The VII Foundation’s mission is to transform visual journalism by empowering new voices and creating stories that advocate change. In a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities, transforming visual journalism is an urgent task.
WHAT WE DO
The VII Foundation trains and equips emerging visual journalists from communities underrepresented in the media. These practitioners have a front-seat perspective on urgent challenges that concern us all. The VII Foundation teaches essential skills and strategies to ensure the truth is documented and made available to a global audience seeking to make decisions and choices based on facts, not hearsay.
Our training is tuition-free and conducted by leading professional journalists who have worked for decades on the frontlines of some of our societies’ most complex and difficult challenges. In this era of an underfunded, dying global media enterprise, our trainees help ensure the global conversation continues and is fuelled by first-person reporting vs. unsourced, uncredited rumors and factual manipulation. In addition to empowering over 1,200 new voices in journalism from more than 100 countries, we host public conversations and critical debates that ask tough questions about the context, purpose, and impact of images. We create large-scale and long-term documentary projects, exhibitions, and films that reveal complex realities; advocate for change; and serve as resources for policymakers, the public, and journalists worldwide.
The VII Foundation consists of three educational initiatives: VII Academy, VII Community, and VII Insider, along with VII Photo, acquired in 2023.
PROJECT AND EXHIBITION
A project of The VII Foundation, MONUMENTAL is an exhibition that fosters discussions on faith, national identity, power politics, social cohesion, colonization, division, and political violence through the symbolism of two of the world’s most important and iconic religious buildings: The Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, and Notre-Dame de Paris.
This panel on the rise of artificial intelligence debated the danger AI poses to photography’s documentary and evidentiary power. Mutale Nkonde from AI for The People spoke about policies needed to reduce algorithmic bias. Nicolas Jimenez gave us insight into how Le Monde is responding to generative AI. And Santiago Lyon from the Content Authenticity Initiative introduced tools for digital provenance that could help restore transparency and trust.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Press Freedom is increasingly under threat. In this panel, Ruth Kronenburg from Free Press Unlimited spoke about their strategies for securing safety for photojournalists on all fronts, physical, psycho-social as well as digital. The VII Foundation contributing photographers Ali Arkady and Ilvy Njiokiktjien shared their personal experiences. Ali, as a local reporter working in his own community. And, Ilvy, who often works internationally, as an outsider looking in.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Using The VII Foundation exhibition, MONUMENTAL, as a launch pad, this discussion featured presentations on photography’s history and politics of representation in France and Israel/Palestine. The panel included Professor Jonathan Long, Co-director of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture at Durham University; Dr. Sary Zananiri, a cultural practitioner and theorist; Ziyah Gafić; and Tomas van Houtryve.
PANEL DISCUSSION
