The Aftermath Project: War is Only Half the Story

"War is Only Half the Story, Vol Four" now available

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:34:00 GMT

Well, this one took a lot longer than any of us expected, but I think it's worth the wait -- "War is Only Half the Story, Vol Four" is our most beautiful book to date, and can be ordered on our website at <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a>. You can also order all of our previous volumes there, including Vol One, which is out of print. This book features the work of our 2010 grant winners and finalists, and includes historical and contemporary explorations of the aftermath of conflict, which continue to resonate in our society today. Grant winner Danny Wilcox Frazier’s work, “Surviving Wounded Knee” is a nuanced consideration of the aftermath of the 19th-century massacre of Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, and of the ongoing ramifications of the US government’s failure to honor treaties granting the Black Hills to the Lakotas. Grant winner Monika Bulaj explores the hidden worlds of Afghanistan, stories and sub-cultures that rarely are covered by journalists who embed with fighting forces. Finalist Jessica Hines has produced a remarkable personal essay about her brother, a Vietnam vet who committed suicide after the war, leaving behind many unanswered questions. Finalist Helena Schaetzle re-traces the steps of her grandfather, a German soldier during World War II, and re-tells that story with portraits of those still living in the places he fought and through landscapes of the places where these wartime stories played out. Finalists Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko joined together to create a project about the “nine cities” of Grozny, Chechnya, an idea inspired by a Thornton Wilder play about many cities in one. We're grateful to the many private donors who helped fund this book, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Foundation to Promote Open Society and PhotoWings, who also supported the publication. In addition, thanks to a special grant from PhotoWings, we will launch an iPad app of the book in the iTunes store. We'll send out another announcement when it's available. With best wishes for a productive year for all of us! Sara Terry Director/Founder, The Aftermath Project

2012 Grant Winner and Finalists Announced...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:13:00 GMT

Dear friends and colleagues -- We're very pleased to share the news about the 2012 Aftermath Project grant winners and finalists (also attached as a PDF dcoument) -- 2012 Grant Winner: Andrew Lichtenstein (USA) “American Memory,” a series of landscape photographs of important historical sites across America that are startling in their exploration of memory and conflict, and the intersection of the past and the present. At the core of Lichtenstein’s work is his belief that “the first step towards healing a deep wound is acknowledgement. Without that, it is impossible to move forward.” Among the many photos in Lichtenstein’s work-in-progress that impressed the judges was a photo of three women in Confederate-era dress seated on a bench at the exact bus stop where Rosa Parks began her historic ride in 1955, launching the American civil rights movement (the women were participants at a recent Confederate Flag rally in honor of the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davies, the Confederate leader). The judges found Lichtenstein’s project to be a highly original take on aftermath issues, and also found his images to be sophisticated and thought-provoking. 2012 Finalists (in alphabetical order): Christopher Capozziello (USA) – “For God, Race and Country,” a work-in-progress about “America’s first terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan,” and Capozziello’s exploration of why KKK members continue to believe in white supremacy. The judges were impressed by the access Capozziello has gained to his subjects, as well as the strength of his photos. Michelle Frankfurter (USA) – “Destino,” a work-in-progress about the unprecedented wave of emigration by Central Americans to the US, triggered in the 1980s by bloody civil wars in the region. The judges were impressed with Frankfurter’s journey with these migrants in dangerous conditions on freight trains – and again, by the strength of her images. Simon Thorpe (UK) – “Toy Soldiers,” a work-in-progress involving a creative partnership with a Sahrawi military commander – and Polisario soldiers from the 4th military region of Liberated Western Sahara and who Thorpe posed in the desert as life-size toy soldiers. The judges were impressed with the creativity of Thorpe’s concept and the surprising images that resulted. Michael Zumstein (France) – “Bon Amis,” a project about the Ivory Coast’s journey to reconciliation after the post-election crisis of 2010-11. The judges were impressed with Zumstein’s portrayal of an Africa not often seen in the media – and by his strong compositions and sense of place. This year, 183 applicants around the world applied for the Aftermath Project’s sixth year of judging, a nearly 15 percent increase in the number of applicants from the previous year. A first round of screening was done in Los Angeles in mid-November by Lesley Meyer of the Annenberg Space for Photography, and Sara Terry, photographer and founder/director of The Aftermath Project. Final judging took place on November 19, in Houston. The judges were Anne Wilkes Tucker, photography curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Stephen Mayes, director of VII; and Sara Terry. The Aftermath Project 2012 grant is made possible by the generous support of the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

We've got $4,000 left to go to meet our NEA matching grant -- we're so close!

