A row of simple wooden crosses draped in red clothes against a stormy sky and rainbow is featured in the photo, titled “Kamloops Residential School,” which appeared in the New York Times. It is the first winning photo in the history of the World Press Photo Contest without a single person in it. “It’s a photo that burns into your memory, a quiet moment of reckoning with the history of colonization, not just in Canada but worldwide,” said jury chairwoman Rena Effendi, explaining the choice. British Columbia’s Kamloops boarding school was part of Canada’s Residential School System, which aimed at the forced assimilation of indigenous people. Children were forcibly separated from their parents and physically abused. In May 2021, the graves of 215 children were found on the school grounds.
In terms of content, the Norwegian Jonas Bendiksen surprised with his series about the North Macedonian provincial town of Veles, which hit the headlines in 2016 as a global center for the production of fake news. Six months after publication, the photographer revealed that he only photographed empty spaces, converted them into 3D spaces and populated them with computer-generated 3D models.
Show: “World Press Photo 22”, until October 23, WestLicht Gallery, Westbahnstr. 40, 1070 Vienna Opening hours: daily 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursdays 11 a.m. to 9 p.m
Amber Bracken (Photo of the Year), “Kamloops Residential School”: The picture tells of 215 children buried on a Canadian school campus.
Konstantinos Tsakalidis, Evia Island Wildfire: Panayiota Kritsiopi screams in desperation as wildfire nears her home on the Greek island of Euboea.
Jonas Bendiksen, “The Book of Veles”: a deliberately manipulated image of fake news
louie palu, “Political Year Zero”: Activists demonstrate in Washington for vaccination against Covid-19
Lalo de Almeida, “Amazonian Dystopia”: Brazilian indigenous people before flying to Brasilia to protest against the construction of a dam and planned hydroelectric power plants in their area.
Matthew Abbott, Saving Forests with Fire: On
Aborigine lights grass to protect community from wildfires
Picture gallery: All press photos of the year
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Source: Nachrichten
