The Alfred Fried Photography Award Gala 2014
Welcome address by Doris Bures, Speaker of the Austrian National Council (in german)
Address by Alison Bethel McKenzie, Executive director, International Press Institute
Address by Eric Falt, Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Information, UNESCO
Photos from the award ceremony
Welcome address by Doris Bures, Speaker of the Austrian National Council
Sehr geehrte Herr Vize-Generaldirektor der UNESCO, Herr Eric Falt!
Sehr geehrte Generaldirektorin des International Press Institute, Frau Alison Bethel McKenzie!
Sehr geehrter Herr Lois Lammerhuber!
Sehr geehrter Präsident der Photographischen Gesellschaft, Herr Werner Sobotka!
Liebe Jurymitglieder,
liebe Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger!
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich begrüße Sie sehr herzlich zu einem Premierenabend:
Zum ersten Mal wird hier im Parlament der „Alfred Fried Photography Award“ überreicht.
Und zugleich ist es auch für mich die erste offizielle Veranstaltung, zu der ich Sie hier im Haus als Präsidentin begrüßen darf.
Es war meine Vorgängerin Barbara Prammer, die entschieden hat, diesen internationalen Fotowettbewerb in die Räumlichkeiten des Parlaments zu holen
UND
Es war eine gute und richtige Entscheidung, für die ich dankbar bin.
Denn Friede, Demokratie und Parlamentarismus bedingen einander und sind untrennbar miteinander verbunden.
Nur in einer demokratisch organisierten, gleichberechtigten und solidarischen Gesellschaft kann es anhaltenden Frieden geben.
Deshalb ist ein Award, der sich mit Frieden auseinandersetzt, im Parlament, im Zentrum der Demokratie sehr gut platziert.
Das Parlament muss bei aller Widersprüchlichkeit der Weltanschauungen und Meinungen, die hier aufeinanderprallen, ein Ort der Verständigung, der Kompromisssuche, des Ausgleichs – letztlich ein Friedensort sein. Es ist somit nur logisch, dass das Siegerbild im Parlament hängen wird.
Die Menschen, die hier Politik machen, die Menschen die hier arbeiten oder die die zu Besuch kommen, werden durch das Siegerbild auf das hohe Gut "Frieden" hingewiesen.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
"Frieden ist nicht alles, aber ohne Frieden ist alles nichts" –
so hat es Willy Brandt zu Zeiten des Kalten Kriegs formuliert, als Ost und West keine andere Antwort auf politische Spannungen fanden als die massive nukleare Aufrüstung.
Die damals drohende atomare Eskalation war es auch, die mich über die österreichische Friedensbewegung in die Politik geführt hat.
Am Beginn meines politischen Engagements stand die Organisation der großen Friedensdemonstration im Jahr 1981.
Kalter Krieg und Eiserner Vorhang – sie sind mittlerweile so lange Geschichte, dass sie
die ganz jungen Erwachsene nur mehr aus Erzählungen oder aus den Geschichtsbüchern und nicht mehr aus eigenem Erleben kennen.
Das 20. Jahrhundert war durch extreme Verwerfungen gekennzeichnet.
Das Jahr 2014 nehmen wir zum Anlass, um uns diese kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen,
seine Ursachen und seine grauenvollen Folgen in Erinnerung zu rufen und bewusst zu machen.
Aber auch heute herrscht Krieg. Auf vielen Orten dieser Welt. Egal ob wir nach Syrien, nach Gaza, in den Irak oder die Ukraine blicken – für sehr viele Menschen ist Krieg auch heute eine tägliche Bedrohung.
Für sehr viele Menschen ist Frieden auch heute nur ein brennender Wunsch.
Auszeichnungen wie die heutige sind eine wichtige Stimme für den Frieden.
Und damit eine Stimme gegen Fanatismus, gegen übersteigerten Nationalismus, gegen Rassismus,
gegen Antisemitismus, gegen die Eskalation von Konflikten und die Missachtung der Freiheit!
Einen besseren Namenspatron als Alfred Fried hätte es für diesen Award nicht geben können.
Dieser bedeutende österreichische Pazifist, Schriftsteller und Friedensnobelpreisträger wird durch diesen Preis verdienterweise neuerlich in unser Gedächtnis gerufen.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich danke den Partnern, die diesen Bewerb gemeinsam mit dem Österreichischen Parlament ausrichten: der UNESCO, dem International Press Institute, der Photographischen Gesellschaft, der Vereinigung der Parlamentsredakteurinnen und –redakteure sowie der Edition Lammerhuber.
