Category: Photo Stories

Films as a Tool for Social Change

Featured photographers

Richard Zubelzu and Magda Calabrese’s Documentary Stories

For the past few years, Spanish filmmaker Richard Zubelzu has contributed his work and experience to Photojournalism Hub, sharing a commitment to documentary storytelling that places human rights, social justice and underrepresented communities at the centre of visual narratives. His collaboration with the Hub reflects a shared belief in the power of documentary filmmaking to create dialogue, challenge perceptions and amplify voices that are often overlooked.

Through its programme of exhibitions, screenings and educational initiatives, Photojournalism Hub supports documentary practitioners whose work explores social issues, challenges dominant narratives and creates space for diverse perspectives. By creating spaces for documentary photography and film, the Hub aims to connect audiences with stories that explore human experiences and communities whose perspectives are too often absent from mainstream narratives.

Together with producer and screenwriter Magda Calabrese, Richard has developed an extensive body of documentary work exploring themes including human rights, social justice, equality and the experiences of marginalised communities. Their films use personal stories to examine wider social questions and invite audiences to reflect on some of the challenges facing society today.

Through their independent production company, Objetivo Family Films, they continue to bring these stories to audiences around the world. Their documentaries are also available to viewers in the United Kingdom through Prime Video, making their socially engaged storytelling accessible to a wider audience. Rather than simply documenting events, their films explore the human experiences behind wider social and political issues. By focusing on individuals and communities whose stories often remain absent from mainstream media, their documentaries encourage audiences to reflect on resilience, identity, justice and social change.

“We believe documentaries can build bridges between cultures and help audiences understand realities beyond their own borders. Our goal is to tell stories that inspire reflection, dialogue and greater awareness of the challenges and achievements of people around the world,” say Zubelzu and Calabrese.

Their work reflects the belief that documentary filmmaking is more than recording events, it is a powerful means of fostering understanding, encouraging empathy and inspiring meaningful conversations across cultures.

Featured Documentaries by Richard Zubelzu and Magda Calabrese available in the UK via Prime Video:

Offside
A compelling documentary exploring why so few openly gay male footballers compete at the highest levels of professional football. Through interviews with players, journalists, campaigners and figures from across the football world, the film examines the cultural pressures, discrimination and fear of exposure that continue to shape the experiences of LGBTQ+ players, while questioning what still needs to change for the sport to become truly inclusive.

Reinosa 1987: The Price of Industrial Restructuring
A documentary examining the social consequences of industrial restructuring in Spain during the 1980s and the struggle of workers defending their communities and livelihoods.

Homophobia of State
An international human rights documentary investigating discrimination and persecution against LGBTQ+ communities in countries where sexual diversity continues to face legal and institutional repression. 

The Battle of the Wind
A reflection on territory, rural life, sustainability, and the relationship between people and their environment. 
Argüeso Castle: Culture, Tradition and Modernity
An exploration of Spanish cultural heritage through one of the most emblematic historical sites in northern Spain.

Saudade In this short documentary film, Zubelzu and Calabrese want to bring to the life story of Benita Navacerrada, daughter of Facundo Navacerrada Perdiguero, founder of the UGT in San Sebastián de los Reyes in 1936, who was shot against the walls of the Colmenar Viejo cemetery on May 24, 1939. This parish cemetery is where the second phase of exhumations of the mass graves of victims of Francoist repression has recently begun. This is the first exhumation of a civilian mass grave in the Community of Madrid, and where 91-year-old Benita patiently waits, day after day, for her father to appear. Watch on Prime Video

About the Filmmakers

Richard Zubelzu is a Spanish filmmaker, director and documentary producer whose work explores human rights, social justice, historical memory, cultural heritage and environmental issues. Through independent documentary filmmaking, he focuses on stories and communities often absent from mainstream narratives, using film as a tool for dialogue, awareness and social reflection. His documentaries have reached international audiences through festivals, cultural institutions and streaming platforms, including Prime Video.

Magda Calabrese is a producer, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on socially engaged storytelling and projects exploring equality, migration, historical memory, environmental issues, cultural identity and human rights. Through research-driven productions, she works to bring complex social issues to wider audiences and amplify perspectives that deserve greater visibility.

Together, Richard Zubelzu and Magda Calabrese are the founders of Objetivo Family Films, an independent European production company dedicated to documentary storytelling with social purpose. Their films combine investigative research and human-centred narratives to explore contemporary challenges and encourage dialogue across cultures. Watch Richard Zubelzu and Magda Calabrese’s documentaries

Richard Zubelzu and Magda Calabrese’s documentaries demonstrate the power of film to explore complex social issues through human stories. Their work reflects the belief shared by Photojournalism Hub that visual storytelling can create empathy, challenge perceptions and contribute to meaningful conversations around justice and equality. Discover more documentary photography, film screenings and storytelling projects from Photojournalism Hub through our upcoming events and programmes.

All Credits photos and videos © Richard Zubelzu, © magda.calabrese

Photography in Public Space

Photo Stories, Read

By Cinzia D’Ambrosi

Editor’s note: This article was first published in What the Records Show, Cinzia D’Ambrosi’s independent publication dedicated to investigative reporting, documentary photography, interviews and cultural analysis. It is republished here for the Photojournalism Hub community.

Festival La Gacilly Baden Photo transforms the city into an open-air gallery. Through a conversation with festival co-founder Lois Lammerhuber, Cinzia D’Ambrosi reflects on the power of photography to shape public space, provoke dialogue and deepen our understanding of the world.

Martin Parr’s photographs on display at Festival La Gacilly Baden Photo, Baden, Austria. Photo: © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

There is something quietly radical about encountering serious photography outdoors. Not in a gallery, not behind a ticket desk, but embedded in the life of a city in its gardens, along its streets, in spaces where people are simply getting on with their day. That is the founding proposition of Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo in Baden, Austria, and walking through it for the first time, I understood why it matters. You do not have to seek the work out. You do not have to know who Don McCullin is, or what Martin Parr has spent his life looking at. You can be passing through, your eye caught by something large and arresting on a wall, and suddenly you are inside a conversation you did not know you were joining. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you are living it. And that, in a time when photography is everywhere and yet somehow increasingly invisible, feels like something very meaningful.

This year’s edition, So British!, takes its title from its celebration of British photography, but the festival’s ambition reaches well beyond national identity. Rather than presenting a fixed definition of what British photography is, the programme reveals a shared sensibility that has shaped generations of photographers. It is a tradition rooted in close observation rather than spectacle, attentive to the lives of ordinary people and often characterised by irony, humour and an acute awareness of class and social difference. British documentary photography has long balanced empathy with restraint, allowing images to ask difficult questions without prescribing easy answers.

