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The VII Foundation YEAR IN REVIEW – FALL 2022/23
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Since 1990, over 2600 journalists have been killed or murdered doing their work. Over the last month, 36 have been killed, eight injured, and three are missing. I can’t think of another civilian career with statistics like that. The number of deaths is staggering, but it’s only part of the story. Most of our dead colleagues are local journalists. Local journalists work in their hometowns, reporting on the lives of their community. They go home to sleep at night and wake up in the morning to survey the damage in the neighborhood, unlike foreign correspondents who sleep in hotels and can fly home in airconditioned comfort at the end of the week. There is no escape for journalists reporting from home. Through VII Academy, much of the work of The VII Foundation is focused on training and mentoring young journalists who are reporting from their own communities in some of the most challenging and most traumatic environments for journalists to work in the world. We invite you to look back at another productive year at the work of The VII Foundation and its academy and support us as we train the next generation of journalists who build societies where information is treasured and not feared. The highlight of our year was hosting ten of these young photojournalists for our first month-long, tuition-free residential Level 3 program at our Arles Campus. They came from Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kashmir, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, and the U.S. During their time with us, they were mentored by some of the world’s leading practitioners and immersed in an intense multidisciplinary learning experience that stretches their imagination and challenges them in ways they have never experienced before.
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Our teaching is based on decades of teaching in universities combined with decades of practicing journalism in the field – both at the highest levels. In November, we will host our second advanced program; this class comprises visual journalists from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hungary, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, and Serbia. Many of them are no strangers to the difficulties and complexities of working in places where journalists can be persecuted and murdered for doing their jobs. The VII Foundation is the first and only media organization dedicated to providing long-term tuition-free vocational media education in the Majority World. We have trained over 1,000 practitioners (540 women and nonbinary) in nine languages from 100 countries. Our courses are primarily taught in regions where media training is underfunded or nonexistent. Our students and fellows are documenting conflict in Ukraine, Myanmar, and the Middle East. They are on the frontlines of climate change and the civil rights movement worldwide. At a time when AI leaks into our press and makes distinguishing artifice from reality ever more challenging, and when the press is constantly undermined and harassed by political and commercial forces, we are training accomplished practitioners, well-versed in contemporary media ethics and values, who are equipped to take on complex assignments for leading international media, NGOs, and corporations worldwide, and who respect the universal tenets and conventions of journalism. To enhance the foundation’s ability to produce the complex films, exhibitions, and campaigns that we have become known for, we acquired VII Photo, a
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legendary photo agency synonymous with courageous and impactful journalism. VII Photo was collectively owned by its photographers and came to prominence during the aftermath of 9/11 and the chaos that followed as the narrative of a new century was being written. With VII Photo now part of The VII Foundation, we can call on the VII photographers’ skills to work on communications strategies with our partner organizations and to report on some of humanity’s most intractable issues. This year, The VII Foundation signed long-term agreements with UNICEF and The Global Fund and was granted United Nations ECOSOC Special Consultative Status. In this review, you will also learn more about the foundation’s long-form visual journalism projects, the many cultural activities and exhibitions we run from our Arles and Sarajevo campuses, the international successes of our mentees, and the work of our VII Community and VII Insider programs, both of which are in partnership with PhotoWings. I want to leave you with one ask. All our training for the Majority World practitioners is free, with every student’s cost fully paid for by the foundation. We believe building the capacity of local storytellers is essential to understanding our world better. Please support our mission by sharing this document with your colleagues and friends so we can grow our network of supporters, expand our funding broaden our donor base, and work together to create a new landscape for visual journalism. You can contact us here: info@theviifoundation.org Gary Knight. CEO, The VII Foundation November, 2023
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| ALEXANDRA BOULAT/VII. Ethnic Albanian Kosovar girls celebrate freedom in front of a burning house. NATO troops had just liberated Kosovo. The house in the background belonged to a Serb family. As an act of revenge, Albanians looted and burnt it. This is on the road from Mitrovia to Pristina.
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07 09 38 42 46 The VII Foundation
Education
VII Photo
Projects
Campuses
- VII Academy - Education Partnerships - VII Community - VII Insider
- VII Photo
- Imagine: Reflections on Peace - Millennium Villages Project 2023 - A documentary feature currently in production
- Arles Campus - Sarajevo Campus
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| NICOLE TUNG. Schoolgirls arrive at a recently reopened school. For many students, this is the first time they have been able to attend school in years. Western Mosul, Iraq, November 2018.
