About VII Academy

About VII Academy

About VII Academy

VII Academy promotes, teaches, and fosters high-quality journalism in the Majority World and in underrepresented communities in G20 countries by providing tuition-free media education and training.

Through real-world training and practice, we teach and mentor visual journalists in media practice, photojournalism, ethics, and media entrepreneurship. We aim to democratize the information narrative and give communities in the Majority World the tools to narrate their own stories and build a more resilient and robust global media environment.

VII Academy is the educational branch of The VII Foundation and is funded by Jennifer Stengaard Gross and Peter Stengaard of Blue Chip Foundation and The William, Jeff, and Jennifer Gross Family Foundation.

We teach online and in person at our two campuses in Arles, France, and Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Through our own teaching and by providing scholarships, on-campus seminars, and vocational workshops, VII Academy creates a valuable mentorship network between seasoned veterans and talented young visual journalists.

VII Academy core courses are 12-week seminars taught in multiple languages and offer advanced and unique visual education initiatives designed to diversify visual media education. Participants begin with the Level 1 course in photography before progressing to other levels.

You can learn more about VII Academy programming by visiting our Courses page.

campuses

Arles, France

The Alexandra Boulat Campus

With the support of Jennifer Stengaard Gross and Peter Stengaard, and the William, Jeff, and Jennifer Gross Foundation, VII Academy has opened a new facility for advanced media education, exhibition, and discourse in Arles, France.

Named The Alexandra Boulat Campus in honor of the late Alexandra Boulat, one of the founding photographers of VII, the facility is housed in a former salt warehouse on the banks of the Rhone River at the mouth of the Camargue delta. This building joins the VII Academy space in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina in offering advanced tuition-free training in visual journalism to participants from the Majority World and underrepresented communities from G20 countries. With this presence in Arles — a UNESCO World Heritage site and the former provincial capital of Rome — VII Academy is close to the world’s leading festival of photography, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, as well as the French National School of Photography and the Luma Foundation.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

VII Academy, Sarajevo Campus

The Bosnia campus of VII Academy is located in the heart of Sarajevo, at Ferhadija 25. It represents a return to the beginning for VII, as many of the founding photographers first met and worked together during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.

Welcoming photographers from around the world at events like VII in Sarajevo: Festival of the Image 2019, the campus provides a meeting point for those engaged in visual journalism across the Balkans and surrounding region.

Board of Trustees

The Alexandra Boulat Campus, Arles
Jennifer Gross, Gary Knight, Ron Haviv, Andrew Reid, Annie Boulat

Sarajevo Campus
Jennifer Gross, Gary Knight, Ron Haviv, Andrew Reid, Atka Reid

École Éphémère
Jennifer Gross, Gary Knight, Ron Haviv, Andrew Reid

Partners

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