(THE HAGUE) A photo of crosses on which little girls’ dresses hang, erected near a Canadian “boarding school” where the remains of some 215 indigenous children were found last year, won the World Press Photo of the year 2022.
Posted at 9:30 a.m.
The snap captured by Edmonton-based documentary photographer Amber Bracken was “a quiet moment of reflection […] about the history of colonization not only in Canada, but around the world,” said juror Rena Effendi.
To the right of the photo, published by the New York Timesred and ocher little girls’ dresses hang from crosses beside a highway in Kamloops, a small town in British Columbia.
On the left, a rainbow ends its curve near the place where the mass grave was discovered, the seat of a so-called boarding school, created a century ago to forcibly assimilate the indigenous population.
This image “inspires a kind of sensory reaction,” said a juror.
This mass grave was the first in a series to be discovered, forcing Canadians to confront their colonial past. Numerous investigations into these former residential schools are ongoing across the country.
“I don’t feel like it’s a photo that could belong to me,” Ms.me Bracken, 38 years old. “It was a representation of something that was created by the community to honor and remember their lost children,” she explained.
Authorities estimate that more than 4,000 children may be missing.
Other award-winning photographs this year also hailed the spotlight on indigenous communities around the world.
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Australian documentary filmmaker Matthew Abbott won the top prize in the Story of the Year category with a series of images showing how the native Nawarddeken people of remote Arnhem Land used fire as an effective tool for managing land against climate change.
Through a practice called ‘cold burning’, natives light small braziers in the cool season, burning highly flammable undergrowth and bushland, helping to prevent forest fires — which have devastated affected Australia by an increase in heat waves.
“It has been done for tens of thousands of years,” Mr Abbott told AFP, “but now, with climate change so rapid, these practices are being fully tested.”
The winners each receive a reward of 6,000 euros ($8,240) and their work will be exhibited from April 15 in Amsterdam before being shown around the world.