THE VII FOUNDATION— ANNUAL REPORT 2022/2023
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The VII Foundation
In 2023, we continued to undertake a host of initiatives and projects aimed at fulfilling our mission to transform visual journalism by empowering new voices and creating stories that advocate change. With the acquisition of VII Photo, The VII Foundation expanded its ecosystem and is now operating in multiple synchronized spaces: media training, media advocacy, media production, and publishing. Education is central to our mission. The VII Foundation consists of educational programs like VII Academy, VII Community (in partnership with PhotoWings), and VII Insider (in partnership with PhotoWings), along with high-profile long-form visual journalism projects.
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| DEBSUDDHA for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Photograph from the series Belonging
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The VII Foundation’s Education Programs Education is at the core of The VII Foundation and is delivered through three programs - VII Academy, VII Community (in partnership with PhotoWings), and VII Insider (in partnership with PhotoWings). Our training of visual journalists to have sustainable careers built on ethics, integrity, and good practice is, we believe, a vital component of trustworthy journalism and democratic culture around the world. Our new Education Director is Dr David Campbell. David has been working with us at VII Insider for two years. He was previously Communications Director at World Press Photo and prior to that a Professor at Colgate, Newcastle, and Durham Universities. He is one of the leading intellectuals in the visual journalism milieu. David is responsible for all education programs at The VII Foundation.
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| AMINA KADOUS for VII ACADEMY. Photograph from the series White Gold
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VII Academy VII Academy provides tuition-free courses in visual journalism to practitioners in the Majority World and underrepresented communities in G20 countries. VII Academy is democratizing the information narrative and giving communities the tools to narrate their own stories in regions where media education is poorly resourced.
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VII Academy training is done either online or in person at the foundation’s campuses in Arles, France, and Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. Beginning in 2024-2025, our education programming will be capped with an MA in Visual Journalism developed in partnership with — and accredited by —the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Sarajevo. The education journey at the academy begins with a structured and sophisticated path from the first point of contact to high-level practice. The two pillars of our educational system are the Program for Narrative and Documentary Photography (taught at Levels 1, 2, and 3) and the VII Mentor Program.
Program for Narrative and Documentary Photography Level 1 provides a solid foundation of practical skills and introduces fundamental good practice strategies: ethics, capturing video for social media requirements, and running a solo business. In our Level 1 classes, we focus on regional eligibility to make scheduling classes convenient and ensure participants are exposed to regional peers. | MITAR SIMIKIC for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Portrait of Dobrinka, she believes that each river,
much like every person, possesses its unique destiny. To understand the fate of this particular river Janja, with its rich past but also its obvious reality, we must listen to the whispers of the water that speak of the history of this place, and we must listen to the stories of the people who live on its banks until we find anxiety or inner peace upon saying goodbye to her at its end.
Level 2 extends all the concepts to a higher level and adds a more formal writing component taught by writing tutors.
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Level 3 of the Program for Narrative and Documentary Photography is an in-person, four-week seminar at the foundation’s Alexandra Boulat Campus in Arles. This seminar is reserved for the most accomplished students from Level 2. We focus on a small number of exceptional young practitioners who will make a significant difference to the media landscape, and to their communities. The Level 3 classes are taught in-person and include training in observation, interview techniques, public speaking, writing, constructing complex narratives, editing, improving technical skills, and engaging in discourse and debate. The class focuses on teaching through practice and mentoring; it also includes more theoretical concepts, integrating multi-disciplinary academic reading and research, writing, journaling, art disciplines, and workshops. All of this is done in an intimate and supported environment where students share their own experiences with each other and build community. At the end of their stay in Arles, the city that inspired Van Gogh and Picasso, students leave with a rich new network, fueled with new knowledge and with friendships and bonds that will last for a lifetime. They arrive home as highly skilled professionals ready to report on vital issues in their communities and the wider world and understand their role in the context of contemporary journalism. By the end of 2023, we will have completed the first two Level 3 seminars. Following this, a comprehensive review of the Level 1, 2, and 3 curricula will be conducted to ensure we remain at the cutting edge of how and what we teach. | NATALIA NEUHAUS for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Photograph from a series produced during a Level 3 Workshop, Arles.
