US$90,000 awarded in CatchLight Global Fellowship
Three photographers have each been awarded US$30,000 in the annual CatchLight Global Fellowship. The US-based visual media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to inform, connect, and transform communities has announced the recipients as Adama Delphine Fawundu, Daro Sulakauri, and Rafael Vilela.
The grants are to help develop long-form storytelling projects, engage audiences, and allow photographers to continue their work as innovators and leaders defining the future of the field. Adama Delphine Fawundu uses photography and visual art to uncover the past, activate the present and meditate on equitable futures; Daro Sulakauri documents the struggle of people to survive in the shadow of an oppressive superpower; and Rafael Vilela reports on Indigenous way of life and the climate crisis in the largest city in the Americas, São Paulo.
Elodie Mailliet-Storm, CEO of CatchLight stated: “This year’s CatchLight Global Fellowship recipients are not only amazing visual storytellers with great impact, but they are also dedicating their practice to advancing key pillars which will define the future sustainability of the field overall: educating the next generation of visual storytellers, collaborating with communities, advancing democratic access to information and the revitalization of independent media.”
CatchLight Fellows
Adama Delphine Fawundu
Adama Delphine Fawundu is driven by research, uncovering, sharing and amplifying complex stories across multiple mediums. A visual storyteller with a background in education, she strives to create spaces where young people can look at visuals and build their own stories, use them as historical context, or dive deeper into literacy, from writing to thinking to reading. Her practice is an invitation to dive into the past, understand the present, and envision the future.
Using her upcoming year-long solo exhibition as a focal point, Adama Delphine Fawundu will lead hands-on workshops for early-career artists and create an open-source curriculum for educators. This public education and visual storytelling project will engage multigenerational community members in New Jersey, Sierra Leone and Uganda, in using contemporary art as an inspiration to uncover the past, activate the present and meditate on equitable futures.
Daro Sulakauri
After publishing her photo story, Terror Incognita, which documented the lives of refugees escaping the war in Chechny, Daro Sulakauri realized the impact photography could have with people’s perspectives on current events or social issues. Focusing on issues that are considered taboo in her home country of Georgia, such as early marriages, or the cultural and community impacts of three decades of Russian occupation in sovereign Georgian territories, she creates images that offer a different understanding to viewers. Whether sharing her work on social media, creating installations for public exhibitions, or publishing in international magazines, she strives to find new ways to engage with the audience.
stands on the Russian controlled territory of South Ossetia in Khurvaleti village on 23 May 23 2022.
Rafael vilela
The Brazilian photographer Rafael Vilela is currently reporting on climate and economic crisis in his country. As a visual storyteller, he considers access to information a human right, not a privilege. As a co-founder of Mídia NINJA, one of Brazil’s largest independent media platforms, he has been working on the democratization of the media for the past 10 years. His focus was on generating the capacity for Brazilian social movements and indigenous communities to organize and create their own media platform. His ongoing project ‘Forest Ruins’, which addresses the role of cities in the climate crisis from the perspective of the Guaraní Mbyá Indigenous people in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, includes photography workshops with young Guarani Mbyás and their leaders. Empowering them with tools and knowledge of visual journalism will help raise awareness of their existence in the world. Because as Vilela puts it “communicating is existing in the world of media that we live in today.”
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