That sensibility runs through the work on display. Martin Parr’s satirical observations expose the absurdities of consumer culture with wit and precision. Mike Taylor’s photographs of football supporters capture not only collective passion but also rituals of belonging and identity. Mary Turner has spent decades documenting communities too often overlooked, while Sir Don McCullin’s uncompromising images remain among the defining works of humanitarian photojournalism. Their practices differ profoundly, yet together they demonstrate a tradition less concerned with isolated moments than with a sustained engagement with society and the people who inhabit it

I asked Lammerhuber when and how a theme gets decided. “The themes for each edition are collectively decided,” he told me. “Our team of three people may champion different topics, and while everyone has their own opinions, there is general agreement on the importance of each subject. Rarely much argument, as all subjects ultimately are important.”
Sitting with Lois, it became clear that the theme functions as a framework rather than a constraint. Each photographer retains a distinct voice within it. The programme moves in a deliberate, linear way through what Lois describes as the human condition: beginning with people, suffering and endurance, before expanding outward into environment, science and technology. It is a journey that asks something of the viewer at every stage.

Visitors pause before Terry O’Neill’s “Swinging London” exhibition at Festival La Gacilly Baden Photo, Baden, Austria, featuring his images of the Beatles and David Bowie. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

As I thought back to my walk through the festival the previous day, I realised how carefully the exhibitions had been sequenced. One seemed to lead naturally into the next, creating a sense of progression rather than interruption.
That sense of connection extended beyond the exhibition route itself. During the opening week, Lammerhuber brings together 152 photographers, curators and journalists in the same hotel, many of whom have never met before. Conversations continue over breakfast, during walks through the exhibitions and long into the evening. Photography becomes not only something displayed but something shared. As one of this year’s guests, I found those exchanges almost as memorable as the exhibitions themselves.
As our conversation continued, I asked Lois how he would know the festival had achieved its purpose. He answered that it was important to him that visitors leave with an open question, something unresolved, provoked by the work they had seen. Not conclusions, but thought.

The festival embraces an impressive breadth of practice, from classic photojournalism and documentary photography to street photography, portraiture and long-term visual storytelling. Yet despite the diversity of approaches, the exhibitions remain connected by a shared concern with the urgent issues shaping contemporary society.

Helmut Habersack and Lois Lammerhuber present Water is Life, bringing scientific knowledge and documentary photography together to highlight the future of the planet’s freshwater. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

In the Science and Technology section, the festival’s invitation to reflect becomes something closer to humility. Curated by river scientist Helmut Habersack and photographer-publisher Lois Lammerhuber, Water is Life brings together scientific knowledge and documentary photography to confront one of the defining challenges of our time: the future of the planet’s freshwater. Among the works, a NASA photograph of Earth seen from space arrests the viewer. The image is iconic, yet encountered here outdoors, woven into the rhythm of everyday life, it acquires a renewed power. Our planet appears as a small, fragile sphere suspended in the vastness of space, reminding us of both its beauty and its vulnerability.

From this perspective, statistics become profoundly human. More than eight billion people depend on a finite supply of freshwater, while climate change, pollution and unsustainable consumption place increasing pressure on rivers, lakes and aquifers across the world. The exhibition succeeds because it transforms these abstract realities into something deeply felt. Rather than overwhelming visitors with data, it invites them to pause, to reconsider their place within the natural world, and to recognise that water is not merely a resource but the foundation of all life. By combining scientific insight with the emotional power of photography, Habersack’s contribution demonstrates how visual storytelling can bridge the gap between knowledge and understanding. It reminds us that protecting water is not simply an environmental imperative, it is a profoundly human one.

Supratim Bhattacharjee’s work brings attention to the impact of extreme weather and rising sea in parts of India. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

Among the photographers Lammerhuber spoke about with particular feeling was Supratim Bhattacharjee a photographer based in India whose work documents the devastating impact of climate change on his country and its people. What makes his practice distinct is not only the quality of the documentation, but the position from which it is made. He is not an outside witness.
He is living the reality he photographs. As rising seas and extreme weather reshape parts of India, the burden falls hardest on those with the least. His photographs are not made from outside the story but from within it.

A photographer who is both witness and subject does not resolve those questions. But they shift something fundamental.
The image carries a different kind of authority, not the authority of distance, but of proximity. Of skin in the game.

Sir Don McCullin, the legendary British photojournalist, was a guest of honour at the Festival. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

Those same questions about witnessing, responsibility and representation echoed throughout the festival. They returned with particular force when Sir Don McCullin spoke about his own work. Much of documentary photography’s history has been built on the figure of the outsider, the photographer travelling to witness suffering that is not their own. That tradition has produced extraordinary work, but it has also raised difficult questions about representation, power and authorship. Hearing him speak at the festival’s Opening was one of those rare moments that lingers long after the event has ended. Sir McCullin spoke with remarkable candour about the photographs on display, revisiting the circumstances in which they were made and the difficult decisions that shaped them. He reflected on the lengths he went to in order to bear witness, placing himself amid war, famine and unimaginable suffering and questioned whether those choices had always been right.

Was it right to photograph people at the very limits of human suffering? Was it ethical to go as far as he did in pursuit of an image? Did the act of witnessing justify the personal and moral cost?
These are not questions Sir McCullin has answered and left behind. They remain unresolved, continuing to accompany him decades after the photographs were made. That ethical restlessness, the willingness to question his own actions rather than defend them, is what distinguishes him not only as one of the world’s greatest photojournalists, but as one of its deepest moral voices. Standing before those photographs while listening to the man who made them was a powerful reminder of what photography, at its most committed, can carry. Each image is more than a document of history. It is also a record of the choices, risks and responsibilities behind its making. Sir McCullin’s reflections revealed that the greatest burden is not simply witnessing suffering, but living with the knowledge of what it took to bear witness.

Lammerhuber sees no contradiction in presenting McCullin’s moral questioning alongside contemporary photographers confronting climate change, migration and environmental collapse. For him, the festival is not organised around aesthetics alone, but around photography’s capacity to deepen public understanding of the human condition. The conversations that begin in front of a photograph continue long after visitors have walked away. In an age saturated with images, that ability to make us stop, look and think may be photography’s greatest achievement.