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| MIHAELA AROYO for VII ACADEMY. People attend liturgy on Epiphany at St. George church in Taraklia, Moldova, on January 19, 2021. The city of Taraklia was founded by Bulgarian migrants more than 200 years ago.
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VII Mentor Program VII Mentor Program provides a structured professional environment for emerging new talents in the industry, focusing on those from the Majority World and underrepresented communities. The program–the first of its kind–was launched by VII Photo Agency in 2008 and is now managed by VII Academy. This 12-month program pairs ten selected visual journalists with experienced VII photographers. In the 2022-23 cohort, three of the mentees were sponsored by Leica USA as part of their Leica Woman Foto Project.
Master of Arts in Visual Journalism - launching soon The pinnacle of our educational efforts is a complete Master of Arts course in Visual Journalism established with the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Sarajevo to develop an international English-taught MA course in Visual Journalism. We know of no other similar degree anywhere else. It will give our alumni the tools to return to their communities with academic credentials to teach, master their practice, and potentially pursue higher academic degrees (i.e., Ph.D.). The course is expected to start in 2024. “The Faculty of Political Science (FPN) at the University of Sarajevo, in collaboration with The VII Foundation, is poised to pioneer a groundbreaking MA and specialization program in Visual Journalism, marking a seminal offering in the wider region and standing among the select few of its caliber worldwide.” - Prof. Dr. Sead Turčalo, Dean of Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo
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VII Academy 2023 Highlights By the end of 2023, VII Academy will have trained an additional 60 students through our Level 1 program, with Levels 2 and 3 both welcoming back alumni to complete higher-level coursework. In the past year, participants from 48 countries have learned in four languages. We ran nine Level 1 courses for students from South and Central America with Monica Allende; Southeastern Europe with Dr. Paul Lowe; select countries in Asia with Tanvi Mishra; Anglophone Africa with Paul Botes; Native Arabic Speakers with Ali Arkady; and South and Southeast Asia with Philip Blenkinsop. We introduced a Level 1+ course (online) taught by Christopher Morris for those who have already completed Level 1 but need more review before being accepted to Level 2. We conducted two Level 2 courses, one taught by Maciek Nabrdalik with writing instructor Stacy Mattingly and the other taught by Nichole Sobecki with writing teacher James Hill, which students found extremely challenging and rewarding. | ANASTASIIA ZAZULIAK for VII ACADEMY. In the aftermath of a storm, Petrik, one of the residents of Tarczyn, takes on the task of dealing with the consequences of a fallen tree. The tree has damaged the raft, causing the alpaca and sheep to attempt an escape. Petrik comes up with a temporary solution to keep them secure until the workers arrive in the morning.
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We hosted our first Level 3 participants at The Alexandra Boulat Campus in Arles. Composed for this pilot program of VII Mentees and VII Academy Fellows, eleven students from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the US lived and learned together for four weeks. They stayed for an additional week to network around Les Rencontres d’Arles, a major international networking photography event held in Arles every summer. They described it as intense, with six out of seven days filled with class time, in-the-field photography, or activities meant to extend their practice. We completed the current VII Mentor Program and selected seven new participants for the 2023-24 program. VII Mentees had an exceptionally successful year; two of them won awards at World Press Photo: M’hammed Kilito (Morocco) for Before It’s Gone, and Kimberly de la Cruz (Philippines) for Death of a Nation, while Jackie Molloy (USA), continues to contribute to The New York Times and is having her first National Geographic story published. The three women in the Leica Women Foto Project x VII Mentor Program opened an exhibition of their work (If This Isn’t Love) in September at the Leica Gallery Boston. Debsuddha was awarded the Images Vevey Book Award 2023/2024, and now has a year to publish a book of his work, Belonging, with Editions Images Vevey.
| BROOKLYNN KASCEL for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Photograph from the series Fear and Loving
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| KIMBERLY DELA CRUZ for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Photograph from a series produced during a Level 3 Workshop, Arles.
