World Press Photo 2024 – global winners

 Via The Guardian

April 18, 2024

‘These final selected works are a tapestry of our world today, centred on images we believe were made with respect and integrity, that can speak universally and resonate far beyond their origins,’ said Fiona Shields, global jury chair and head of photography at the Guardian. ‘This is an opportunity to applaud the work of press and documentary photographers everywhere and to amplify the importance of the stories they are telling, often in unimaginable circumstances’ --click to go to feature article

Anna Boyiazis Featured in The Guardian's "The Big Bicture"

 Via The Guardian

October 15, 2023

The big picture: Zanzibari schoolgirls enjoy the liberation of floating

Anna Boyiazis: Kijini primary school students learn to float, swim and perform rescues in the Indian Ocean off Mnyuni, Zanzibar, 2016

Anna Boyiazis’s tranquil image captures a group of Muslim girls, previously not allowed to swim, during a lesson

Tim Adams

Sun 15 Oct 2023 

Life on the island of Zanzibar is intimate with the surrounding ocean, but for many years women in the majority Muslim population were prohibited from learning to swim. Two things changed that. The first was the advent of the full-body swimsuit, or burkini. The second was a project called Panje (a Swahili word that translates as “big fish”), which was established by an NGO in 2011 to support young people in Nungwi village find employment. Panje taught women in the village to swim for the first time and encouraged them in turn to become swimming teachers, challenging entrenched patriarchal models of learning.

The photographer Anna Boyiazis also had the sea in her bones. She grew up in California; the origins of her family were on the Aegean Islands of Greece. In 2017, as part of a project called Finding Freedom in the Water, Boyiazis spent a long time persuading the Islamic authorities in Nungwi to allow her to photograph the women involved in the Panje initiative, so that the idea could be promoted as an example to other communities – not least because the east coast of Africa has some of the highest rates of drowning in the world.

Boyiazis’s “Burkini Island” series featured in National Geographic and won numerous prizes, including a World Press award and a Unicef photo of the year award. This picture – which captures all of the simple liberation of floating; the women, eyes closed, seem transported far beyond the mundane reality of their water-carrier buoyancy aids.

Speaking of her series, Boyiazis has said: “It would have been torture for me as a woman to grow up in Zanzibar and not be allowed to swim. This project was the definite merging of two of my favourite worlds, being in the water and taking pictures.”

View more from the series here.

AIPAD : The Photography Show 2022 : Monroe Gallery of Photography

 Via The Eye of Photography

May 20, 2022

Anna Boyiazis, Kijini Primary School students learn to float, swim and perform rescues in the Indian Ocean off of Muyuni, Zanzibar, 2016 Archival pigment print, 30 x 40 inches

 ©Anna Boyiazis, Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

L'ŒIL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE
MAY 20, 2022

Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, will present two distinct exhibitions exemplifying the power and immediacy of photojournalism. The first recognizes the new wave of independent photojournalists who are battling situational danger amidst growing public skepticism of the media. The second exhibition features the work of Tony Vaccaro, who has survived the Normandy Invasion and Covid-19, and just recently celebrated his 99th birthday. A highlight is the art-fair premier of Anna Boyiazis‘ World-Press award winning series “Finding Freedom in the Water,” featuring a stunning large format print of “Kijini Primary School students learn to float, swim and perform rescues in the Indian Ocean off of Muyuni, Zanzibar, 2016”. Traditionally, girls in the Zanzibar Archipelago have been discouraged from learning how to swim, largely due to the absence of modest swimwear. But in villages on the northern tip of Zanzibar, the Panje Project (panje translates as ‘big fish’) is providing opportunities for local women and girls to learn swimming skills in full-length swimsuits, so that they can enter the water without compromising their cultural or religious beliefs.

www.monroegallery.com

Booth # 113

The Photography Show presented by AIPAD
May 20 – May 22, 2022
Center415

415 Fifth Avenue, between 37th and 38th Streets, New York City

Leica Camera USA Announces the Second Annual Leica Women Foto Project Award Winners, including Gallery photographer Anna Boyiazis

 

For the second year in a row, three award recipients will receive $10,000, a Leica Q2 camera and mentorship to support a personal photographic project through the female perspective

ALLENDALE, N.J., March 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dedicated to the expansion of diverse representation and inclusion in photography, Leica Camera USA is proud to announce on International Women's Day the three recipients of its second annual Leica Women Foto Project Award. This prestigious award is a part of the Leica Women Foto Project, an ongoing commitment to diversity in visual storytelling to help empower the female point of view through photography. This year's winners: Matika Wilbur, Karen Zusman and Anna Boyiazis were selected by a diverse panel of judges ranging from award-winning photojournalists to renowned contributors to the world of photography. Each recipient is awarded $10,000, a Leica Q2 (valued at $4,995) as well as a mentorship to support the continuation of their award-winning photo project.