La Gacilly-Baden Photo is Europe’s largest open-air photography festival, extending across 7km of the city. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

That may ultimately be what Festival La Gacilly Baden Photo does so well. It does not ask us simply to admire photographs. It asks us to live with them, to carry them beyond the exhibition walls and into our own lives. By placing photography in public space, the festival dissolves the boundaries between art and everyday experience, between observer and participant. Images of war, climate change, migration and human resilience are encountered not in isolation, but as part of the ordinary rhythm of the city, inviting everyone into the conversation.

As I left Baden, I realised I was carrying more than memories of remarkable exhibitions. I was carrying the questions they had left behind. Questions about who tells stories and who has the right to tell them. About what it means to bear witness. About our responsibility, not only as photographers but also as viewers.

Lois Lammerhuber photographed by Cinzia D’Ambrosi in front of one of his photographs at the festival. © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

When I asked Lois Lammerhuber what success looks like for the festival, his answer felt inevitable. He was not interested in visitors leaving with certainty. What mattered, he said, was that they left carrying a question, something unresolved that would continue to accompany them long after they had gone home.

Not conclusions. Thought.


Words by Cinzia D’Ambrosi
Photographs © Cinzia D’Ambrosi

cinziadambrosi.com
@cinziadambrosi

This article was first published in What the Records Show, Cinzia D’Ambrosi’s independent publication on investigative reporting and documentary photography.

Beneath the Forest’s Footsteps by Leonardo Petrucci

Featured photographers, Photo Stories

Photojournalism Hub is delighted to present Leonardo Petrucci as our Featured Photographer. His work explores diverse societal themes, with a primary focus on community across Italy. In this work, Petrucci presents the photo story Beneath the Forest’s Footsteps showing a post-war communal revival of a rural area. 
Petrucci explains: “Until the Second World War, the Campanara area was a thriving agricultural zone: the valley was dotted with wheat fields and inhabited by numerous farming families, who lived in scattered rural houses. As in many rural areas of the Apennines, the years following the war saw a strong depopulation. Homes and farmland were gradually abandoned, and nature slowly reclaimed its space. We are on the border between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, sheltered by the Apennines. Hidden deep within the forest, and still difficult to reach today, lies Campanara, a singular place dominated by a church that has never been deconsecrated, standing beside an ancient rural house.
From the 1960s onwards, Campanara became a small “hippie” commune, an experiment in communal living that attracted dozens of people. Over time, however, the area experienced a new wave of depopulation, until only one family remained to preserve its original spirit.
Silvia is considered one of the “souls” of Campanara, a figure who has kept the initial vision alive through the decades. Her children and grandchildren grew up on the mountain and, in turn, have contributed and continue to contribute to the evolution of this way of life.
Theirs is a story of resilience. They have faced isolation, the restoration of abandoned buildings, and the creation of a sustainable way of living in an area long left to itself. They chose to step away from consumerism and the fast pace of modern society, rediscovering values such as sharing, solidarity, and self-sufficiency.”

About the photographer

Leonardo Petrucci (Rome,1999) is a photographer specialized in photojournalism and reportage.
With a keen focus on socially and anthropologically relevant themes, his work seeks to explore the  human experience in relation to the cultures and habits of the places they live.
Narrative lies at the core of his works, as he combines texts and images to reconstruct stories of places and people .
His work aspires to remind us that, no matter the differences, human experiences are deeply interconnected.

Leonardo Petrucci www.leonardopetrucciphoto.com
@_leonardopetrucci

All photos & text copyright: Leonardo Petrucci

Drug Wars by Jonathan Alpeyrie

Featured photographers, Interview

In this interview with Cinzia D’Ambrosi, founder and director of the Photojournalism Hub, photojournalist Jonathan Alpeyrie reflects on his years documenting some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts and his latest investigation into the drug wars. Known for his immersive, on-the-ground approach and his ability to reveal the human stories behind global struggles, Alpeyrie discusses why he felt compelled to take on one of the most dangerous and underreported subjects in contemporary journalism. The interview offers a rare insight into the risks and deep commitment that underpin Alpeyrie’s work as he brings visibility to stories often hidden from the public eye.

The drug trade is a notoriously difficult and dangerous subject to cover, with limited access and huge personal risk. What drew you to this topic, and why did you feel it was important to take on, despite the danger?

The drug trade is an incredibly difficult and dangerous subject to cover — access is limited, the environment is unpredictable, and the personal risks are significant — but I felt compelled to take it on. What drew me to this topic was the hidden human cost behind the headlines: the communities trapped between cartels and law enforcement, the young men pushed into cycles of violence, and the corruption that quietly shapes daily life. Having spent much of my career documenting conflict, I saw the drug war as a global struggle that is often misunderstood or overlooked, yet profoundly consequential. Despite the danger, I believed it was essential to capture these realities from the ground, to show people what this conflict truly looks like and how deeply it affects those who live within it.

It is also not a subject that is widely published or visually documented, at least not at this level of intimacy. Did that sense of underexposure influence your decision to pursue it? 

the lack of visual documentation was a major factor in my decision to pursue this project. For a conflict as far-reaching and destructive as the drug war, I’ve always been struck by how little intimate, on-the-ground imagery exists. Most coverage stays at the surface, focusing on sensational moments rather than the human reality beneath them. That sense of underexposure pushed me to go deeper, to gain access to places and people rarely seen, and to document the everyday rhythms of a war that is often invisible to the outside world. I felt there was a gap that needed to be filled — not for shock value, but to give context, nuance, and humanity to a subject that affects millions yet remains largely hidden.

Your career has taken you into war zones and conflict areas around the world, including your experience of captivity during the Syrian Civil War. What drives you to choose these extremely challenging, often high-risk stories?

What drives me toward extremely challenging and high-risk stories is a combination of curiosity, responsibility, and a belief that certain realities demand to be documented, no matter the difficulty. Throughout my career — whether covering conventional wars or navigating the criminal conflicts of the drug trade — I’ve been drawn to places where the human experience is laid bare. My captivity in Syria only deepened that conviction. It reminded me how fragile life is, but also how important it is to shed light on the people living through these circumstances every day, without the option to leave. I choose these stories because they matter, because they shape the world in ways most people never see, and because I feel a duty to bring those unseen truths to the forefront with honesty and respect.

Do you see a thread that connects your past conflict coverage with this investigation into the drug wars? Is there a continuity in the types of human conflict you are drawn to document?

You are known for deeply immersing yourself in the environments you photograph. What role does immersion play in your work, and how does it shape the stories you can tell?