Sie alle tragen gemeinsam dazu bei, dass 100 Jahre nach Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges von Österreich aus eine klare, unmissverständliche Friedensbotschaft in die Welt hinaus getragen wird.
Persönlich danken möchte ich Herrn Lois Lammerhuber.
Von ihm stammt nicht nur die großartige Idee zu diesem Wettbewerb.
Er hat diese Idee mit viel Engagement und mit hohem Fachwissen und
mit Sinn für die gesellschaftspolitische Bedeutung der Fotografie in die Tat umgesetzt.
Mein Respekt gilt nicht zuletzt den Mitgliedern der Jury.
Sie hat die von 1.549 Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern eingereichten 5.271 Fotografien gesichtet und bewertet haben – eine wahre Herkulesaufgabe, die nicht nur ein hohes Maß an Expertise, sondern auch viel Zeit und Energie erfordert.
Ich denke, es ist gelungen, aus der Vielzahl an Einreichungen eine Shortlist zu erstellen, die der Intention dieses Wettbewerbs und dem hohen Niveau, das die Organisatoren selbst definiert haben, gerecht wird.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich wage zu mutmaßen:
Uns alle – die heute gekommen sind um dem Friedenbilds des Jahres 2014 zu applaudieren, eint eine große Friedenssehsucht.
Aber: Die generelle, von allen Menschen dieser Welt gleichermaßen geteilte Friedenssehnsucht ist nach wie vor Utopie.
Wir wissen es aus der Geschichte zur Genüge - und wie bereits erwähnt - erleben wir es derzeit eindringlich und in nächster Nähe:
Es gibt auch jene die nicht auf ein friedliches Zusammenleben aus sind, die den Konflikt suchen und von ihm profitieren.
Umso mehr kommt es darauf an, der großen friedliebenden Mehrheit immer und immer wieder eine Stimme zu geben.
Der „Alfred Fried Photography Award“ ist eine solche Stimme, zudem eine überaus starke.
Denn auch wenn es ein wenig überstrapaziert klingt: Bilder sagen mehr, als noch so viele Worte.
Ich wünsche dem Award eine gute Entwicklung, freue mich auf eine lang anhaltende Kooperation und gratuliere schon jetzt den Gewinnerinnen und Gewinnern 2014.
Address by Alison Bethel McKenzie, Executive director, International Press Institute
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for joining us here for this very important event to honor our very talented and courageous colleagues, winners of this year’s Alfred Fried Photography Award.
I wish that I could stand here before you today with good news. Sadly, I cannot.
In the first eight months of 2014 … 70 journalists have been killed because of their work. It is 70 too many.
Last year, 119 journalists lost their lives because of their work, and now in 2014, we’re well on our way towards a similarly grim toll.
For the moment, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Journalists continue to systematically lose their lives to conflict, militants, paid thugs, governments, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous security officers and others. Or they are viciously assaulted, tortured, terrorized, locked up after arbitrary arrests and unfair trials, monitored, harassed, intimidated and proverbially suffocated.
Many of the attacks on journalists and photographers in recent years have come as the result of working in hostile environments and war zones. Note that in 2013, the top two deadliest places for journalists were Syria, with 16 journalists killed, and Iraq, with 13 journalists killed.
When IPI was founded 64 years ago, the editors, spurred to action by the challenges of a momentous epoch - in the shadow of two enormously destructive World Wars - embraced the belief that:
Understanding among journalists can promote greater understanding among peoples, in hopes of international peace and a dialogue among nations, where the rule of law and democracy thrive, where citizens have faith in the organs of state - including courts - the menace to a free press is, although ever-present, diminished.
It is, I think, fitting -- in the run-up to IPI’s 65th year of defending press freedom around a world characterised by challenges of comparably momentous import to those gravely acknowledged by IPI’s founders -- that we recall the words of founding IPI member Lester Merkel from The New York Times:
“There is a requirement on each of us … to advance the cause of journalism wherever it is practised. We should strive to correct the distortions and to dispel the fogs that cloud the relations among countries. We should do our utmost toward that end – for our own sakes … for the sakes of our nations … for the sake of the world. This is what IPI means for every editor.”
Let us be clear: The threat to peace and understanding among nations and peoples is today as great as it was upon IPI’s founding … and the threat to press freedom around the world is undiminished. But let me also say resoundingly that our belief in IPI’s ability to effect change is undimmed.
