorMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeEdmund Clark
Documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom leans in to greet Denise Hale while attending Getty Oil heir Gordon Getty’s 80th birthday party with her husband California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom (right) and interior designer Ken Fulk (left). The Getty’s threw the lavish party at their home and invited an estimated 600 guests to the festivities. From the series The Social Stage, 2013CREDIT: Laura Morton
Laura Morton, Wild West Tech Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeLaura Morton
ARVIAT, CANADA - NOVEMBER 4  Inuit elders Mark and Angie Eetak cut off the fat from the pelt of a polar bear, which was shot days earlier, in Arviat, Canada on Nov. 4, 2013. A single polar bear pelt can sell for over ten thousand dollars – economic salvation for many impoverished Inuit families. Listing the polar bear as a threatened species, the United States and many environmental groups have pushed for a global ban on the commercial trade of their fur, meat, and body parts. The Canadian government opposes this, on behalf of the Inuit. The current debate highlights the clash between traditional hunting practices and modern conservation science.  (Ed Ou/Reportage by Getty Images)
Ed Ou, NorthMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeEd Ou—Reportage by Getty Images
E-waste in India
Kai Loeffelbein, Death Metals Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeKai Loeffelbein—laif
The Cherokee Bend 50 enters Mountain Brook, the municipality where  the women on the bus work as maids and cooks.
Carolyn Drake, Invisible BusMagnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardeeCarolyn Drake
Many patients in the hospital spend hours motionless.
Abbas Hajimohammadi Saniabadi, Fragile Minds: Inside an Iranian Mental HospitalHuman Rights FellowAbbas Hajimohammadi Saniabadi
Ephemerides of the genesis
Pedro Silveira, Efemérides da Gênese Human Rights FellowPedro Silveira
A Free Syrian Army fighter looks through a hole in a wall in Aleppo's Saif al-Dawla district
Loubna Mrie, The Merge of Civil and Military Life in Urban SyriaHuman Rights FellowLoubna Mrie
Dec. 27, 2013. Egyptian pro-democracy protestors and police clash during a demonstration against Muslim Brotherhood's 'terrorist label' in the Alf Maskan district of Cairo, Egypt.
Mohammed Elshamy, Egypt's Times of Turbulence And Blood Human Rights FellowMohammed Elshamy
Older inmates spending time outdoors in front of their cells. Zenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Sumeja Tulic, Prison Monitoring: Zenica Prison Human Rights FellowSumeja Tulic
ZIYANG, CHINA - January 2013. Someone is cleaning the painting with the ex-president of and a charity businessman.
Yuyang Liu, Auspicious Things Human Rights FellowYuyang Liu

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