The Aftermath Project - 2023 Conflict Photography Grant

The Aftermath Project - 2023 Conflict Photography Grant now is over!

The Aftermath Project - 2023 Conflict Photography Grant: The Aftermath Project has opened its 2023 grant cycle inviting all working conflict photographers around the world who are interested in creating work that helps illumine aftermath issues, and encourages greater public understanding and discussion of these issues.

➜ Short description

The Aftermath Project has opened its 2023 grant cycle inviting all working conflict photographers around the world to participate with their projects.

The Aftermath Project is a non-profit organization committed to telling the other half of the story of conflict — the story of what it takes for individuals to learn to live again, to rebuild destroyed lives and homes, to restore civil societies, to address the lingering wounds of war while struggling to create new avenues for peace. The Project is an outcome of photographer and writer Sara Terry’s five-year-long project, Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace, about the aftermath of the 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The 1492/1619 grant is open to wide interpretation of America’s original sins – the 1492 “discovery” of this land by Christopher Columbus and the assault on indigenous peoples and their cultures which followed; and the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved Africans and the legacy of more than two centuries of a system of slavery based on white supremacy and the treatment of Blacks as chattel.

The Aftermath Project is grounded in the understanding that unresolved conflicts – including those where actual conflict itself has stopped (ie, the Civil War) — continue to have an impact across generations. We welcome proposals that explore the contemporary aftermaths of these historical events, which continue to shape our society today. Proposals may include historical or archival elements; they may be portrait projects; they may be landscapes; they may be surveys or family histories; they may be fine art, conceptual, or documentary projects. Most proposals will focus on 1492 or 1619, but the judges will consider proposals that combine them as well. As always, the grant is open to working photographers worldwide. However, the judges will be most interested in creating opportunities for photographers from under-represented communities to tell their own stories. They will also be interested in proposals from white photographers who want to interrogate the role of white privilege in creating and sustaining these injustices; a descendant of slave owners, for example, may suggest an examination of their own family history. They will be interested in proposals from African photographers who may want to propose a project that examines the roots of the slave trade and its impact in their countries.

➜ Who may enter?

The Aftermath Project is open to photographers who are interested in creating work that helps illumine aftermath issues, and encourages greater public understanding and discussion of these issues.

➜ Prize:

The Aftermath Project will award a $25,000 grant to one photographer and announce four finalists. Four finalists will also, each be awarded with a $5,000 grant.