With an unwavering resolve and faith squarely at heart … IPI has defiantly continued throughout 2014 to defend press freedom around the world its mission illustrated by the words of French poet Voltaire: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”
It has been an arduous and somber task, underscoring again the degree to which the free press is imperilled. Progress in one area or region has been overshadowed by setbacks elsewhere.
Meanwhile, our colleagues continue to work to defend our right to know. Tonight we recognize photographers who, in the midst of this struggle, have also used their work to contribute to peace somewhere in the world.
Someone once said that peace “does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
Thank you.
Address by Eric Falt, Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Information, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you today. UNESCO is honoured to be one of the partners of the Alfred Fried Photography Award, which is based on many of our Organization’s own goals. The award is also a fitting celebration of the life of one of the world’s most ardent, early campaigners for peace and recognition of those who – through their art – continue to spread his important message.
I should also include here a tribute to the great work, that my good friend Lois Lammerhuber has conducted in the name of photography, using the power of the medium in the quest for a more peaceful, tolerant and open world. This is also at the heart of UNESCO’s mission.
As you know, this year’s competition set photographers a particular challenge, asking them “what does peace look like”.
If you start by looking up “peace” on Google Images, you will see that it is mostly illustrated through internationally recognized peace signs and symbols. There are almost no photographs coming up on the first pages on Google Images.
Certainly we all know what peace does NOT look like.
The iconic work of photographers like Robert Capa’s “Death of a Loyalist Soldier in Spain”, or Nik Ut’s “Children fleeing an American napalm strike” and Eddie Adams’ “Saigon execution” has left us with unforgettable images of the horrors of war.
Likewise, more recently, the haunting images of human deprivation and suffering in Kevin Carter’s photo of a Vulture stalking a child, or in Tom Stoddart’s photo of Man stealing maize from a starving child at a feeding centre in Aljiep, taken during the famines in South Sudan in the 1990s, show us that peace is not just the absence of war.
There may not be any bombs or dead bodies in these photos, but they bear witness to a terrifying social violence that can in no way be identified with peace.
So what does peace look like? And can photography contribute to building it?
Some clues may be found on the website of the Alfred Fried Award. Many of the entries do indeed indicate that peace is seen mainly in opposition to war. But not only.
For many years, peace was being able “to sleep the whole night through without a bomb scare”, wrote Peter Parenzan, who was born in 1939.
For Renate Steger, peace is “living one’s personal life being safe and secure enjoying the world and all other people with all their different lives – peace has many faces, peace has many sounds, peace has many looks”
Hannah Lessing wrote that, “The state of peace is something which we only know to value when we are on the verge of losing it.”
Ok. This is helpful. So how does that translate into photography?
Portraying peace should be simple enough. But after looking at the more than 5,000 entries received from fifteen hundred photographers, for all jury members it was absolutely clear that capturing Peace through a photo lens can take many forms.
The competition entries for 2014 reflect a myriad of images and approaches, from which you can conclude that peace is an intensely personal thing. That each of us has our own interpretation and understanding of peace; our own intimate way of living it, our own personal symbols and emotions to present it.
Some of these interpretations of peace are somewhat startling.
Of course, as in any other photo contest we received pictures from amateurs and professionals alike (and all are welcome), but from many of the early entries received, it could be concluded, for example, that most people’s idea of peace was their cat….
For others – probably enraptured and transported by the beauty of a special moment – it was a sunset, or a sleeping child.
Many people also seem to associate peace with religion and prayer. There were many photos representing Christianity, Islam, but most of all – Buddhism, which is overwhelmingly perceived as the religion of peace.
The entries also highlighted cultural differences in the vision of peace. One photographer, for example explained delightfully that peace, in his country, was “buffaloes eating leisurely in a rice field”.
But perhaps the photo that startled me most from this 2014 contest, was the one entitled “Peace is Freedom from Flies”, showing the silhouette of a woman swatting away an army of flies. You will ask, is this peace? Well, perhaps not for me. Perhaps not for you. But for the person who contributed this picture from India, that was peace! One of my Australian friends, who grew up in the bush, totally understood.
This seemingly absurd photo gave me considerable pause for thought. Because it showed just how personal the concept of peace is.
But there is obviously a bigger picture to capture. I would certainly argue that peace goes beyond calm or happiness; beyond love or religion. This bigger picture contains a message of peace that resonates for people everywhere, that promotes peace, not just a desirable state, but one that is necessary for the well-being of people and societies everywhere.