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:21:00 GMT

Dear Friends -- I'll keep this brief... We are in the final phases of editing our new book, "War is Only Half the Story, Vol Four" -- featuring Danny Wilcox Frazier's incredibly strong work about the aftermath of Wounded Knee; Monika Bulaj's beautiful work from Afghanistan; and the wonderful work of our finalists, Jessica Hines, Helena Schaetzle, and Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko. We want to get this book to the printer by the end of the month so that we can mail it out in December. But we are $4,000 short of meeting our $!5,000 matching grant from the NEA to publish this book. Any help you can give us will be greatly appreciated. You can donate via Paypal on our website: <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a> Or you can buy one of the prints featured in our fundraising brochure, which is attached here. This has been a big year for us -- we've given out more than $100,000 in grants to photographers who are working on projects about the aftermath of war. We continue to do our work on an absolute shoestring, and we need your help to get this year's book out in to the world. It's one of the most important outcomes of what we do -- funding work isn't enough. It has to be seen. Free copies of our book are sent to every US senator, peacebuilding and journalism programs, museum curators, educators and editors. Many thanks to those of you who've already donated, and to our publishing partners -- the NEA, the Foundation to Promote Open Society and Photo Wings. And a sincer thanks in advance to those of you who are in a position to help. Kind regards, Sara Terry Director/Founder

Winner of the special grant for conflict photographers and of the special honorarium for fixers/translators

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:02:00 GMT

Dear friends and colleagues – I’m pleased to announce that Eros Hoagland has won the special $20,000 grant for conflict photographers, which we offered this year, in response to the deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros. The special $5,000 honorarium for a fixer/translator has been awarded to an Iraqi citizen who worked closely with photographer Andrea Bruce and many other Western journalists during the war in Iraq. For his personal security, as he and his family prepare to emigrate to the United States, we are not disclosing his name at this time. When we announced the grant earlier this year, which invited conflict photographers to reflect on the aftermath in their own lives of covering conflict, we weren’t sure what kind of responses we would get – whether any conflict photographers would be willing, or ready, to consider taking on such a personal project. But as an organization committed to creating conversations about the aftermath of conflict – in its many dimensions – we felt the time was right to offer the grant. So it was particularly gratifying to receive many thoughtful, candid proposals. Our judges were photographers Ashley Gilbertson, Danny Wilcox Frazier, and myself; photo editor Maryanne Golon; and Denise Wolff, an editor at Aperture. We were all overwhelmed by the honesty and articulateness of so many of the applications – we could easily have funded five strong proposals on this subject, if we had had the funding. Hoagland’s project, “The Green Room,” stood out for his candid discussion of several themes, including emotional disconnect; the consequences of being the son of a war photographer, John Hoagland, who was killed in El Salvador at the age of 34; the impact that choices made by war photographers have on loved ones; the mythology of war photographers; and the desire to foster a public conversation on war, photography, PTDS and our understanding of these topics. We look forward to seeing his project unfold. Applications for the honorarium for a fixer or translator who has worked with a conflict photographer were judged by photographer Elizabeth Rappaport, who generously offered to fund the honorarium, and myself. When our winner's personal security is no longer an issue, we will publish his name, and the story he will tell with the honorarium. We also greatly look forward to sharing his story. Although this grant and honorarium were offered as a special, one-time cycle, the response to the call for applications – and the quality of the proposals – convinced us that this is a grant that should be offered again, as part of our conversation about the fact that, as we often say, “War is only half the story.” If we are able to raise the funds next year, we will do just that. In the meantime, my deepest thanks go to Joan Morgenstern, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Chris Meledandri, Martha Kellner, Betsy Karel and Neal Baer for so generously responding to my emails last March, asking for their support in funding this grant. Their response was unhesitating and generous, and the fact that this grant exists is due entirely to them. With your support, we look forward to continuing our work of broadening the public’s understanding of the true cost of war and the real price of peace. The deadline for applications for our regular $20,000 grant cycle is November 1st. Thank you all for everything you are doing – Kind regards, Sara Terry Founder/Director, The Aftermath Project PS This announcement is attached here as a PDF file