Yes, there is absolutely a thread connecting my past conflict coverage with my work on the drug wars. Whether I’m documenting a front line in a conventional war or following law-enforcement units and criminal groups in the midst of the drug trade, I’m ultimately drawn to the same fundamental human dynamics: power, fear, survival, and the way ordinary people are caught in forces far bigger than themselves. The drug war may not look like a traditional battlefield, but its impact is just as devastating and its structures of violence are just as complex. For me, the continuity lies in exploring how societies fracture under pressure, how individuals navigate danger, and how these conflicts shape communities in lasting ways. The settings change, but the human stories — the ones that reveal resilience, suffering, and moral ambiguity — are what consistently pull me in.

With the ongoing drug war tearing apart Mexico, it’s Northern border with the USA has been for decades now a strategic location in order to pass drugs and migrants into the USA, making the area a highly lucrative spot in Mexicali, Baja California , Mexico, March 28, 2023. In recent years, Mexico has seen an intense rise in drug consumption within its population group, which is a new phenomenon as Mexicans were not known for drug use. Photographer: Jonathan Alpeyrie

To capture what you did for this book, you clearly needed extraordinary levels of access. How did you build trust, navigate hostile environments, and gain proximity to people and places that are usually closed off to outsiders?

Gaining the level of access required for this book was a slow, deliberate process built on trust, patience, and a deep respect for the people allowing me into their world. I’ve spent more than two decades working in hostile environments, and over time I’ve learned that the only real currency in these situations is credibility. I approach everyone — whether law-enforcement officers, community members, or individuals connected to the drug trade — with honesty about who I am, what I’m doing, and why I’m there. I never rush access, and I never pretend to understand their reality better than they do. Bit by bit, that openness creates space for genuine relationships.
Navigating dangerous environments requires vigilance, humility, and a willingness to disappear into the background when necessary. I make myself unobtrusive, follow local rhythms, and rely heavily on the trust of people who know the terrain far better than I ever could. In many cases, it was the respect I showed for their work and their risks that allowed me to get close to situations normally closed off to outsiders. Ultimately, the access came from demonstrating that I was there to observe truthfully and responsibly — not to sensationalize, but to document a world most people never see.

Was there a particular encounter or story from this project that stayed with you?

One encounter that has stayed with me was a long night spent with a small group of local residents who lived directly between rival criminal factions. They weren’t police, traffickers, or soldiers — just ordinary people trying to survive in the middle of a conflict that had nothing to do with them. Listening to them talk about their routines, their fears, and the small strategies they used to keep their families safe was incredibly powerful. It reminded me that behind every headline or statistic, there are real lives shaped by forces they can’t control. That night underscored why I took on this project in the first place: to show that the drug war isn’t an abstract issue, but a daily reality for countless people whose stories rarely make it into the public eye. That human element stayed with me long after I left.

Jonathan Alpeyrie
www.jonathanalpeyrie.com
@jonalpeyrie

To purchase a copy: Drugs and Wars
Publishers: Simon & Schuster

Between Gaza and Naples. A Childhood Story

Featured photographers

Between Gaza and Naples. A Childhood Story by Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya and Tylerdurdan is born from the encounter of two free voices coming from distant worlds, yet united by the same urgency to bear witness. On one side, Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya, a 29-year-old photographer from Gaza, who after years of hard work and recognition saw his career and his life shattered by war: his family displaced four times, the loss of his camera — his only working tool — and a daily struggle against hunger, disease, and constant bombardment.
On the other side, Raffaele Annunziata, a Neapolitan photographer and artist known as tylerdurdan*, who for over a decade has combined music, images, and words as a form of cultural resistance, with the aim of denouncing injustice and restoring centrality to what makes us human. Together, they have chosen to tell — through parallel photographs — the everyday life of two little girls, one in Naples and the other in Gaza.

Soso – Gaza, 2025

Between Naples and Gaza. A Childhood Story Two distant cities, one childhood to defend.

Dede – Naples, 2025

Scenes that appear simple elsewhere (playing, going to school, having breakfast) become almost impossible under siege. Between Naples and Gaza. A Childhood Story is not only a photographic project, but a narrative and ethical bridge: to give voice to those at risk of being silenced, reminding the world that childhood is a universal right. The project also supports the campaign “Mahmoud Loves Photography, Family & Life ”, a concrete appeal to help Mahmoud and his family rebuild their life and his work as a photographer.

Wake up in Naples
Wake up in Gaza
On the way to school in Naples
On the way to school in Gaza

Between Gaza and Naples. A Childhood Story is a project bringing together two perspectives: Raffaele Annunziata (tylerdurdan), an artist from Naples, and Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya, a photographer from Gaza. Through parallel images, we tell childhood in two distant worlds, to remind the world that childhood is a universal right.

Soso and her friend, barefoot, play by gently touching each other and laughing. For a moment, there is nothing but joy.
Dede runs and laughs with her friends, her world filled only with games and joy.

Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya Together, they have chosen to tell — through parallel photographs — the everyday life of two little girls, one in Naples and the other in Gaza. Scenes that appear simple elsewhere (playing, going to school, sleeping) become almost impossible under siege. Between Naples and Gaza. A Childhood Story is not only a photographic project, but a narrative and ethical bridge: to give voice to those at risk of being silenced, reminding the world that childhood is a universal right.

The project Between Naples and Gaza. A Childhood Story also supports the campaign “Mahmoud Loves Photography, Family and Life”, a concrete appeal to help Mahmoud and his family rebuild their life and his work as a photographer.

About the photographers

Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya is a 29-year-old photographer and online trader from Gaza, whose life has been marked by passion, tragedy, and resilience. Before the aggression of October 7, 2023, Mahmoud was building a promising career: photography and Amazon trading were not only his livelihood but also his way of capturing the beauty of his city and telling the story of his people.
Since the beginning of the war, his family has been displaced four times; he lost his home, his camera — the starting point of his entire work — and all of his savings were consumed. Many of his friends and relatives have been killed or remain missing. Mahmoud himself was ill, and airstrikes — but he holds on to his dignity, his art, and his voice. He was abducted and tortured for two weeks, an experience that left deep scars. Despite all this, he keeps on fighting: every day he faces hunger, thirst. His mission is clear: to use photography not just to witness pain, but to carry hope — so the world can see, remember, and act. Through Between Naples and Gaza. A Childhood Story, Mahmoud aims to share both his story and that of those who, like him, live under the weight of conflict but continue to resist with humanity.


