The Magnum Foundation has announced the recipients for its 2019 Magnum Foundation Grant.

Since 2007, The Magnum Foundation has supported more than 250 photographers in over 100 countries. Nominated by an extensive international network of partners, the image-makers who have won the Magnum Foundation grants reflect a vibrant range of voices and perspectives.

This year things worked slightly differently: The Magnum Foundation extended an invitation to their community of past grantees to apply for support for new and ongoing projects.

This year’s grants represent more than $130,000 of direct funding to photographers.

Rahima Gambo in her project titled “Tatsuniya” will conduct a visual storytelling workshop to support growth and empowerment of female students at a school in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which was targeted by Boko Haram in 2013 and subsequently closed for two years in an increasingly dangerous insurgency.

“On Rape” is Laia Abril’s project. It’s an ongoing visual archive of the systemic control of women’s bodies across time and cultures to explore how concepts of myths, power and law relate to the constructions of the notion of masculinity and sexual violence.

Stephen Ferry is working on supporting the work of Colombia’s Truth Commission by constructing a public photographic archive of the armed conflict, civic resistance to the violence and the acts of peace.

Brendan Hoffman is undertaking a residency at Iowa’s Daily Freeman Journal to work with local residents on a visual conversation about identity and representation in America’s heartland.

“Tiger Eye” is Heba Khalifa’s project exploring gender-related persecution in Egypt and the complex and intimate dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship.

In the project entitled “Last Letters,” Billy H.C. Kwok is excavating the hidden history of the White Terror, a period of authoritarian rule in Taiwan, using final letters penned by victims of the regime.

Robert Pluma, in his project “Hidden Histories,” looks at countering colonial narratives and reclaiming the indigenous identity of what is now southern Texas through the use of augmented reality and recorded oral histories told by mission descendants.

Esther Mbabazi, in a collaborative project with Guwodo, aims to make visible the lives of women and girls with disabilities in Northern Uganda by engaging them in the creative process about how to best tell and represent their won personal stories.

Pedro Silveira’s project “Sacred Diaspora” draws on fieldwork and archival research to explore the presence of African deities worshiped on Brazilian lands in a region called all Saints Bay.

Nadege Mazars explores the intersections of violence, migration and religion through the personal trajectory of individuals in El Salvador in a project entitled “Wolves, Swallows, and Ewes: A Tale About Real Lives in El Salvador.”

The grants were made possible through collaborations with allied partners, including The Henry Luce Foundation, The Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP), American Jewish World Service. Magnum Foundation president and renowned photographer Susan Meiselas is supporting a new grant-making initiative, Counter-Histories who is herself donating money from funds she has been awarded.

—Samantha Reinders

Related Articles


Diana Markosian & Sarker Protick Among Magnum Foundation’s 2018 Grantees
Rebuilding in America, in Exile from Egypt
A Love Song to Socotra Island, Yemen