Project: The New Europeans

Summary: Goldberg’s winning Aftermath Project proposal is part of an ongoing body of work reflecting the seemingly insurmountable difficulties faced by refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and trafficked people, as well as their dreams for freedom and their indomitable will to survive post-conflict situations. The individuals he photographs come from across the globe – Iraq, Somalia, Ukraine, Albania, Russia, Poland, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Palestine, and elsewhere. His project exposes basic human rights issues: access to care, access to public services, legal rights, asylum, and perhaps most importantly, the continual quest to build and live within a life of dignity and grace.

Project: The Forgotten Island: narratives of war in Sierra Leone

Summary: Böwig’s project proposal is the story of Bonthe Island, a small island off the southeast corner of Sierra Leone, geographically sheltered and intact through most of the eleven-year war that raged in that country throughout the 1990s. In late 1997, soldiers from the Revolutionary United Front crossed over to the island and massacred a village of 1,200 people in a killing spree that lasted from dawn to dusk. The sole survivor was a five-year-old boy named Morie. Böwig’s project tells the political, social and human story of Sierra Leone’s conflict as seen through Morie’s eyes. “The Forgotten Island” is part of an ongoing body of work entitled “Kurosafrica.”