World Press Photo Exhibition | A self-directed goal

Winning the Oscar for photojournalism is no small feat. For World Press Photo’s Photo of the Year, a winner is selected from tens of thousands of photos submitted from around the world. But the most recent winner, Alberta’s Amber Bracken, isn’t in the mood to celebrate.

“Because of the content of my photo, it would be difficult to celebrate. The pain it represents is still raw for those who are grieving,” she says, looking up at an enlarged reproduction of the image that earned her top honors.

We see wooden crosses on which are suspended little dresses in shades of orange and red. These crosses are part of an installation that Aboriginal artist and activist Snutetkwe Manuel designed for the road leading to the former Kamloops Indian residential school. It was there that in May 2021, the graves of anonymous children were discovered for the first time.

On the photo of Amber Bracken, we see these crosses which represent the missing children, but also a stormy sky pierced by a rainbow. It’s all there: the horror, the pain, the anger, the redemption.

Amber Bracken, who did the photo for the New York Times, did not fall on the scene by chance. Between two assignments.

Since quitting her job at theEdmonton Sun in 2013 to focus entirely on his photojournalism projects, much of his work is devoted to documenting Indigenous struggles and everyday life. “My first personal project concerned a center for marginalized young people, where there were art and music workshops, but also social workers. I volunteered there. I quickly realized that 90% of the young people who attended the center were Aboriginal,” she says.

The photojournalist has also covered the great battles of the Canadian and American West, documenting the anti-oil and anti-gas pipeline demonstrations at the Standing Rock Native Reservation in North Dakota and on Wet’suwet’ territory. in, British Columbia.

Last November, she herself became the headline for one of the resistance actions she was covering. Along with a colleague, she was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and held for three days.

“We were held in cold cells. They took almost all of our clothes, we were denied access to a toothbrush and soap. We could only speak with our lawyers,” the photojournalist wrote after being released.

At the time, she wrote a story to denounce the practices of the RCMP towards journalists, but also indigenous activists.

“I don’t see how it can be considered normal for men in military uniform, with heavy weaponry, to be deployed to deal with peaceful and unarmed demonstrators,” she said today. RCMP Repression on Wet’suwet’en Territory Seems Designed to Intimidate and Convince [les militants] to give up their rights. »

If she is a little happy for her price, it is first of all because she has the impression of having more of the ear of those to whom she offers photo-reportage projects on the subjects that challenge her. .

And because it has the opportunity to travel with the international exhibition of World Press Photo, which is currently making a stopover — until October 2 — at Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal. Before coming to us, Amber Bracken was able to talk about her work in Europe and Latin America. “I didn’t expect people to know so little about residential schools. I had to prepare myself to talk about this complex and dark story,” she says.

The Edmonton photographer alone illustrates the small revolution that has taken place in the last year within the World Press Photo competition.

To ensure a greater representation of the whole planet, the organizers of the competition, founded in 1955, chose for the first time this year regional winners before crowning four international winners.

Result: continents under-represented in the competition, including Africa and South-East Asia, finally have a place of choice. And local photographers, who immortalize their own country, are much more present among the winners than the photographers parachuted into foreign countries, former darlings of the competition.

It is therefore a Brazilian photographer who signed an award-winning report on the Amazon rainforest and an Australian who deals with forest fire prevention techniques practiced by the Australian Aborigines. An Ecuadorian photographer explored the disappearance of seeds in favor of monoculture. Environment, colonization and dispossession are the central themes linking the awarded works.

Obviously turning the lens to yourself is no less painful than reporting on the drama of others.