A few words about the special grant cycle for conflict photographers

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:08:00 GMT

Dear All -- I just wanted to send a brief note about this special grant cycle, which has an upcoming deadline of Oct 1. For application details, please go to the homepage of our website, <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a>, and download the application there. There are a few things I want to clarify as the deadline approaches: <ol> <li>If you are applying for the grant, please consider this question as you frame your proposal:</li></ol> Because this grant asks conflict photographers to consider the aftermath in their own lives of covering conflict, what aspect of your own experience do you think will emerge, or guide you, in working on this project if you win the grant?? 2. When this special $20,000 grant was first announced, it became the catalyst for a spirited conversation in the blogosphere, in which this grant opportunity was characterized as a grant for war photographers to do a story about their own suffering -- with the criticism that the grant adds to the "glorification" of war photographers in the media and that more important stories about the people who suffer through conflict go untold. That is not what this grant is for. As a non-profit that has given more than $200,000 in the past five years to help photographers cover stories about the aftermath of conflict often ignored by the mainstream media, we felt that events this past year -- and the loss of our colleagues Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros -- gave us the opportunity to reach out to photographers we don't usually reach out to, those who cover conflict. With this grant proposal, we are hoping to extend the conversation about aftermath issues that we have been committed to for several years, by looking at aftermath through the eyes of conflict photographers. We've received several thoughtful proposals in response to this grant cycle so far, and we look forward to receiving more in the next two weeks. As noted in the application form on our website, we are also offering a $5,000 honorarium to a fixer or translator who has worked with a conflict photographer, and has an aftermath story to tell. Thank you

We need your help to reach our NEA matching grant total!

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:43:00 GMT

Dear Friends and Colleagues -- Many thanks to those of you who responded to our first email about raising funds to meet our $15,000 NEA matching grant. Thanks to your support, I'm happy to say we are a third of the way towards reaching our goal. Our annual book is our single most important outreach to policy makers, educators and the public. It's also what sets aside from virtually every other photography grant program. We don't just fund work -- we make sure it becomes part of an important dialogue about the true cost of war and the real price of peace. We very much need your help -- either as a cash donation or through the purchase of one of the prints included in the brochure attached here. This is the only fundraiser we do each year -- and your support is critical. The NEA grant -- and your contributions -- are what will make publication of this year's book "War is Only Half the Story, Vol Four" possible. The book will feature truly stunning work from our 2010 grant winners Danny Wilcox Frazier ("Surviving Wounded Knee") and Monika Bulaj ("Afghanistan: Not the War Only). It also includes the work of our very strong finalists: Jessica Hines ("My Brother's War"); Helena Schaetzle ("9,645 kilometers of memory"); and Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko ("Grozny: 9 Cities"). We plan to get the book to the printers by October 15th, but we can't do that until we have all of our funds in hand. Please contact me directly to purchase one of the prints, at <a href="mailto:sara@theaftermathproject.org">sara@theaftermathproject.org</a>. To make a tax-deductible donation, please make checks payable to: The Aftermath Project, and send them to: The Aftermath Project 4900 Glenalbyn Dr. Los Angeles, CA 90065 You can also find this brochure and donation information on the home page of our website, <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a> Many thanks for being part of this critically important conversation. Kind regards, Sara Terry Director/Founder, The Aftermath Project

2012 Grant Application

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:02:00 GMT

24 August 2011 Dear Friends and Colleagues: I’m happy to announce that submissions for the 2012 grant cycle are now open. Thanks to the ongoing generous support of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, we will be giving one $20,000 grant, as well as naming four finalists. The work of our grant winner and finalists will be published in “War is Only Half the Story, Vol Six.” This has been an incredibly full year – we are giving out more than $100,000 in grants, including our regular grant cycle; our special, one-time $20,000 grant cycle for conflict photographers plus a $5,000 honorarium for a fixer/translator; and $60,000 in grants made possible by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation for coverage of the Sahrawi people. The Sahrawi cycle is now closed, but the conflict photographer’s grant and fixer honorarium is still open with a deadline of Oct 1, 2011. The deadline for the 2012 regular Aftermath Project grant is November 1, 2011. Please see the following pages for more information on how to file (we’re doing it online this year). I also wanted to add a few thoughts here about aftermath issues. It’s been such a privilege to be able to curate this conversation for several years now – and so wonderful to receive your applications, which show so many diverse and committed ways of looking at the aftermath of conflict. But there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the years: almost all the proposals we have received (with a few exceptions) have been about the dangers of post-conflict situations, full of (warranted) concerns about often depressing conditions. Those are important projects, and I’m proud that we have recognized many of them. But as we enter our sixth year of granting, I would like to add another note to the conversation. For me, from the beginning, covering the aftermath of conflict has also always included an interest in better understanding the human spirit in conditions such as these – I remember being absolutely confounded by the Bosnian Muslims I met who were determined to go back to the homes from which Bosnian Serb neighbors had chased them away (and worse) during the war. I wanted to try to understand where that spirit comes from, how it survives, and perhaps why it offers hope that humanity can rise again despite the most hateful of conflicts. Please don’t think I’m in any way telling you what you should be proposing this year; I’m just taking advantage of the fact that as the founder of the Aftermath Project, I can occasionally add some ideas to the conversation we’ve all been having. Thank you for letting me share them. I look forward to seeing your proposals this year –and as always, we welcome projects that are outside the box. Kind regards, Sara Terry Founder/Director, The Aftermath Project PLEASE NOTE: THIS LETTER AND THE APPLICATION FORM ARE ATTACHED AS A PDF FILE TO THIS NEWSLETTER. THE PDF FILE WILL ALSO BE AVAILABLE ONLINE SOON AT WWW.THEAFTERMATHPROJECT.ORG