Capturing this image, in such a way as to make it a transcendental message, represents a real challenge.
For UNESCO, peace is living together with our differences – of sex, race, language, religion or culture – while furthering universal respect for justice and human rights on which such coexistence depends.
It means access to education, health and essential services — especially for girls and women. It means giving every young woman and man the chance to live as they choose.
This is what we are working towards, and I’m sure what you all aspire to. It’s perhaps idyllic and utopian. But it is also necessary for our continuing survival.
As war photography has contributed to the rise of anti-war movements; stripping away the trappings of glory that were once used to motivate armies and populations, so peace photography may be able to show us the benefits that peace can bring. Such is the power of the image.
Let’s go back to Nik Ut’s famous photo of the little girl fleeing a napalm attack in Viet Nam. That image, published in The New York Times after considerable editorial debate, shocked the world, and – some say – accelerated the end of the Viet Nam war.
The little girl, in the photo, Kim Phuc, is now a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and has spent her adult life spreading a message of peace: to communities, to students, to international forums…her remarkable story, and her simple faith in humanity and the power of peace has an extraordinary and inspiring effect on her audiences every time.
One photograph. One life transformed.
The notorious “trophy pictures” of torture at Abu Graib prison in Iraq in 2004 unleashed a torrent of criticism against military intervention in Iraq and led to a criminal investigation and global discussion on the place of torture in modern warfare.
These two pictures – and others like them - have changed the way people think and act, or have helped raise a voice of protest against violence, cruelty and injustice.
How about trying to harness that same power to show a troubled world what peace could and should look like? This is not about censorship, or manipulating information. It’s about portraying what we aspire to, showing that change is possible and what it can achieve. This is also what the Alfred Fried Award is striving for.
Peace photography could, among others, build upon war photography and peace journalism literature to document the transition from conflict to the creation of sustainable peace.
Peace photography's main purpose, in my opinion, is to highlight a more balanced world and societal view of understanding and collaboration - to record that which is usually unseen or not remembered through classic media representations of conflict and post-conflict.
Peace photography should emphasize positive interactions and cover the often forgotten story of the transition towards establishing and building peace.
The act of making photos is one way in which peace photography serves as an important instrument to encourage participation and expression. This form of expression is open to anyone, and overcomes barriers of language, literacy or age, while helping to produce an individual and collective visual goal of the future.
Peace photography’s main focus ought to be on cohesiveness, rather than division, and on the future, rather than the past. Through documentation and story-telling, it can be possible for individuals as well as the collective to create a new peaceful discourse.
This is why the work carried out in the context of the Alfred Fried award is so important. But it will take many partners – photographers, editors and especially photo editors – to make this change.
For its part, UNESCO is working with a number of journalism schools to broaden the vision of future reporters and photo-journalists, and provide them with the skills and analytical capacity to go beyond the immediate story of violence or conflict.
Our “Conflict Sensitive Reporting” course is now being taught in places like Rhodes University in South Africa and the University of Oregon in the United States, which is using it to develop other similar courses in other countries, such as Jordan.
The intention is to make reporting on conflict more insightful, more comprehensive and thus more influential; to write with a view to resolving a conflict rather than perpetuating it.
The Organization has similar programmes for media on education for sustainable development, which we believe is one of the pillars for peace. These programmes aim at rallying the support and power of the media to push and prod national governments and the international community to change the way we educate our children.
The goal is to equip young people for the challenges of living on a planet where the climate is changing, where natural resources are under increasing stress, and where extreme poverty and discrimination remains a reality for hundreds of millions ….all of which are potential fuel for conflict; all of which pose a threat for peace.
Photography, which is all about focusing peoples’ attention, and which is also a medium that young people relate to so well in this era of social media, is clearly a powerful tool for promoting these goals.
As Dorothea Lange once pointed out “While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”
****
In closing, I would like to congratulate this year’s winners for their remarkable work, which reflects an extraordinary range of situations, emotions, creativity that each, in their own way, tell a story of peace.
I encourage all of you to carry on with this wonderful effort and to try to spread the message to as many professional and amateur photographer colleagues as possible - that peace is not only a noble objective but also one that with a bit of imagination and originality may be easier to photograph and show than we normally would think.
I would also once again like to express my sincere gratitude, on behalf of UNESCO to Lois Lammerhuber, the Austrian Parliament and authorities and all other partners on the Award. It has been a pleasure to work together and we look forward to continuing together.