Raffaele Annunziata is a Digital Media Strategist, author, and speaker, and the founder of Seed Media Agency, established in 2012. He holds degrees in Cultural Heritage Management and Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production, combining his artistic background with over 20 years of experience in digital communication. At Seed Media Agency, he has designed storytelling strategies that merge creativity, ethics, and digital innovation for clients across multiple industries. A passionate urban photographer, he documents reality through the lens of a Fujifilm X‑T5, crafting an authentic visual narrative. With the project ‘ Raffele Annunziata (tylerdurdan), he brings together his technological and visual expertise with music and poetry, becoming the unmistakable voice of a human author in the age of AI. With his media account tylerdurdan, he weaves photography, writing, and generative AI music into a single narrative, convinced that every artistic act is a political one — a gesture of resistance in defence of minorities and, above al, of the Palestinian cause.

Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya
Instagram: @mhqee

Raffaele Annunziata
Instagram: @tylerdurdan10
Website: www.tylerdurdan.com

Project website: https://www.betweengazaandnaples.org/

Support Mahmoud’s Campaign HERE

Remembering Grenfell

Featured photographers, Photo Stories
The Ethiopian community mourn the deaths of their own children and families that died in the Grenfell Tower fire. Among the mourners are school children and family members of those that died. ©Cinzia D’Ambrosi

June 14 marks eight years from the Grenfell Tower fire. The grief remains deep. Grenfell tower stands as a painful reminder of a preventable tragedy that claimed 72 lives on the night of June 14, 2017.

These photographs of the community coming together to grief the loss of lives, are not just a documentation of a moment in history, they are a call to remember, to reflect, and to remind us that the fight for justice continues. Above all, to uphold the principle of equality for all.

Grenfell Tower, the community leaves messages in a memorial wall.©Cinzia D’Ambrosi

The pain felt by the Grenfell community is not just personal. It is the pain of institutional failure, of systemic inequality, of lives devalued. Inequality cost lives. This was not simply a tragedy. It was, and continues to be, a profound human rights failure.

©Cinzia D’Ambrosi

Eight years have passed and as we stand together in remembrance, we pledge to fight for meaningful change, and for equality.

Cinzia D’Ambrosi
Documentary photographer and journalist
www.cinziadambrosi.com
Instagram: @cinziadambrosi

Bruno Saguer: Oxidorphines

Featured photographers, Photo Stories

We are delighted to present Bruno Saguer as our featured photographer this month. His photographic stories shed light on some of the most harrowing labour conditions, conveyed with a poetic vision and powerful sensitivity that both compel and move us deeply.

This work is neither a protest nor a technical chronicle, but an aesthetic immersion into the decaying beauty of corrosion, into the imprint that time and human toil leave on every stranded hull. Photography as an addiction to decomposition, to the texture of the ephemeral.


From its nest, the seagull takes off over the sea. From the shipyard, the vessel sets sail. Everything tastes of salt. The salt of life, the salt of death.

To launch, to hoist, to depart, to sail, to weather the storm, to board, to dock…
A ship always carries the emotional weight of a journey toward the horizon, rocked by waves.
Whether carrying people, treasure, or trade, every ship bears the significance of its voyage.
Iodine drifts in the air, sea spray weaves into tangled hair flowing in the wind. A maritime symphony whispers all around.
But many ships don’t reach a dignified end. After 20 or 30 years riding the waves, they’re cast aside, pushed to die like abandoned animals, left to scavengers.

Bound for slaughter.

Some places in the world have become their graveyards. And the locals—made their executioners.
But this isn’t Père Lachaise in Paris. No Balzac, Camus, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, or Jim Morrison lie here. Instead, ships bear flags of convenience—fiscal loopholes, legal evasions, flags with no country.

There is no grey bin for maritime waste.
No final place where all things belong.
They simply end. Nowhere.

Eid Mubarak. August 2012. Chittagong, Bangladesh.

A northern “still life” made of open-air scrap. These shores should be erased from nautical charts, kept beyond the reach of any compass or bearing.

The poetry of the sea ends here. The carnage begins.
No blood is spilled—only oil, diesel, and thick, contaminating fluids.

Dignity slips through the scuppers.
Humiliation pools in the bilges at the end of this tragic journey.

Paints, heavy metals, asbestos—
A corrosive cocktail you won’t find on a Mediterranean cruise.
There will be no dinner at the captain’s table tonight.

No necks are cut, but every part of the ship is dismantled—hull to deck, cabins to engine room, even the prized bridge, where only hours before the horizon was scanned from a privileged perch.

The swords and guillotines of old revolutions are now acetylene torches and cutting saws.

A metallic roar.
No siren songs here—just horns of iron pain.

Tons of steel are fed into the maw of shredders.
As far as the eye can see, rusted carcasses marooned at low tide.
No longer sand, but rare metals of another periodic table.
Human termites gnaw at metal, wood, plastic, rope.

Dusk falls on the “unshipyard” of cruise liners, cargo ships, and freighters.
Floodlights flicker on.
Stripped of rest, the pillaging continues—plates, bolts, no loose ends.
In three to six months, the vessel is no more.

A ship scrapped in three or four months in Bangladesh nets a million dollars in return—on a five-million-dollar investment.

And yet, this apocalyptic landscape seduces.
It releases photographic endorphins.
The eye, the camera’s viewfinder—both tint crimson under a leaden sky.

Steel skeletons run aground in rhythm with the tides.
Swarms rush port and starboard, scrambling for the best loot—not astrolabes or sextants, but lifeboats, portholes, wires, propellers, spark plugs, pistons, lamps, sensors, sonar, radar, GPS.
All of it cloaked in raw rust.

Rust merchants. Steel auctions.
Everything is for sale. Even souls.
Recycling without activism—just a euphemism.
Melted down, but not damned.

Some pieces will sail again—aboard new vessels, or hanging in chic homes and restaurants.
Better that than being left to rot on a deserted beach after a failed escape from a cyclone.

Such is the cycle of the sea.
Knots and nautical miles become cubic meters of waste and steel.

Personal stories cling to these corroded remains.
Like that of Hossain Khatun. A Bengali man, generations deep, rooted in toxic mud.
His descendants likely will be too.
There’s no way out, unless you swim—to nowhere.

His nephew Kamal, 14, walks him to the shoreline each day as the fishermen return.
If the tide’s low, they can get closer.
Hossain is 64 and blind. Kamal guides his arm so he can stretch his hand toward the fishermen and beg.

Kamal has spent nearly all his life working in the yards.
The toxicity took his vision.
Hossain is on the same path—unless he’s hurt first (they use the blind to crawl into dangerous crevices of the ships), or unless he tries to swim away…

To earn a plate of rice or dhal, they cut through plates of steel.
They travel from Panchariya to Faujdarhat—almost 20 km of sandy graveyard.
No insurance. No safety gear.