Volume Four Fundraiser -- Our Annual Print Sale

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:20:00 GMT

Dear All -- It's that time of year at the Aftermath Project -- we've received another matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to help us publish our annual book. We need to raise $15,000 to match that grant -- and once again, we've got a wonderful selection of prints from our 2010 grant winners and finalists, who will be featured in "War is Only Half the Story, Vol Four" (as well as a few additional special offers). Attached, please find a PDF of the images for sale; we'll also be posting it on our website soon. We've already started working on the book's design, and are planning to send it to the printers in early October. Please consider purchasing a print -- or making a tax-deductible donation. The book is one of our most important outreach efforts -- it's sent for free each year to every US senator, peacebuilding programs, journalism schools, museum curators and many others. This year, I'm happy to announce we'll also be doing an iPad version of the book -- thanks to a generous grant from Photo Wings. We're planning to have that available in the iPad store sometime in October as well. For those of you who are interested, our 2012 grant application will be online at our website, sometime in mid-August. Once again, thanks to the support of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, we'll be offering a $20,000 grant. Thank you all for your support of the Aftermath Project. This has truly been an amazing year for us. We are giving $100,000 in grants this year to support important aftermath stories -- including our regular grant; our special grant for conflict photographers (application now available on our home page); and our special Sahrawi grant cycle made possible by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation (our four grant winners are set to begin their work this fall). Warm regards, Sara Terry Director/Founder, The Aftermath Project

For conflict photographers -- a special grant from the Aftermath Project

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 05:26:00 GMT

NOTE: This letter, and the application form for the grant, are attached here in a PDF file, and can also be downloaded from the homepage of our website, <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a> Dear friends – I’m writing with news of a special grant cycle that’s a bit of a departure for the Aftermath Project – a grant that is open only to conflict photographers. As many of you know, the Aftermath Project was created to help photographers cover the aftermath of conflict, and was founded on the understanding that war is only half the story. But for quite some time I’ve been thinking about how the Aftermath Project could engage more meaningfully with conflict photographers – who, after all, are the ones telling the first half of the story. When Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed, I found myself listening to the conversations and reading the postings that poured out from photographers and colleagues about the incredible sense of loss we all felt, and also about the many costs of covering conflict. It occurred to me that it might be the right time to offer a grant for conflict photographers who wanted to engage in a conversation about aftermath. It is a testament to how deeply moved people were by the loss of Tim and Chris that I was able to raise $16,000 in the first 72 hours after I asked a handful of people to support this grant, people who had never even met Tim and Chris. Another $4,000 quickly followed, bringing the total to $20,000. And so we are able to offer this year-long grant to conflict photographers who want to pursue a project about the aftermath in their own lives of covering conflict. The subject can be approached in any way – portraits, landscapes, reportage, collaboration with a family of someone who has been killed, anything that explores the personal aftermath of covering war, whether that be PTSD, the aftermath of sexual assault, the aftermath of being wounded. This is a very open and fluid call for proposals on this subject, and we welcome any and all approaches. We are very interested in supporting a dialogue about this kind of aftermath – both for the photographer who wins the grant, and for the broader audience who we hope will engage with the work when the grant winner’s year is finished. I’m also very pleased to announce a special $5,000 honorarium for a fixer or translator, who has worked with a conflict photographer, and who wants to tell a story (written or visual) about their own aftermath experience. Although the Aftermath Project’s mission is to give grants to photographers, we agree with many people in the photo community who have strongly voiced their concerns about the lack of attention paid to the great costs paid by fixers and translators, whose own lives – and all too often deaths – go unnoticed and uncared for. Thanks to the commitment of one donor – a photographer – we are able to offer this modest honorarium in the hope that it will help spur further action by others. One important note: if a conflict photographer AND a fixer/translator wish to apply together, they will be eligible for the combined sums of $25,000. The application requirements are very simple. Please see the application form on the next page. I also want to thank and acknowledge the generous support of the individuals who have made this possible: Grant donors: Joan Morgenstern, Martha Kellner, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Chris Meledandri, Betsy Karel and Neal Baer. Honorarium donor: Elizabeth Rappaport. Special thanks, too, to our friends at LOOK3 -- where we first announced this grant earlier this month. With warm regards, Sara Terry, Director/Founder

