At a time when it is increasingly difficult to distinguish fiction from reality, photojournalism returns to Barcelona to assert its work in a new exhibition of the World Press Photo, the most prestigious photography contest in the world. The exhibition, organized by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation, opens this Thursday at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) with the winning photographs of the 2020 edition, which can be seen until December 12. There will also be the option to visit it digitally from home with the collaboration of Filmin. This new modality was tested for the first time last year and, after its good reception, the Barcelona platform will repeat this experience, which brings the images of the year to the audiovisual language.
As it could not be otherwise, the World Press Photo 2021 collects the stories of the pandemic, but it does so in an intimate and local way, taking into account that mobility restrictions and lockdowns forced most photographers to work from their places of residence. The crisis that has been experienced since last year is read in the embrace between plastics in a residence in Brazil by Mads Nissen, the winning photograph of the contest.
But also in other harsher photographs, such as that of a doctor in Mexico with her face full of marks caused by the mask and protective glasses, by Lorenzo Tugnoli, or that of a corpse of a coronavirus victim wrapped in plastic for toxic waste in Indonesia, by Joshua Irwandi. The impact of covid is also seen beyond the front line. The exhibition shows how it affected daily life, with examples such as that of a family spending lockdown among pigeons in the Netherlands, by Jasper Doest.
Covid has colored the exhibition, as highlighted by the director of Photographic Social Vision, Silvia Omedes, but there is also space for all the other stories that marked 2020. The exhibition includes photographs portraying the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, with a man and a woman discussing the removal of a monument, by Evelyn Hockstein, or the demonstrations in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, by John Minchillo. War conflicts also do not disappear, such as the one portrayed by the Argentine based in Barcelona, Pablo Tosco, through Fatima, a Yemeni woman who returned to her village, destroyed by war, to fish, a task traditionally reserved for men.
Record edition
Despite the difficulties photojournalists have faced in doing their work during the pandemic, this year's edition of the World Press Photo has registered a greater participation of professionals as well as a greater submission of works compared to 2020, said the chief curator of the World Press Photo, Sanne Schim van der Loeff. In total, the photography contest has had the participation of 4,315 photographers with 74,470 images. Of these, 45 winners have been selected, of whom 24% have been women, double the average of previous editions.
These are some of the photographs that can be seen until December 12 at the CCCB in the World Press Photo exhibition:
1. The First Embrace by Mads Nissen. Best photograph of the World Press Photo 2021.
2. The Pantanal in Flames by Lalo de Almeida. First prize for photojournalism in the Environment category.
3. A sea lion plays with a mask in the California sea by Ralph Pace. First prize for individual photography at the World Press Photo 2021.
4. Boulder on a Log Pile by Adam Pretty. First prize for individual photography in the Sports category.
5. Yemen: Hunger, Another War Wound by Pablo Tosco. First prize for individual photography in the Contemporary Issues category.
6. Emancipation Memorial Debate by Evelyn Hockstein. First prize for individual photography in the Spot News category.
7. Minneapolis Unrest: The George Floyd Aftermath by John Minchillo. Third prize for photojournalism in the Spot News category.
8. Locust Invasion in East Africa by Luis Tato. Third prize for photojournalism in the Nature category.
9. The Transition by Oleg Ponomarev. First prize for individual photography in the Portraits category.
10. The Ameriguns by Gabriele Galimberti. First prize for Photojournalism in the Portraits category.