Roughly 200,000 souls live trapped like fish in a stagnant pond.
Over 80 yards compete for the dying.

But the rust—captivates.

Nearly one in five of the world’s aging ships end up here.

Many NGOs have reported the working and environmental conditions.

That ship lamp from the Singaporean vessel “Green Earth” will look lovely somewhere.
It’s docked in port now, set to sail for Malaysia tomorrow.
But it’ll be back.
I won’t.

How strange that so much decay can be so visually fascinating.
Corrosion addiction could be the title of this landscape.

Thankfully, my memories are rusting.
Only images remain.
Another contradiction.

Anchored in rust, one becomes a witness to one of the most extreme forms of circular economy—a cycle both toxic and hauntingly poetic.

Bruno Saguer

“The greatest photos are those no camera can capture, yet only a photographer can see. My quest is never to miss one again.”

Born in Barcelona in 1972, half French and half Spanish, my earliest memories of photography are rooted in the dim red glow of my father’s darkroom at home. A passionate Nikon enthusiast, he introduced me to the magic of framing life in black and white. Though he passed away when I was 18, his legacy deeply shaped how I perceive the world through a lens.
My journey as an amateur photographer truly began with my Nikon D700 and a humble Tamron 17-50 lens, ignited by a simple desire to feed my curiosity. My first solo photo trip was to India, a welcoming place where capturing slices of everyday life and close portraits came naturally.
Inspired by a mesmerizing documentary about the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh, I organized a photographic expedition with friends, driven not by activism but by a fascination with the stark beauty of rusted giants awaiting dismantlement. From bustling Dhaka to the surreal graveyard of ships extending for kilometres, the contrast between human vitality and industrial decay was captivating. Beyond the dismantling itself, it was the vibrant recycling economy—shops filled with salvaged lamps and life jackets—that left a lasting impression. One such lamp now hangs in my home, a constant reminder to seek out the next photographic journey.
Balancing the roles of father and founder of an advertising and branding agency, my greatest challenge remains finding time to pursue these personal photographic projects, each an exploration waiting patiently for its moment. My job has also exposed me to brilliant work, and both creativity and art direction continually spark my curiosity. Among the photographers I admire most right now is Edward Burtynsky. Of course, I follow many others, specially Martin Parr, and depending on the mood—documentary, street, colour, black & white, or portrait—but I find Edward’s perspective uniquely compelling. Website | Instagram | Email

Photos and Words ©Bruno Saguer

Marcia Michael: The Family Album

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Marcia Michael: The Family Album
Sat 15 March – Sun 1 June | First Floor Gallery | Tue – Sun, 11am – 5pm | Fr

Experience a powerful reimagining of The Family Album, exploring the beauty and depth of family connections across time while celebrating the body as a site of history and memory.
This first major solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Marcia Michael is a ‘massive love letter’ to family and celebrates the sense of belonging and joy found through family connections.
The Family Album is a deeply personal exploration of kinship that pieces together a rich family history through contemporary photography, sculptures, ceramics, and print design. The works of the British artist of African and Caribbean descent centre around three interconnected series: The Study of Kin, The Family Album, and The Object of my Gaze.
These moving collections, archived as a revolutionary act of remembrance, display Michael’s ongoing journey to reconnect with and preserve memory, love and identity.
Michael’s intimate portraits of herself and close family members -particularly her mother – explore how the human body can serve as both a physical and emotional vessel for recorded histories. These works echo resilience across generations and highlight the uplifting power of family bonds. For The Family Album, MAC commissioned new pieces from Michael, including a unique necklace featuring miniature bronze sculptures representing the bodies of mother and daughter.
Through her diverse artworks Michael aims to foster a sense of familiarity and belonging that are centred within the home. This showcase invites the visitor to reconsider the traditional interpretation of
a family album and encourages them to (re)connect with their own family histories from a new perspective.
Marcia Michael, the artist of The Family Album, said:

“The Family Album ultimately defines my unconditional love for my family past, present and future. It creates and holds space where images and artefacts lie in wait to be seen touched and remembered. It is always imagination that keeps the past alive! As time passes it becomes important that there is a place where one can access and retrieve the whispers of this past. As well as relocate their visual, tangible and auditory memories into the voices of new kin as they take over.”

©Marcia Michael, Portrait of Mother and Daughter (2009). Photograph: Black and White Silver Gelatin Print.
©Marcia Michael, Portrait of the Photographer (2009). Photograph: Black and White Silver Gelatin Print.
©Marcia Michael, Studio Portrait of Young Girl (2009). Photograph: Black and White Silver Gelatin Print.

About the artist, Marcia Michael
Marcia Michael (b. 1973, London, UK) is an award-winning British multidisciplinary artist of Caribbean and African heritage who challenges the representation of the Black subject within the family album by reconstructing her own family archive. With great sensitivity toward her sitters and environments, her work encompasses captivating matrilineal photography, self-portraiture, moving images, sculptures, poetry, sound pieces, and drawings, using both traditional and non-traditional media. Through photography as both a mode of documentation and conversation, Michael renews and reimagines a transdisciplinary tradition of storytelling, seamlessly connecting past, present, and future. Her work guides the viewer on a journey through temporal dimensions, weaving together Black feminism, intergenerational visuality, African diasporic traditions, and the representation of the Black mothering body. Michael’s practice reimagines and restructures history through the
empowered, political, and self-loving Black body. She studied photography at the University of Derby (1996) and earned an MA in
Photography with distinction from the London College of Communication (2009). In 2024, she was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of the Arts London. Her body of work has been shown internationally. The Object of My Gaze, exhibited at Autograph ABP, London (2018), and Tate Britain (2022), builds on her earlier series The Study of Kin and The Family Album (2009). For more information, please visit: marciamicheal.co.uk.

Photo title: ©Marcia Michael, Portrait of Father and Daughter (2009). Photograph: Black and White Silver Gelatin Print.

Where Memory Meets Curatorship: Photojournalism Hub x Dominique Nok

Interview with Dominique Nok, 1873 Studios
By Cinzia D’Ambrosi, documentary photographer and founder/director of the Photojournalism Hub.