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VII Academy Student Feedback “The quality of the content presented was exceptional. Renowned photographers and industry experts associated with the VII Foundation shared their extensive knowledge and experience in the field. Their presentations were thought-provoking, filled with captivating visuals, and accompanied by in-depth discussions. The seminar provided valuable insights into the art of documentary photography, storytelling techniques, and the importance of ethical storytelling practices. The content not only met but exceeded my expectations by offering practical knowledge and inspiring examples that I could apply to my own work.” “In conclusion, the L3 seminar on photography and documentary narrative practice with the VII Foundation surpassed my expectations in every aspect. The seminar’s relevance, high-quality content, interactive format, efficient organization, and networking opportunities made it an outstanding and rewarding experience. I left the seminar with newfound knowledge, inspiration, and a stronger foundation in the art of visual storytelling.”
“My favorite moments were getting to see my classmates grow more confidently in their work and talking about their work to an audience. I enjoyed building relationships with everyone and ending long days sharing meals together.” “Overall, the L3 photography and documentary narrative practice course has been transformative for my professional growth. It has equipped me with the technical skills, ethical understanding, artistic inspiration, and critical thinking abilities necessary to excel in the field of documentary photography. By honing my abilities as a visual storyteller, I am now better prepared to capture and convey meaningful narratives that have the potential to create positive change and impact.” “This is an extraordinarily curated group of humans. It doesn’t get better than that for such an intense workshop.”
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| FARSHID TIGHEHSAZ for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. A girl is smoking at a cafe in Tehran, Iran, On February 02, 2023.
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Looking forward to 2024 We have mapped out a year-long course schedule that will encapsulate two semesters plus a summer session. In 2024, we plan to run ten Level 1s, two Level 2s, and one Level 3. The strategy for Levels 1, 2, and 3 will remain the same for 2024: identify and accept new talent from across our target regions and foster the best and brightest to continue through the entire program. Level 1s will most probably be held for: Central and South America, Balkans, Native Arabic Speakers, select countries in Asia, and Francophone and Anglophone Africa. We hope also to run a program for native Farsi speakers, as well as another L1+. The MA in Visual Journalism, developed in partnership with–and accredited by– the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Sarajevo, is a two-year course that will begin in 2024-25 and cap VII Academy’s pathway, providing a higher education qualification for those who want to work as documentarians, curators, editors, and university lecturers. We are in active dialogue with multiple leading institutions, and organizations to develop further education programming in the Majority World.
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| NATURE THROUGH HER EYES
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The VII Foundation’s Education Partnerships 1. Nature Through Her Eyes (NTHE) We are working in partnership with Jacqueline Farmer and have developed a department focused on natural history filmmaking and building capacity for women in the genre. Jacqueline is an accomplished natural history filmmaker with a particular interest in highlighting, training, and engaging with woman filmmakers from the Majority World in documenting their own vision of natural history. In September 2022, Nature Through Her Eyes began a first-of-its-kind program in West Africa, teaching natural history filmmaking to a group of emerging filmmakers from Senegal. In November 2022, the second NTHE Festival took place in Cape Town, supported by French and South African government organizations, and focused on bioacoustics and sound in natural history filmmaking. It included an ocean trip with hydrophones, a series of impactful talks led by African women, and sold-out screenings of films by female directors at the Labia Theatre.
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Nature Through Her Eyes 2023 Highlights NTHE continues to mentor and train Erica Rugabandana, Tanzania’s first woman long-lens wildlife camera operator and director. Erica’s feature documentary Kushi na Simba or Living with Lions achieved global release this year after winning Best of Festival, Best African Film, and Best Storytelling at the Pridelands Film Festival in Nairobi in July. Erica has since partnered with the WWF to roll Kuishi na Simba out across Tanzania and East Africa for impact and education for lion conservation in schools and communities across the region. Jacqueline Farmer accompanied Gabonese filmmaker Kristina Obame to the International Sunny Side of the Doc Festival. Kristina pitched her film project about the disappearance and re-introduction of forest lions to the Batéké plateau in Gabon to international broadcasters and distributors. She hopes to begin shooting in November 2023. NTHE also worked with Indian filmmaker Aishwarya Sridhar on developing her film in the Jhalana region of Rajasthan. The project written, directed, and lensed by Aishwarya began shooting in May. The 2-part documentary series, The Big Little Things, written and directed by a collective of ten African women that won Best Wildlife and Conservation Pitch at the Sunny Side of the Doc in 2022 was signed in development by ARTE in February this year. | STEPHANE FERRER YULIANTI for NATURE THROUGH HER EYES
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2. Foundry Photojournalism Workshop Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was established in 2008, and since 2019, it has been in partnership with PhotoWings and supported by VII Academy as a way of connecting with potential students for academy courses. In December 2022, Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was composed of 80 participants from underrepresented communities in the United States. A total of 14 tutors each taught six students in a series of classes and one-on-one sessions, culminating in a threeday event that highlighted lessons from the field, the creative process, how to work with photo editors and general business practices. Portfolio reviewers from national and international press, galleries, and agencies also offered advice. In 2023, Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was open to visual practitioners from the Majority World and underrepresented communities. It was held at the beginning of December in its online format.