Winners of the special Sahrawi grant cycle announced

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:33:00 GMT

Dear Friends, It's a pleasure to tell you that we have selected four very strong applicants as winners of our special grant cycle of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. This grant was made possible by a generous donation of $65,000 from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. (Press release attached). CHRISTIAN TASSO (Italy) for his proposal, "Nothing and So Be It," about the life of Sahrawis in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, who have been cut off from their families on the other side of the wall for the past 30 years. STEPHEN FERRY (US) for his proposal, "The Desert Wind: Cultural Resistance of the Sahrawi People," about the resiliency of the Sahrawi people in maintaining their strong cultural heritage in the face of efforts to destroy it. SIMONA GHIZZONI (Italy) for her proposal, "The Desert Belongs to Woman," about the many ways in which Sahrawi women play a central role in this atypical and advanced Muslim society. She will work in both the occupied territories of Western Sahara and the refugee camps in Algeria. ARTHUR CONRAD KISITU (Uganda) is the winner of the grant set aside for an African photographer living and working on the continent. He will document the daily life of the Sahrawi people providing a general overview of their story and living conditions. Arthur will also be mentored by Stephen Ferry and Sara Terry, as part of special outreach designed to support this grant and grant winner. Although we did not name finalists for this special grant cycle, we do want to acknowledge the excellent work and proposals of these photographers, who all made it to the final round of consideration: JAVIER ARCENILLAS, VERONIQUE DEVIGUERIE, PETER DICAMPO, ARNAU BLANCH, NADIA BENCHALLAL, DANA ROMANOFF, PIERGIORGIO CASOTTI, ALONSO GIL, LISA WILTSE, KAREN MIRZOYAN, ALINKA ECHEVERRIA, ALFREDO BINI, ARNAU ORIOL, BRUNO ZANZOTTERA, ELISABETTA ZAVOLI, AND HUGUES DE WURSTEMBERGER. A total of 101 applications were received from photographers around the world. The first round of judging was done in Los Angeles by Lesley Meyer of the Annenberg Space for Photography and Sara Terry, director/founder of The Aftermath Project. A group of 55 applicants was forwarded to the second (and final) round of judging, which took place in New York, on April 6. The judges were Stephen Mayes, director of VII; Denise Wolff, editor, Aperture; and Sara Terry. Megan Quitkin, senior vice-president of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation joined the judging as a guest. Our regular grant cycle begins again in August, when the application for our 2012 grant will be posted online at our website: <a href="http://www.theaftermathproject.org">http://www.theaftermathproject.org</a>. Many thanks to all of you who helped spread the word about this grant, and the important story of the Sahrawi people. Kind regards, Sara Terry Director/Founder, The Aftermath Project

Exhibition Opportunity at Open Society Institute

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:41:00 GMT

Dear All -- I wanted to alert you to the upcoming deadline for the next "Moving Walls" exhibition at Open Society in New York. It's open to photographers world-wide, and it's a really wonderful venue for showing work -- they also curate important and interesting shows. The full guidelines are here: <a href="http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/focus_areas/mw/guidelines">http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/focus_areas/mw/guidelines</a> and work from the current Moving Walls is here: <a href="http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/movingwalls">http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/movingwalls</a>. On a different note, the deadline for our special Sahrawi grant cycle, funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, has passed. We will be doing the judging within the next week or so, and plan to announce the grant winners by mid-April. Best wishes to you in your work, wherever you are in the world, Kind regards, Sara Terry Founder/Director, The Aftermath Project