Congratulations to Danny Wilcox Frazier, VII Member, and Poulomi Basu of the VII Mentor Program, who have been named recipients of the 2016 Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund grant, a program that supports independent photographers to produce in-depth and creative stories on underreported issues.
This year’s grants are made in collaboration with the Prince Claus Fund expanding the support for photographers working on critical issues in their home regions, specifically within Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Grantees were selected by an independent editorial committee from a pool of 140 photographers nominated by 26 international editors, curators, and educators. “I anticipate this group of visual artists will produce transcendent and extraordinary photography in 2016 and well beyond. They are a remarkable group of talented, diverse, and devoted people,” said editorial committee member James Wellford.
Danny Wilcox Frazier: “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” (United States)
Since 2003, I have photographed the impact of depopulation on rural communities across the Midwest and Great Plains. Nationally, rural communities have lost more than 12 million people since 2000. The most recent census puts its share of the nation’s population at just 16% – the lowest in recorded history and down from 72% a century ago. My photographs do not shy away from the economic struggles many people face in rural communities due to out-migration. More importantly though, this project recognizes and celebrates those individuals working to maintain their culture and identity in these forgotten communities.
Poulomi Basu “A Ritual of Exile: Blood Speaks” (Nepal)
A Ritual of Exile documents the dangerous rituals and practices, which subjugate women throughout South Asia under the guise of religion. This project details the practice of Chhaupadi in remote western Nepal, where menstruating women are exiled to makeshift huts for the superstitious beliefs that their blood is impure. A perpetuated human rights violation to women, it strips them of their dignity and treats them like animals. They are untouchables. A polluting agent to be feared and shunned, their touch will bring calamity and sickness to men, even to animals.
