Yesterday the International Center of Photography (ICP) hosted their first-ever virtual awards ceremony, honouring Don McCullin, Hannah Reyes Morales, Nadine Ijewere, and The New York Times Magazine‘s The 1619 Project, as the winners of this year’s Infinity Awards.
Since 1985, the annual ICP Infinity Awards have recognised major contributions and emerging talent in the fields of photojournalism, art, fashion photography, and publishing.
MediaStorm has launched a new digital platform presenting a series of films and online galleries for each of ICP’s winners, available to view below.
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Lifetime Achievement: Don McCullin
Sir Don McCullin never intended to become a photographer. He found it hard to believe he’d ever escape the poverty of North London. But a spur-of-the-moment photograph launched him into a career spanning 50 years, covering wars in Cyprus, Vietnam, and Lebanon to name a few. While his photographs graced the pages of thousands of publications and earned him notoriety, McCullin became increasingly disenchanted with conflict photography. It just didn’t seem to matter. Today those conflicts and wars are part of a past he is trying to understand, and to some extent, forget, by searching the English countryside for answers.
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Online Platform and New Media: The 1619 Project by The New York Times Magazine
1619 — the first recorded date of forcibly enslaved people arriving in the colony of Virginia. Nikole Hannah-Jones, a domestic correspondent for The New York Times, has been thinking about the contradiction that exists in the history of the US since she first learned of this date in high school. What does it mean to be a country that is based on slavery? What would it mean for the US if it considered 1619 its true origin rather than 1776?
This question lies at the heart of The 1619 Project by The New York Times Magazine, spearheaded and conceived of by Hannah-Jones to detail the history of slavery, it’s lasting effects within our culture, and to celebrate the often-suppressed role of formerly enslaved people in making American democracy manifest.
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Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism:Hannah Reyes Morales
Hannah Reyes Morales learned about care and resilience during her upbringing in a crowded home in Manila, Philippines. With the mainstream media focused on violence, Morales sought out tenderness and compassion in her photography. Through her work, Morales has empowered vulnerable people including sex workers, victims of drug violence and those on the front lines of climate change. “Photography is a way of listening, not just with your ears, but with your eyes, with your heart, with your entire being,” she says.
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Applied:Nadine Ijewere
At the core of all of Nadine Ijewere‘s practice is the celebration of different types of beauty. Along with working on commissions for global publications and brands like Vogue, i-D, Dior and Hermes, her personal work, Tallawah, a collaboration with hairstylist Jawara Wauchope, is a dynamic series of portraits that celebrates the creative roots of both local and global Jamaican communities across generations. In 2018, Ijewere became the first woman of colour to shoot the cover of Vogue in the magazine’s 125-year history. “I feel like in doing this I’m proving to younger girls from a similar background that it’s achievable. As a girl, I never identified with anyone in the pages of these magazines. Now, we’re sending a message that everyone is welcome in fashion.”
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