Carla Kogelman, Netherlands
It almost seems as if Carla Kogelman had a subscription to the Global Peace Photo Award. After 2015 and 2017, we now honour her for the third time. She has also won other prestigious awards, for instance the World Press Photo Award, twice. But what can we do? She simply is masterful in her black-and-white photography, which she uses to bring us close to intense, moving scenes from often quite mundane social situations. As you view them, you gain confidence and become inclined to believe in people’s inherent goodness.
Since 2015, Stichting De Buurtcamping Utrecht has been working as a city-wide community on social cohesion in various neighbourhoods within Utrecht. Local residents organise De Buurtcamping in their own parks with organisations and entrepreneurs. There is active cooperation for more than 10 months before and after the camping weekend. Through this collaboration, the meeting and spending the night in your own park, you get to know and appreciate each other and the neighbourhood better.
The neighbourhood campsite believes in the power of encounters. Encounters can broaden or change your view of the world. You become more involved with each other and the world around you. They provide inspiration, good examples, self-confidence, a feeling of home in the neighbourhood, collaborations, friendships & relationships. Encounters make your world smaller and bigger at the same time. And sometimes they give a different view of the world.
One of the locations is the Majella Park in the Lombok district. The Lombok district is within walking distance of Central Station and is the multicultural heart of Utrecht. The Kanaalstraat and its side streets are full of shops overflowing with exotic specialities, trinkets and delicacies, and have been loved by many Utrecht residents for years. The weekend of the neighbourhood campsite took place here from 8 to 10 July 2022. For the first time again because during corona the permits were withdrawn. The neighbourhood campsite works with (voluntary) campsite managers. (Laudatio by Peter-Matthias Gaede)