Thank you all for your attention.
Address by Alison Bethel McKenzie, Executive director, International Press Institute
Address by Eric Falt, Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Information, UNESCO
Photos from the award ceremony
Welcome address by Doris Bures, Speaker of the Austrian National Council
Sehr geehrte Herr Vize-Generaldirektor der UNESCO, Herr Eric Falt!
Sehr geehrte Generaldirektorin des International Press Institute, Frau Alison Bethel McKenzie!
Sehr geehrter Herr Lois Lammerhuber!
Sehr geehrter Präsident der Photographischen Gesellschaft, Herr Werner Sobotka!
Liebe Jurymitglieder,
liebe Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger!
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich begrüße Sie sehr herzlich zu einem Premierenabend:
Zum ersten Mal wird hier im Parlament der „Alfred Fried Photography Award“ überreicht.
Und zugleich ist es auch für mich die erste offizielle Veranstaltung, zu der ich Sie hier im Haus als Präsidentin begrüßen darf.
Es war meine Vorgängerin Barbara Prammer, die entschieden hat, diesen internationalen Fotowettbewerb in die Räumlichkeiten des Parlaments zu holen
UND
Es war eine gute und richtige Entscheidung, für die ich dankbar bin.
Denn Friede, Demokratie und Parlamentarismus bedingen einander und sind untrennbar miteinander verbunden.
Nur in einer demokratisch organisierten, gleichberechtigten und solidarischen Gesellschaft kann es anhaltenden Frieden geben.
Deshalb ist ein Award, der sich mit Frieden auseinandersetzt, im Parlament, im Zentrum der Demokratie sehr gut platziert.
Das Parlament muss bei aller Widersprüchlichkeit der Weltanschauungen und Meinungen, die hier aufeinanderprallen, ein Ort der Verständigung, der Kompromisssuche, des Ausgleichs – letztlich ein Friedensort sein. Es ist somit nur logisch, dass das Siegerbild im Parlament hängen wird.
Die Menschen, die hier Politik machen, die Menschen die hier arbeiten oder die die zu Besuch kommen, werden durch das Siegerbild auf das hohe Gut "Frieden" hingewiesen.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
"Frieden ist nicht alles, aber ohne Frieden ist alles nichts" –
so hat es Willy Brandt zu Zeiten des Kalten Kriegs formuliert, als Ost und West keine andere Antwort auf politische Spannungen fanden als die massive nukleare Aufrüstung.
Die damals drohende atomare Eskalation war es auch, die mich über die österreichische Friedensbewegung in die Politik geführt hat.
Am Beginn meines politischen Engagements stand die Organisation der großen Friedensdemonstration im Jahr 1981.
Kalter Krieg und Eiserner Vorhang – sie sind mittlerweile so lange Geschichte, dass sie
die ganz jungen Erwachsene nur mehr aus Erzählungen oder aus den Geschichtsbüchern und nicht mehr aus eigenem Erleben kennen.
Das 20. Jahrhundert war durch extreme Verwerfungen gekennzeichnet.
Das Jahr 2014 nehmen wir zum Anlass, um uns diese kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen,
seine Ursachen und seine grauenvollen Folgen in Erinnerung zu rufen und bewusst zu machen.
Aber auch heute herrscht Krieg. Auf vielen Orten dieser Welt. Egal ob wir nach Syrien, nach Gaza, in den Irak oder die Ukraine blicken – für sehr viele Menschen ist Krieg auch heute eine tägliche Bedrohung.
Für sehr viele Menschen ist Frieden auch heute nur ein brennender Wunsch.
Auszeichnungen wie die heutige sind eine wichtige Stimme für den Frieden.
Und damit eine Stimme gegen Fanatismus, gegen übersteigerten Nationalismus, gegen Rassismus,
gegen Antisemitismus, gegen die Eskalation von Konflikten und die Missachtung der Freiheit!
Einen besseren Namenspatron als Alfred Fried hätte es für diesen Award nicht geben können.
Dieser bedeutende österreichische Pazifist, Schriftsteller und Friedensnobelpreisträger wird durch diesen Preis verdienterweise neuerlich in unser Gedächtnis gerufen.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich danke den Partnern, die diesen Bewerb gemeinsam mit dem Österreichischen Parlament ausrichten: der UNESCO, dem International Press Institute, der Photographischen Gesellschaft, der Vereinigung der Parlamentsredakteurinnen und –redakteure sowie der Edition Lammerhuber.