What initially drew you to Marcia Michael’s work, and what made you decide to present this exhibition?
Around four years ago, I heard Marcia speak at a photography symposium in London. She showed images while reciting one of her poems and playing a sound piece of her mum laughing. Her intimate, unfiltered, and pure body of work—and the way she described her relationship with her late, beloved mother—touched me. After the event, I went up to her and we spoke briefly. From that moment, I knew I needed to learn more about Marcia and her work—and that the world around me should too. So, when the opportunity came at Midlands Arts Centre (MAC)—a place where I knew people who look like Marcia, our family members, and myself are warmly welcomed—I did not hesitate to put her forward. Knowing that Birmingham is home to many people from Africa and of African descent, I knew her work would speak to them, and that it would acknowledge what and who needs to be acknowledged.

What does this exhibition reveal about the ways diasporic communities preserve memory and identity across generations?
The answer to this question could easily become a whole essay—there is so much to say about preserving memory and diasporic identity across generations. I am, therefore, going to try to give an answer in the best possible way. We know that people from the African diaspora take pride in things like food, dress, music, and our ability to withstand hardship. These elements have hugely contributed to our identity and are ingrained in our memory. Amongst ourselves, we celebrate this—think of birthday parties at a family member’s house, and weddings. What we are often less aware of are the many stories we carry within us and unconsciously pass on to others. This is something Marcia spoke about again and again—and something she tenderly and beautifully portrays through her work. “The body is more than just a host; it carries countless stories.” Yes, Marcia presents several ways to preserve memory through archives, and photography by documenting her close family members, showing their facial features, their hair, and body parts like fingernails and feet. But it goes so much further and so much deeper. Identity is found in connection and here, she gently and cleverly shifts the narrative—from being othered to belonging, from hatred to love.

“The body is more than just a host; it carries countless stories.”

With a frightening and atrocious past—one that we, as people from the African diaspora, are still unpacking and healing from—there is still so much more to uncover. I am talking about a beautiful history that was concealed, forbidden to speak about or act upon, and has not been accessible through disclosed records of the past. In this exhibition, Marcia offers another way to enter this hidden family history: by engaging with stories that have been shared with her, using different mediums to tell those stories, and allowing her imagination to reveal and communicate what known and written history alone cannot. These found truths can hereafter develop into connection with the people around us, those who came before us and create pathways to develop an identity of belonging for future generations.

Can you share a bit about the curatorial process, were there particular challenges or breakthroughs in how to present such personal, intimate work in a public space?
Marcia’s practice is deeply layered. Nothing about it is linear—everything can be viewed from multiple angles. Each piece she creates is made with the utmost care and carries profound meaning. Capturing the essence of what she was trying to communicate was, I believe, my biggest challenge. It took time to truly grasp the depth of her work, but once I did, I was able to present it in a way that a wider audience could connect with and understand. While safeguarding personal elements and allowing Marcia to express what she felt comfortable to share, I sought to preserve the intimacy and care she has within her practice. Producing an experience for visitors—one that would allow them to encounter Marcia’s work in an impactful way, resonating with their own family histories was my focus. Because of the strong bond that runs through the lineage of Marcia’s mother, I wanted to create a kind of womb—an inner space. A space that feels homely and holds stories. A space that is accessible, where people can walk through—into other dimensions of the work—connecting the three bodies of work: The Family Album, The Object of My Gaze, and The Study of Kin. When I presented my vision, MAC’s Artistic Director and CEO, Deborah Kermode, said, “Dominique, we’ve never done something like this—but it’s not impossible you know.” Her trust meant the world to me. MAC has been phenomenal in facilitating this exhibition—they truly are an amazing arts institution. The structure of the inner space and the layout I envisioned on paper took far more effort to bring to life. At times the fantastic technicians at MAC were pushed to their limits—but they did it!

What legacy do you hope The Family Album leaves for audiences and future artists alike?
I hope that visitors will be touched in a way that, through art and creativity, they begin to uncover what is hidden within them. Whether by observing and allowing the work to spark emotion—something they can then explore further—or by beginning their own journey of discovery through their own creativity. That could be through photography, poetry, dance, collage, or anything really, that helps them to (re)connect with what lies inside and open a dialogue with themselves and/or their loved ones.

To future artists, I want to say: do not limit yourself. You are not a one-trick pony. You can explore multiple mediums, also at the same time, you can wear multiple hats. You hold the power to shift narratives—and to change the world around us!
As Marcia would say: “Let’s just play!”
You never know what beauty might come from it—unless you try.

About the curator, Dominique Nok
Dominique Nok (b. 1977, Paramaribo, Suriname) is a Black female portrait photographer and curator, born in Paramaribo, Suriname, raised in Amsterdam, and based in London. She has over 20 years’ experience as a commercial photographer
and holds a bachelor’s degree in (Photo) Journalism and a master’s in curating. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, BBC Midlands, ITV.com, and The Voice of Holland, with exhibitions at Midland Art Centre, Harris Museum, and FUJIFILM House of Photography. Dominique’s curatorial career began with the We Are Here exhibition for UKBFTOG (UK Black Female Photographers). Since then, she has created platforms for predominantly female (and female-identifying) artists, collaborating with individuals and collectives such as Maryam Wahid, Sharon Walters, and the Mixed Rage
Collective. Dominique is passionate about advancing equal representation for artists from the African diaspora and those of Global Majority heritage. For more information, please visit: 1873studios.com.

Install shot of Archival Wallpaper (2025), constructed from the work Alpha and Omega (2024). Courtesy Marcia Michael and Midlands Arts Centre (2025). ©Tegen Kimbley. 

Notes to Editors:
Rosi Byard‑Jones​​​​ (She/Her)
Media & PR OfficerMidlands Arts Centre
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH
Rosi.Byard-Jones@macbirmingham.co.ukmacbirmingham.co.uk


About Midlands Arts Centre (MAC)
For over 60 years, Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) has connected people with creativity. MAC is a contemporary arts centre and independent charity, with the mission to make art an important part of people’s lives. Set in the magnificent surroundings of Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham, MAC is the number one visited free attraction in the West Midlands. At the heart of MAC is a focus on sustainability, accessibility, and inclusion. MAC works extensively to support international and local artists, and develop programmes for and with our local community. MAC is a registered charity supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery through the Postcode Culture Trust and Arts Council England.

Midlands Arts Centre (MAC)
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH
Registered charity no. 528979

Facebook: @Midlands Arts Centre – MAC
X (formerly known as Twitter): @mac_birmingham
Instagram: @mac_birmingham
TikTok: @midlandsartscentre

Selene Magnolia Gatti: Mediterranean Christmas at the World’s Deadliest Sea Border 

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December 2023, Mediterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 5, at sunset on Christmas Eve.