| SHAMAL KOTAYI for FOUNDRY. Uncle Sabir, a farmer in Shira Village, collects and also sells fused and unfused bombs for a living. 2021.
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| SHARAFAT ALI for the VII MENTOR PROGRAM. Photograph from a series produced during a Level 3 workshop, Arles
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VII Community Ongoing support for our alumni is a vital task. To this end, we launched VII Community in 2023 in partnership with PhotoWings.
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| MACIEK NABRDALIK/VII. VII MASTERCLASS Warsaw, 2018.
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VII Community is a network of VII Academy alumni and Foundry Photojournalism Workshop participants that number more than 1,000 practitioners. It offers support for those who have completed our courses and are working as visual journalists. VII Community, in partnership with PhotoWings, continues our tuition-free education mission by connecting alumni with established journalists and editors, providing valuable information and resources, and offering practical assistance for alumni to develop sustainable careers. The program runs online discussions, presentations, and reviews, in-person global meet-ups (the first of which took place during the Kranj Foto Fest in Slovenia), and a Discord platform for regular exchanges and interaction. In 2024, VII Community will offer additional activities such as a one-to-one advisory program and portfolio reviews.
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| PRIMOŽ PIČULIN for KRANJ FOTO FEST 2023
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VII Community Alumni Members Feedback “The VII Community Discord is an incredibly unique and valuable tool. As someone who lives in a rural area, the ability to interact with photographers from all over the world at any time of day is pretty amazing. In my experience, so many photography communities engage in gatekeeping or the withholding of information, but VII has made everything from grant opportunities to portfolio reviews to gear recommendations and live events freely available. The endless amounts of knowledge available make it unlike any other photography resource I’ve experienced online, and I cannot recommend it enough.” “I find myself browsing the VII Community channels all afternoon. It’s a treasure trove of inspiration and motivation. I love how many resources I can get in one place, and more keep coming. Book recommendations, alumni websites, grant opportunities, amazing events, portfolio reviews, and everything related to documentary photography that you usually can’t find easily. It’s a comprehensive documentary photography resource out there. I love it.” “It is very hard to build this kind of community, which connects individuals from around the world. You have created a wonderful place!” “Being a part of a community gives a sense of belonging to a group sharing some sort of beliefs, goals and/or background. It is very helpful to get feedback, catch up, or learn about current opportunities in the field.”
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| ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN/VII. Wilmarie Deetlefs (24, r) together with her boyfriend Zakithi Buthelezi (27, l) on a night out. Five months into their relationship — “a Tinder success story” — the couple often notice people treat them differently once they see they are dating interracially. Deetlefs hasn’t yet told her parents she is dating Zakithi. “The previous relationship I had with someone who wasn’t white, my dad took it so weirdly, strangely personal.” She blames it on the conservative mentality in the small rural town where she grew up, and where her parents still live. Buthelezi notices people often treat him differently once they find out he has a white girlfriend. “They treat me friendlier, more interested and with more respect.” Deetlefs: “They are basically saying this is something out of the ordinary. But it’s not.” Buthelezi: “It’s just two people connected.” Johannesburg, South Africa, November 1, 2018.
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VII Insider The foundation believes in elevating the public conversation about visual journalism. For this, we have VII Insider, in partnership with PhotoWings, our free online platform for debate that takes the general audience inside the profession of visual journalism to advance the production and analysis of photography, documentary stories, and visual journalism.