Sie alle tragen gemeinsam dazu bei, dass 100 Jahre nach Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges von Österreich aus eine klare, unmissverständliche Friedensbotschaft in die Welt hinaus getragen wird.
Persönlich danken möchte ich Herrn Lois Lammerhuber.
Von ihm stammt nicht nur die großartige Idee zu diesem Wettbewerb.
Er hat diese Idee mit viel Engagement und mit hohem Fachwissen und
mit Sinn für die gesellschaftspolitische Bedeutung der Fotografie in die Tat umgesetzt.
Mein Respekt gilt nicht zuletzt den Mitgliedern der Jury.
Sie hat die von 1.549 Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern eingereichten 5.271 Fotografien gesichtet und bewertet haben – eine wahre Herkulesaufgabe, die nicht nur ein hohes Maß an Expertise, sondern auch viel Zeit und Energie erfordert.
Ich denke, es ist gelungen, aus der Vielzahl an Einreichungen eine Shortlist zu erstellen, die der Intention dieses Wettbewerbs und dem hohen Niveau, das die Organisatoren selbst definiert haben, gerecht wird.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Ich wage zu mutmaßen:
Uns alle – die heute gekommen sind um dem Friedenbilds des Jahres 2014 zu applaudieren, eint eine große Friedenssehsucht.
Aber: Die generelle, von allen Menschen dieser Welt gleichermaßen geteilte Friedenssehnsucht ist nach wie vor Utopie.
Wir wissen es aus der Geschichte zur Genüge - und wie bereits erwähnt - erleben wir es derzeit eindringlich und in nächster Nähe:
Es gibt auch jene die nicht auf ein friedliches Zusammenleben aus sind, die den Konflikt suchen und von ihm profitieren.
Umso mehr kommt es darauf an, der großen friedliebenden Mehrheit immer und immer wieder eine Stimme zu geben.
Der „Alfred Fried Photography Award“ ist eine solche Stimme, zudem eine überaus starke.
Denn auch wenn es ein wenig überstrapaziert klingt: Bilder sagen mehr, als noch so viele Worte.
Ich wünsche dem Award eine gute Entwicklung, freue mich auf eine lang anhaltende Kooperation und gratuliere schon jetzt den Gewinnerinnen und Gewinnern 2014.
Address by Alison Bethel McKenzie, Executive director, International Press Institute
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for joining us here for this very important event to honor our very talented and courageous colleagues, winners of this year’s Alfred Fried Photography Award.
I wish that I could stand here before you today with good news. Sadly, I cannot.
In the first eight months of 2014 … 70 journalists have been killed because of their work. It is 70 too many.
Last year, 119 journalists lost their lives because of their work, and now in 2014, we’re well on our way towards a similarly grim toll.
For the moment, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Journalists continue to systematically lose their lives to conflict, militants, paid thugs, governments, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous security officers and others. Or they are viciously assaulted, tortured, terrorized, locked up after arbitrary arrests and unfair trials, monitored, harassed, intimidated and proverbially suffocated.
Many of the attacks on journalists and photographers in recent years have come as the result of working in hostile environments and war zones. Note that in 2013, the top two deadliest places for journalists were Syria, with 16 journalists killed, and Iraq, with 13 journalists killed.
When IPI was founded 64 years ago, the editors, spurred to action by the challenges of a momentous epoch - in the shadow of two enormously destructive World Wars - embraced the belief that:
Understanding among journalists can promote greater understanding among peoples, in hopes of international peace and a dialogue among nations, where the rule of law and democracy thrive, where citizens have faith in the organs of state - including courts - the menace to a free press is, although ever-present, diminished.
It is, I think, fitting -- in the run-up to IPI’s 65th year of defending press freedom around a world characterised by challenges of comparably momentous import to those gravely acknowledged by IPI’s founders -- that we recall the words of founding IPI member Lester Merkel from The New York Times:
“There is a requirement on each of us … to advance the cause of journalism wherever it is practised. We should strive to correct the distortions and to dispel the fogs that cloud the relations among countries. We should do our utmost toward that end – for our own sakes … for the sakes of our nations … for the sake of the world. This is what IPI means for every editor.”
Let us be clear: The threat to peace and understanding among nations and peoples is today as great as it was upon IPI’s founding … and the threat to press freedom around the world is undiminished. But let me also say resoundingly that our belief in IPI’s ability to effect change is undimmed.
