Photo of a children's mass grave in Canada

Photo of a children’s mass grave in Canada

Posted On: September 14, 2022

Amber Bracken excellent

“World Press Photo” 2022: A memorial for children who died in Canada

According to the jury, the photo remains etched in your memory: the winner of this year’s “World Press Photo” contest, Amber Bracken, pays tribute to more than 200 indigenous children whose graves have been discovered in Canada with her photo “Kamloops Residential school”.

Amsterdam. Red robes hang from wayside crosses to commemorate the deaths of Indigenous children in Canada: The discovery of a mass grave of 215 children in the city of Kamloops in the summer of 2021 has won the global competition “World Press Photo “. It comes from the Canadian Amber Bracken, as announced by the jury Thursday in Amsterdam. There were 65,000 images from over 4,000 photographers from 130 countries to choose from. Konstantinos Tsakalidis took the best photo in Europe for Bloomberg News. It shows the huge forest fires on the Greek island of Evia in the summer of 2021.

Learn more after the announcement

The winning Canadian photo, published in The New York Times, shows crosses under a dark sky with storm clouds and a rainbow. “It’s a photo that will remain etched in your memory,” said the president of the jury, Rena Effendi. “I could almost hear the silence in this photo, a silent moment of holistic consideration of the history of colonization, not just in Canada but around the world.” The discovery of the mass grave had deeply shaken Canada. For decades, Indigenous children were forcibly placed in residential schools to be re-educated.

Award-winning photos from Australia and Brazil

The jury awarded photos in different categories. Australian Matthew Abbott won the prize for best photo essay: a series about an ancient Australian Aboriginal tradition of burning land in a controlled manner to prevent uncontrolled bushfires. In the long-term projects category, Lalo de Almeida from Brazil won with a series on the endangered rainforest in the Amazon. Photographer Isadora Romero from Ecuador was awarded for her photos on the consequences of forced migration.

Learn more after the announcement

This year, for the first time, the winners were selected according to new rules: Firstly, prizes were awarded for six regions. From this selection, the global winners were chosen.

RND/dpa