The three winners are: 

Swim instructor Siti, 24, helps a girl float in the Indian Ocean off of Nungwi, Zanzibar, 2016

Anna Boyiazis is a documentary photographer whose areas of focus include human rights, public health, and women and girls' issues. Based between Southern California and East Africa, Boyiazis has been working on her project Finding Freedom in the Water since 2016. The winning series bears witness to women and girls in Zanzibar who are learning to swim, which she describes as, "an act of emancipation in an ultraconservative region where such an act conflicts with patriarchal, religious norms." Boyiazis' work focuses on an in-depth, visual narrative of these women and girls, revealing the intimate context of their daily lives. With the support of the Leica Women Foto Project Award, she will be able to resume her work on the project later this year by returning to Zanzibar during the dry season and continuing to document the women and girls she has built relationships with so far.

Matika Wilbur, acclaimed Tulalip & Swinomish Pacific Northwest photographer and social documentarian, has produced a stunning visual narrative of Tribal sovereignties in the US, Project 562, to "change the way we see Native America". Wilbur has visited over 400 Tribal Nations in all 50 states by car, RV, plane, train, boat, horseback, and on foot. She has exhibited her work and presented at scores of leading galleries, universities, and other venues while hosting her groundbreaking podcast, All My Relations, ranked at the top of feminist and race & society categories. She is currently completing a 500-page book for Ten Speed Press of Project 562 photographs and oral narratives and is curating a massive career retrospective exhibition and is a National Geographic Explorer for her Alaskan Tribal series. Matika's extraordinary creative initiative and singular body of work began after a dream with her grandmother, who asked her to photograph their own peoples. Matika honors her ancestor by portraying the richness and diversity of lived experiences of Indian Country with bold and inspired creativity.

New York-based photographer Karen Zusman began her journalism career documenting human trafficking in Malaysia and over the past several years has made over 20 trips to Cuba for a photo book project. When travel came to a stop during the pandemic, Zusman was spending more time in New York and the inspiration for her winning project, The Super Power of Me Project was born. Growing out of her involvement with a Black Lives Matter bicycle protest group, her latest portrait series documents the strength and spirit of children of color in New York City, which the photographer says, "Shows who they are before the world tells them otherwise." With the assistance of the Leica Women Foto Project Award, Zusman plans to expand the project to an outdoor exhibit and workshops that foster creativity and self-esteem building for children to express, protect and expand their vision of who they are.

The second annual Leica Women Foto Project Award underscores our ongoing commitment to diversity in visual storytelling," says Kiran Karnani, Director of Marketing for Leica Camera North America. "With the Award and the overarching initiative, we aim to empower, inspire and amplify underrepresented voices in photography. Our commitment continues with a virtual summit in April and a call for entries for the next iteration of the Leica Women Foto Project Award this summer."

The projects submitted by Matika Wilbur, Karen Zusman and Anna Boyiazis were carefully selected by nine influential women in photography, art and journalism, which include:

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Art Director & Chief Representative, Leica Galleries International

Amanda de Cadenet, Entrepreneur, journalist, author, photographer, activist and found of Girlgaze & The Conversation

Laura Roumanos, Executive producer and co-founder, United Photo Industries and Photoville

Sheila Pree Bright, Fine-art photographer and visual cultural producer

Elizabeth Avedon, Independent curator, photo consultant, designer and writer

Elizabeth Krist, National Geographic photo editor and founding member of the Visual Thinking Collective

Lynn Johnson, Photographer and National Geographic contributor

Maggie Steber, VII Agency photographer and Guggenheim Grant Fellow

Sandra Stevenson, Assistant Editor in the photography department at The New York Times

In addition to the $10,000 award, recipients will each receive a Leica Q2, a fixed-lens compact camera with a rangefinder-style electronic viewfinder that produces unparalleled high-quality images. Designed with a weather-sealed body and crafted to last a lifetime, the Leica Q2 cameras will be gifted to this year's award recipients: Matika Wilbur, Karen Zusman and Anna Boyiazis so they can continue their groundbreaking work for years to come. To further elevate the voices of these female award recipients and their diverse photographic subjects, the new awardees will also be offered opportunities to participate in Leica Gallery exhibitions and Leica Akademie workshops as well as receive mentorship from notable photographers in the industry.

As part of the brand's campaign to celebrate the power of photography and continued dedication to amplifying diverse voices in photography, Leica Camera will also be holding a virtual Summit in April. The Summit will be open to the public and those who submitted for the Leica Women Foto Project Award will have access to exclusive programming, including panels, opportunities to meet with photographers and more. For additional details on timing and how to sign up, please be sure to visit the Leica Camera website and follow @leicacamerausa on social media.

To learn more about the Leica Women Foto Project Award and the award recipients, visit http://bit.ly/Leica_Women and @leicacamerausa on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.