With an unwavering resolve and faith squarely at heart … IPI has defiantly continued throughout 2014 to defend press freedom around the world its mission illustrated by the words of French poet Voltaire: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”
It has been an arduous and somber task, underscoring again the degree to which the free press is imperilled. Progress in one area or region has been overshadowed by setbacks elsewhere.
Meanwhile, our colleagues continue to work to defend our right to know. Tonight we recognize photographers who, in the midst of this struggle, have also used their work to contribute to peace somewhere in the world.
Someone once said that peace “does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
Thank you.
Address by Eric Falt, Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Information, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Peace is Freedom from Flies
Mrs. Doris Bures, President of the Austrian National Council,Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you today. UNESCO is honoured to be one of the partners of the Alfred Fried Photography Award, which is based on many of our Organization’s own goals. The award is also a fitting celebration of the life of one of the world’s most ardent, early campaigners for peace and recognition of those who – through their art – continue to spread his important message.
I should also include here a tribute to the great work, that my good friend Lois Lammerhuber has conducted in the name of photography, using the power of the medium in the quest for a more peaceful, tolerant and open world. This is also at the heart of UNESCO’s mission.
As you know, this year’s competition set photographers a particular challenge, asking them “what does peace look like”.
If you start by looking up “peace” on Google Images, you will see that it is mostly illustrated through internationally recognized peace signs and symbols. There are almost no photographs coming up on the first pages on Google Images.
Certainly we all know what peace does NOT look like.
The iconic work of photographers like Robert Capa’s “Death of a Loyalist Soldier in Spain”, or Nik Ut’s “Children fleeing an American napalm strike” and Eddie Adams’ “Saigon execution” has left us with unforgettable images of the horrors of war.
Likewise, more recently, the haunting images of human deprivation and suffering in Kevin Carter’s photo of a Vulture stalking a child, or in Tom Stoddart’s photo of Man stealing maize from a starving child at a feeding centre in Aljiep, taken during the famines in South Sudan in the 1990s, show us that peace is not just the absence of war.
There may not be any bombs or dead bodies in these photos, but they bear witness to a terrifying social violence that can in no way be identified with peace.
So what does peace look like? And can photography contribute to building it?
Some clues may be found on the website of the Alfred Fried Award. Many of the entries do indeed indicate that peace is seen mainly in opposition to war. But not only.
For many years, peace was being able “to sleep the whole night through without a bomb scare”, wrote Peter Parenzan, who was born in 1939.
For Renate Steger, peace is “living one’s personal life being safe and secure enjoying the world and all other people with all their different lives – peace has many faces, peace has many sounds, peace has many looks”
Hannah Lessing wrote that, “The state of peace is something which we only know to value when we are on the verge of losing it.”
Ok. This is helpful. So how does that translate into photography?
Portraying peace should be simple enough. But after looking at the more than 5,000 entries received from fifteen hundred photographers, for all jury members it was absolutely clear that capturing Peace through a photo lens can take many forms.
The competition entries for 2014 reflect a myriad of images and approaches, from which you can conclude that peace is an intensely personal thing. That each of us has our own interpretation and understanding of peace; our own intimate way of living it, our own personal symbols and emotions to present it.
Some of these interpretations of peace are somewhat startling.
Of course, as in any other photo contest we received pictures from amateurs and professionals alike (and all are welcome), but from many of the early entries received, it could be concluded, for example, that most people’s idea of peace was their cat….
For others – probably enraptured and transported by the beauty of a special moment – it was a sunset, or a sleeping child.
Many people also seem to associate peace with religion and prayer. There were many photos representing Christianity, Islam, but most of all – Buddhism, which is overwhelmingly perceived as the religion of peace.
The entries also highlighted cultural differences in the vision of peace. One photographer, for example explained delightfully that peace, in his country, was “buffaloes eating leisurely in a rice field”.
But perhaps the photo that startled me most from this 2014 contest, was the one entitled “Peace is Freedom from Flies”, showing the silhouette of a woman swatting away an army of flies. You will ask, is this peace? Well, perhaps not for me. Perhaps not for you. But for the person who contributed this picture from India, that was peace! One of my Australian friends, who grew up in the bush, totally understood.
This seemingly absurd photo gave me considerable pause for thought. Because it showed just how personal the concept of peace is.
But there is obviously a bigger picture to capture. I would certainly argue that peace goes beyond calm or happiness; beyond love or religion. This bigger picture contains a message of peace that resonates for people everywhere, that promotes peace, not just a desirable state, but one that is necessary for the well-being of people and societies everywhere.