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| ZIYAH GAFIC/VII. Portraits of internally dispalced persons from North Western province in Pakistan on October 1, 2009.
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VII Insider, in partnership with PhotoWings, brings people together to see creative presentations, learn from experts in the field, and read analyses of visual journalism. We focus on non-fiction work because we believe that analyzing, debating, and promoting high-quality visual reports is an urgent task in a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities. VII Insider offers regular live presentations, an extensive and searchable video collection of more than 120 previous events, and publishes the best writing on the role of images in Dispatches: The VII Insider Blog (with 45 articles now on Substack and new posts every month). The events and articles highlight the work of emerging and well-known visual journalists, explore topical debates (e.g., the ethics of image-making, how to combat disinformation, and the best way to portray global issues like the climate crisis), and showcase reports from underrepresented areas.
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| ANUSH BABAJANYAN/VII. Women visit a hot spring that has emerged from the dried bed of the Aral Sea, near Akespe village, Kazakhstan. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its content since river water was first diverted to serve agriculture and industry in the 1960s.
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VII Insider Audience Feedback “The VII Insider programme is truly excellent. I’ve been on many of the sessions, and have just recently been viewing Christopher Morris’ videos on his early photojournalistic experiences, and they have all been truly wonderful. Interesting, insightful and inspiring.” “Thank you as well for the wonderful educational programs which I follow closely.” “Thanks for all the VII insider videos and live events. I find them essential and very interesting.”
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| ASHLEY GILBERTSON/VII. A U.S. Marine slides down the marble handrail in Saddam’s extravagant palace built in his home of Tikrit, Iraq on April 14, 2003.
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VII Photo As mentioned above, in spring 2023, The VII Foundation acquired VII Photo Agency. The non-profit organization is the appropriate structure to provide strategic communication support to our partners and to create assignment opportunities for contributing VII photographers, mentees, and alumni with our non-profit partners.
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| ALI ARKADY/VII. While traveling to a safer place, Yazidi refugees mourn family members lost in the fight with the Islamic State, ISIS, while they were trapped on Mount Sinjar in Faysh Khabur, ZZakho, Iraq on Aug. 9, 2014.
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Ziyah Gafic, formerly our VII Academy Director, is now the Director of Operations of VII Photo. Ziyah’s accomplishments as a photographer have earned him significant credibility in the industry and among the VII photographers. He has demonstrated strong leadership skills at the Academy over the last four years and his initiative and enterprise make him ideally placed to capitalize on the potential of VII Photo. VII Photo holds long-term agreements with UNICEF, The Global Fund, and UNFPA. We create strategic communications tools for all these organizations, using timebased and still visual media. VII Photo has a substantial cultural program, curating and exhibiting photography exhibitions worldwide. VII Photo runs creative photography, editing, and writing workshops open to all. These workshops enable participants to nurture their passion for non-fiction media practice and have a unique experience in locations worldwide (such as Bosnia, Rajasthan, and Rwanda) while generating revenue for our non-profit mission through the fees workshop participants will pay. The members of VII Photo are also integral to the foundation’s educational programs–they teach many of the online courses and mentor alumni and other emerging talents–and the foundation’s acquisition of VII Photo strengthens this link and enables new opportunities in the education sector.
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| NICOLE TUNG. A boy watches as fighters with the Hashd al-Sha’bi, an Iranian-backed Shia group, discuss what to do with ammunition they found in a family home. ISIS fighters used the home while Mosul was under their control. Dozens of residents of the Old City have attempted to return to their houses to clean up and collect whatever they can salvage of their belongings, despite continued security concerns over a handful of remaining ISIS militants and unexploded ordinance in the area. West Mosul, Iraq, November 2017.
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The VII Foundation Projects The VII Foundation’s narrative projects can encompass a film, exhibition, and literature. They serve as a backdrop for public debate and provide educational curricula for teachers to use in their classrooms. The foundation’s current projects include:
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| DANNY WILCOX FRAZIER/VII . Milliennium Villages Project
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Imagine: Reflections on Peace
Imagine is a book, exhibition, education, and advocacy project in which worldrenowned photographers, journalists, and authors take us into six societies that have suffered searing conflict—and survived. In 2023, Imagine continued to roll out across the world with exhibitions and workshops in Belgrade and Kosovo. We are thrilled that our educational partnership with Elana Haviv and Generation Human Rights has resulted in Imagine being introduced as a course curriculum in the Political Science Department at San Diego University and for an educators’ workshop in Sarajevo. Elana has launched Part 2 of the Imagine curriculum, which aims to partner classrooms globally, introducing youth from around the world with different experiences of conflict and peace.
