Winners of the Alfred Fried Photography Award 2014
Bison
Once in America a war was waged against an animal. It was a gigantic slaughter. The aim was to transform bison into money. As a positive side effect the livelihood of the Prairie Indians was destroyed. They should make room for the white settlers, farmers and ranchers, cows and cowboys. Never before in history had humans killed so many animals within such a short space of time. Millions. In 1902 only twenty-three wild bison in the United States were left. The bison played a key role in the complex ecological system of the prairie. Its disappearance was fatal. The prairie vanished in the wake of the bison’s extinction. The cattle of the ranchers stripped the soil bare, the farmers ploughed the grass to gain farmland. Serious erosion of the soil began. In the 1930s, parts of the Great Plains turned to dust, which was carried by storms all the way to New York. It was the time of the Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties. Crops were destroyed, droughts caused people to move away. Tens of thousands of settlers left the land which had been rendered worthless. Today the bison returns. The hope: If hundreds of thousands of bison were free to roam the Plains again, the land would also recover, in ecological, economic, and social terms. The bison is a symbol for us: There must be places out there where such archaic creatures may live freely. This is vital. Only a world in which this is possible is a world worth living in. This is what the bison stands for. Our photographs should be understood in this sense. The images were made in the heart of the bison country, in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.
Once in America a war was waged against an animal. It was a gigantic slaughter. The aim was to transform bison into money. As a positive side effect the livelihood of the Prairie Indians was destroyed. They should make room for the white settlers, farmers and ranchers, cows and cowboys. Never before in history had humans killed so many animals within such a short space of time. Millions. In 1902 only twenty-three wild bison in the United States were left. The bison played a key role in the complex ecological system of the prairie. Its disappearance was fatal. The prairie vanished in the wake of the bison’s extinction. The cattle of the ranchers stripped the soil bare, the farmers ploughed the grass to gain farmland. Serious erosion of the soil began. In the 1930s, parts of the Great Plains turned to dust, which was carried by storms all the way to New York. It was the time of the Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties. Crops were destroyed, droughts caused people to move away. Tens of thousands of settlers left the land which had been rendered worthless. Today the bison returns. The hope: If hundreds of thousands of bison were free to roam the Plains again, the land would also recover, in ecological, economic, and social terms. The bison is a symbol for us: There must be places out there where such archaic creatures may live freely. This is vital. Only a world in which this is possible is a world worth living in. This is what the bison stands for. Our photographs should be understood in this sense. The images were made in the heart of the bison country, in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.