Capturing this image, in such a way as to make it a transcendental message, represents a real challenge.
For UNESCO, peace is living together with our differences – of sex, race, language, religion or culture – while furthering universal respect for justice and human rights on which such coexistence depends.
It means access to education, health and essential services — especially for girls and women. It means giving every young woman and man the chance to live as they choose.
This is what we are working towards, and I’m sure what you all aspire to. It’s perhaps idyllic and utopian. But it is also necessary for our continuing survival.
As war photography has contributed to the rise of anti-war movements; stripping away the trappings of glory that were once used to motivate armies and populations, so peace photography may be able to show us the benefits that peace can bring. Such is the power of the image.
Let’s go back to Nik Ut’s famous photo of the little girl fleeing a napalm attack in Viet Nam. That image, published in The New York Times after considerable editorial debate, shocked the world, and – some say – accelerated the end of the Viet Nam war.
The little girl, in the photo, Kim Phuc, is now a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and has spent her adult life spreading a message of peace: to communities, to students, to international forums…her remarkable story, and her simple faith in humanity and the power of peace has an extraordinary and inspiring effect on her audiences every time.
One photograph. One life transformed.
The notorious “trophy pictures” of torture at Abu Graib prison in Iraq in 2004 unleashed a torrent of criticism against military intervention in Iraq and led to a criminal investigation and global discussion on the place of torture in modern warfare.
These two pictures – and others like them - have changed the way people think and act, or have helped raise a voice of protest against violence, cruelty and injustice.
How about trying to harness that same power to show a troubled world what peace could and should look like? This is not about censorship, or manipulating information. It’s about portraying what we aspire to, showing that change is possible and what it can achieve. This is also what the Alfred Fried Award is striving for.
Peace photography could, among others, build upon war photography and peace journalism literature to document the transition from conflict to the creation of sustainable peace.
Peace photography's main purpose, in my opinion, is to highlight a more balanced world and societal view of understanding and collaboration - to record that which is usually unseen or not remembered through classic media representations of conflict and post-conflict.
Peace photography should emphasize positive interactions and cover the often forgotten story of the transition towards establishing and building peace.
The act of making photos is one way in which peace photography serves as an important instrument to encourage participation and expression. This form of expression is open to anyone, and overcomes barriers of language, literacy or age, while helping to produce an individual and collective visual goal of the future.
Peace photography’s main focus ought to be on cohesiveness, rather than division, and on the future, rather than the past. Through documentation and story-telling, it can be possible for individuals as well as the collective to create a new peaceful discourse.
This is why the work carried out in the context of the Alfred Fried award is so important. But it will take many partners – photographers, editors and especially photo editors – to make this change.
For its part, UNESCO is working with a number of journalism schools to broaden the vision of future reporters and photo-journalists, and provide them with the skills and analytical capacity to go beyond the immediate story of violence or conflict.
Our “Conflict Sensitive Reporting” course is now being taught in places like Rhodes University in South Africa and the University of Oregon in the United States, which is using it to develop other similar courses in other countries, such as Jordan.
The intention is to make reporting on conflict more insightful, more comprehensive and thus more influential; to write with a view to resolving a conflict rather than perpetuating it.
The Organization has similar programmes for media on education for sustainable development, which we believe is one of the pillars for peace. These programmes aim at rallying the support and power of the media to push and prod national governments and the international community to change the way we educate our children.
The goal is to equip young people for the challenges of living on a planet where the climate is changing, where natural resources are under increasing stress, and where extreme poverty and discrimination remains a reality for hundreds of millions ….all of which are potential fuel for conflict; all of which pose a threat for peace.
Photography, which is all about focusing peoples’ attention, and which is also a medium that young people relate to so well in this era of social media, is clearly a powerful tool for promoting these goals.
As Dorothea Lange once pointed out “While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”
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In closing, I would like to congratulate this year’s winners for their remarkable work, which reflects an extraordinary range of situations, emotions, creativity that each, in their own way, tell a story of peace.
I encourage all of you to carry on with this wonderful effort and to try to spread the message to as many professional and amateur photographer colleagues as possible - that peace is not only a noble objective but also one that with a bit of imagination and originality may be easier to photograph and show than we normally would think.
I would also once again like to express my sincere gratitude, on behalf of UNESCO to Lois Lammerhuber, the Austrian Parliament and authorities and all other partners on the Award. It has been a pleasure to work together and we look forward to continuing together.
Thank you all for your attention.