Millennium Villages Project 2023
The Millennium Villages Project is an interactive classroom curriculum and traveling museum touring schools across the U.S. For the project, VII Photo photographers revisited villages across the African continent to make stories that teach students about sustainable development and solutions to extreme poverty. After being delayed by the pandemic, the MVP Tour Bus and education curriculum returned for its final journey in fall 2023. The tour encompasses the US East Coast, visiting schools in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, reaching thousands of high school students.
A documentary feature currently in production
A major documentary film, made in collaboration with XRM media, narrates one of the last great untold stories of the Vietnam War.
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| MACIEK NABRDALIK/VII. Refugees from Syria rest on the coast of the Greek island of Lesbos. Thousands of refugees cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey in rubber boats every day, fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Lesbos, Greece, September 24, 2015.
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The VII Foundation Campuses
The foundation operates two physical campuses as spaces for its activities and operations in Arles, France, and Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina. These campuses are cultural hubs and educational centers that host exhibitions, and public debates, and enable local, regional, and international initiatives, as well as teaching programs and workshops. Crucial to our mission is that all the exhibitions and events that we host should be used as an educational tool as well as a backdrop for public dialogue.
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In Arles, The Alexandra Boulat Campus is now home to The VII Foundation’s European headquarters. The historic building (formerly a salt warehouse) accommodates classes, study areas, exhibitions, audio/visual screenings, cultural events, and offices and is fully equipped to cater for big events. Our key objective is bringing students from the Majority World to Arles for training, education, and networking.
Educational Initiatives in Arles As explained above, we hosted the first Level 3 cohort of 9 students from 11 countries for an immersive, intensive, practice-oriented 4-week program. Students learned how to research, produce, edit, and present their work and become familiar with strategies to change policy and educate the public. We also organized an 8-month workshop introducing photojournalism and visual literacy to a local high school, with monthly gatherings from November 22 to June 23. In a culminating session, students experienced photojournalism first-hand through fieldwork. They celebrated their work at a campus event for friends and family to hone public speaking skills and share their understanding of the profession. In fall-winter 2023, we will welcome 500 local school children (aged 6 to 18 years) to view our current exhibition, See Through the Noise, and participate in our visual literacy and photojournalism program, which was also part of La Rentrée en Images organized by Les Rencontres d’Arles.
| F. DEMARCHEZ for THE VII FOUNDATION. Children visiting The Alexandra Boulat Campus, Arles.
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Cultural Initiatives in Arles The campus opened with two exhibitions: Camargue: All Tomorrow’s Phantoms - Channeling the Camargue by Philip Blenkinsop, and Modest by Alexandra Boulat. These exhibitions were well received by the public and extensively used as educational material to welcome Arlesian school children throughout 2022-2023. Over the course of the year, we invited civil servants, museum directors, social workers, and teachers to private tours of all three of our exhibitions. During the professional week of Les Rencontres d’Arles festival in July, the foundation celebrated its recent acquisition of the VII Photo Agency with the opening of the first collective exhibition by VII photographers, See Through the Noise. The exhibition presents some of the most significant events and issues witnessed by the photographers of VII Photo, from the war in Bosnia to the war in Ukraine. In emphasizing the foundation’s commitment to truth in journalism, the collection provides a strong counterpoint to the new age of machine-driven artifice. The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual digital app showing both images and texts and a virtual, online 3D tour.
| DANIEL SCHWARTZ/VII. Coal worker, Yungang Yun loading station, Datong. Shanxi province, China, 20 November 1987.
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| JOHN STANMEYER/VII. African migrants crowd the night shore of Djibouti City, trying to capture inexpensive cell signals — a tenuous link to relatives abroad — from neighboring Somalia. For more than 60,000 years our species has been relying on such intimate social connections to spread across the Earth. Djibouti City, Djibouti, February 26, 2013.
