Winner of $20,000 Alexia Professional Grant announced
The 29th year the Alexia Foundation has awarded the Alexia Professional Grant, in the 2019 the winner of the $20,000 prize has been named as Katie Orlinsky of New York, New York for Chasing Winter. The grant will be used by Orlinsky to complete the proposed project which will explore how climate change is challenging communities across Alaska and transforming the relationship between people, animals, and the land.
A contributing photographer for National Geographic, Orlinsky is also a regular contributor to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Smithsonian Magazine, and a number of other publications. She also received the Alexia Student Grant in 2012 for her project, Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico’s Drug War.
Moderator of the judges, Mike Davis, The Alexia Tsairis Chair for Documentary Photography at Syracuse University commented: “This year’s submissions were stronger than ever,” he stated. “Judges noted that the distinction between the quality of the student and professional submissions continues to diminish and that the range of work presented is notably more dynamic.”
The winner of the The Alexia Student Grant was named as Isabella Bernal, for her project, As American As Apple Pie, about the dream of a group of people traveling from Latin America to the United States to work in the New Jersey orchards that supply the apples and other produce to be sold in the fresh markets of New York City. Her prize includes a $1,000 cash grant to work on the proposed project and funding for a semester at Syracuse University.
2019 Alexia Professional Grant Finalists
Katie Orlinsky – Chasing Winter
Alessandro Cinque – Perú, A Toxic State,
Brian Frank – Out of Bounds – Chapter 2
Chris Donovan – The Cloud Factory
2019 Alexia Student Grant Finalists
Isabella Bernal – As American As Apple Pie
Oscar Scott Carl – A Boy’s Home in Nuuk
Tabitha Barnard – Cult of Womanhood.
Competition judges
- Aidan Sullivan (Verbatim)
- Mia Tramz (TIME, Inc)
- Ismail Ferdous (former Alexia recipient)
- Peggy Peattie (former Alexia recipient)
- Justin Maxon (former Alexia recipient)
- Sarah Blesener (former Alexia recipient)
Judging was moderated by Mike Davis, The Alexia Tsairis Chair for Documentary Photography at Syracuse University.
About the foundation
The Alexia Foundation was created to celebrate and remember Alexia Tsairis, who was killed in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. It has awarded over $1.7 million to 166 photographers to help give voice to those who go unheard, foster understanding, and expose social injustice.
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