The history of migration across the Mediterranean goes back thousands of years. In recent years, tens of thousands of people have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from North Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe. The central Mediterranean Sea is the Europe’s deadliest frontier. In 2014 and 2015, about 320,000 people crossed the sea from North Africa to Europe, mainly ending up in Italy and Malta. The next year, the vast majority of migrants crossing to Europe did so in the Eastern Mediterranean, landing on Greek islands close to the Turkish coast. Altogether, however, the most dangerous route is still in the central Mediterranean where distances are longer and the weather more unpredictable.

In 2023 alone, at least 3,129 men, women and children trying to cross into Europe were reported missing or dead at sea – an average of 8 people per day. This makes 2023 the deadliest since 2017. While Libya remains the main point of departure, during 2023 the number of boats leaving from Tunisia have increased dramatically. The majority of migrants are being smuggled by human traffickers who charge thousands of euros for a vague promise to take migrants to the closest EU territory. Most of these migrants are subject to serious abuse prior to their departure and there’s no guarantees of ever making it to Europe.

Fenruary 2021, Medieterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the night through the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 3. The rescue operation was carried out in the darkness.

Since 2014 around 30,000 migrants have been confirmed dead at sea but the reality is that many more attempt the crossing and lose their lives without ever being found. With legal pathways to gaining entry to the EU not an option for most refugees detained in or transiting through Libya or Tunisia, risking their lives at sea is the only way out the country.

The stories of those who make it to Europe mostly have a similar theme. In the places where they were waiting for passage to Europe they were often working for no money, being kidnapped for ransom and facing horrendous violence, murders, forced eviction, destruction of property, detention and arbitrary arrests, even if they were on their way back to their country of origin. Thousands of migrants find themselves in an impossible situation. Either they endure abuse in the transit countries or risk the journey to Europe.

December 2023, Mediterranean sea. RHIB crew of the Sea-Watch 5 during a training. The RHIB crew has the task to perform first approach and provide the first rescue to the peole in distress at sea, transferring them from their boats on the morhter ship. Trainings are frequent, intense, and cover almost all possible real scenarios that could occur during a critical rescue.

‘Libya is so hard for us. We are stuck. We can’t move on and we can’t travel back where we came from. That’s why we take the risk and cross the sea. This journey is the journey of life or death. A journey of no return’ says one of the lucky ones who was rescued by a boat chartered by Sea Watch, an NGO that patrols the Mediterranean and assists migrant boats in distress.

The accounts of the ‘journey of life or death’ told by so many survivors are equally harrowing. Overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, no food or water for days, struggling people driven to despair by exhaustion, dehydration and extreme temperatures combine with the gravest discomfort in cramped decks, sea sickness, storms and other adverse weather to test even the strongest-willed. Most journeys cover a distance of between 400 and 500 km to Italian and Maltese shores. SOS calls are systematically bounced between various European authorities and coast guards often resulting in them being ignored or actioned after an agonising wait. Many boats capsize or sink before rescue craft make their way to the scene.

Through the most recent deals with Libya and Tunisia, the EU has increasingly trained, financed and strengthen the unofficial coast-guards of the northern African countries to reach as many boats as possible. The unscrupulous so-called Libyan coast guard and Tunisian authorities unlawfully bring the migrants back to the place of abuse they had escaped from. Libya, a country that has been in a state of de facto civil war since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, is officially deemed ‘unsafe’ by international law, and interceptions violate the fundamental human right of non refoulement. Only 5% of the migrants leaving the North African coasts reach Italian or Maltese territory independently. The vast majority are rescued by the Italian coast guard and non- profits operating their own rescue missions to try and prevent more deaths.

‘They use Black people [people] to make money there. So if you don’t have the money you will have to die there or live in pain’ recalls another person rescued by a patrol boat in the Mediterranean. ‘The life in Libya is very tough, it’s by God’s grace that I’m still alive today. Because sometimes you go to work, you work with them and maybe they don’t want to pay you: they can take your life there.’

Non-governmental organisations carrying out search and rescue (SAR) operations have been a constant presence in the Mediterranean since 2014, seeking to fill the void left by the lack of state-organised SAR operations. The European Union, and especially Italy, are increasingly implementing stricter migration policies, essentially criminalising NGOs carrying out SAR activities.

February 2021, Mediterranean sea. Migrant rubber boat after its passengers have been brought to safety onboard the Sea-Watch 3. Between 70 and 80 people were crossing the sea on the overcrowded rubber boat, with limited water, gasoline, no gps nor satellite connection, no food and at risk of sinking for deflation or capsize.

After systematic cases of arbitrary seizures of the rescue ships and prosecution of crews, the recent practice of assigning distant ports for disembarkation, for example, keeps rescue ships away for days from the search and rescue area in the central Mediterranean where most of the emergencies occur. Despite the challenges, a number of non-profit organisations, such as Sea-Watch portrayed in this work, continue their tireless search and rescue activities at sea, in solidarity with the most criminalised: the people fleeing in search of a safer future.

Selene Magnolia Gatti is an Italian award-winning IFJ, NUJ freelance photojournalist based in Northern Italy and Berlin. Her work spans multiple issues, including questions of environmental and social justice, food production, migration, as well as gender related and contemporary political issues. She works on assignment and independent projects. Since 2023 she is represented and distributed by Panos Pictures. Raised in the Italian Dolomites, where she developed a strong bond to the natural environment, she has a background as emergency nurse, volunteer medical personnel in humanitarian crises, and academically qualified linguist, before shifting to and studying photojournalism. She has worked for a number of publications such as Der Spiegel, The Guardian, de Volkskrant, Il Reportage, Il Manifesto, amongst others. She also works for some of the leading environmental media agencies and a number of international no profits. Some of her photographic work on intensive food production is featured in the book ‘Hidden – Animals in the Anthropocene’, awarded ‘Photography Book of the Year’ by POY (2021). Her long-term project Zor, which portrays life in the biggest so-called ghetto in Europe, was exhibited at Perpignan’s Visa Pour L’Image photojournalism festival 2022. Her work was recognised by British Journal of Photography (2023), Siena Photography Awards (2022), London Photography Awards (2022), Prix de la Photographie Paris (2022), TIFA, MIFA, BIFA (2022), Kolga Tbilisi (2022), Global Billboard Project (2021), among other winning entries. She was selected for the Hamburg Portfolio Review in 2023. In 2023, she is the yearly Senior Fellow of WeAnimals Media Agency and a recipient of the European Environmental Journalism Fund grant for an ongoing project about the impact of factory farming.

Selene Magnolia Gatti
+4901634853065
selenemagnolia@protonmail.com
Instagram


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