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See Through the Noise Media Coverage (translated from French)
photo trend “In a context unfavorable to long-term projects, they are part of a truly political approach where, given the turmoil of modern society, such a practice seems increasingly essential.” “VII’s premise is clear: the image must be striking and have a certain political power.” “Their photographers are unquestionably outstanding artists with a sharp eye.” fisheye magazine “The Foundation does not fail to underline, at the same time, the commitment and the quest for profound truth which have driven each and every one of its members since its infancy.” “See Through the Noise invites us to consider the events that have and continue to shape our world.” The Eye of Photography “Photojournalism has never been so present in Arles in quality events.” Marie Claire “An entire ecosystem dedicated to photojournalism, a social issue in a world where reality is becoming alternative, VII is at once a foundation, academy, professional community, and photo agency whose inspiring work can be seen for the first time at the Arles campus of The VII Foundation.”
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| FOTOIST, 2023. Imagine: Reflections on Peace exhibited at the first FOTOIST International Photography Festival. Pristina, Kosovo
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In Sarajevo, where we have been open and active since 2019, we have focused on developing our educative mission, sustained by an active calendar of exhibitions and partnerships that help increase its visibility as a key educator in visual literacy and fact-based practice.
Educational Initiatives in Sarajevo We continue to establish and nurture formal relationships with academic institutions at both regional and global levels. We delivered lectures at partner universities such as Aristotle University (Thessaloniki, Greece), and are currently exploring ways to develop formal relationships with the Virginia Commonwealth University of Arts (VCUArts, Qatar). An experimental program called VII Academy Visiting Scholars, aiming at developing strong ties with key universities around the world, broadening our teaching base, and more globally creating opportunities for future developments such as summer schools. Our first visiting scholars, welcomed two professors of visual journalism and communication from Syracuse University, USA, arrived in Sarajevo this summer.
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Cultural Initiatives in Sarajevo We continue our relationship with The US State Department via the US Embassies BOLD program for Young Leaders. After Bosnia a couple of years ago, we worked in Serbia this year, joining forces with the Youth Initiative for Human Rights to deliver a new iteration of the BOLD project in Belgrade to over forty participants from the former Yugoslavia. Our collaboration with the Embassy of France and the French Institute through the exhibition we curated — Yves Saint Laurent by Alexandra & Pierre Boulat — continued this year, touring three cities in Bosnia before landing in Kosovo. We deepened our relationships with key public museums across the city by hosting to exhibitions; the first, an award-winning body of work, Before It’s Gone, by VII Mentee M’hammed Kilito at the National Museum of Bosnia – Herzegovina; and the second, Herbarium exhibition by Bosnian-Danish artist Ismar Cirkinagic that we co-produced with the Danish Arts Counci. Herbarium became part of the permanent collection of Ars Aevi, a museum of contemporary art in Sarajevo.
| JASMIN BRUTUS for THE VII FOUNDATION. Before It’s Gone by M’hammed Kilito in exhibition at the National Museum of Bosnia - Herzegovina
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Additional Initiatives in Sarajevo In addition to cultural and educational activities, we established new relations with several large international organizations. The VII Foundation Sarajevo renewed its relationship with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), for which we designed and produced a touring fashion exhibition photographed by Franco Pagetti on the inclusion of migrants and refugees. It leveraged Franco’s notoriety as a Dolce & Gabbana photographer and showcases migrants and refugees as fashion models, helping audiences to see them from a different perspective. We partnered with two German institutions, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Forum ZFD, to launch the Imagine: Reflections on Peace exhibition in Belgrade with a presentation of the book and lectures to university students. We also renewed our participation in Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s long-term program “Dealing with the Past”. We have also partnered with the Goethe Institute on their regional project Present Past, for which the Goethe Institute contracted us to nominate two authors and to mentor them in developing, editing, and curating their work for a final traveling show. The VII Foundation increased its presence in Kosovo by supporting the newly established photo festival in Kosovo, Fotoist, for which we provided most of the content, aiming at strengthening our brand in the country and increasing our visibility to attract future students.
| ZIYAH GAFIC for THE VII FOUNDATION. PRESENT PAST at Goethe Institut Bosnia - Herzegovina, 2023.
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THE VII FOUNDATION— ANNUAL REPORT 2022/2023
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