The International Women in Photo Association Awards: Louise Amelie: What Does Migration Mean for those who Stay Behind
©Louise Amelie, Growing Up
This week Lenscratch is featuring the work of the 2023 winners of the International Women in Photo Association (IWPA) Awards.
Today is Louise Amelie a Berlin-based photographer, whose series What Does Migration Mean for those who Stay Behind was one of four finalists in the Professional Category. Louise Amelie’s gorgeous portraits are an artistic exploration of migration, highlighting individual stories with empathy, beauty, and even whimsy.
©Louise Amelie, At Issyk-Kul
MISSING MEMBER – Kyrgyzstan, A Country On The Move
WHAT DOES MIGRATION MEAN FOR THOSE WHO STAY BEHIND
Louise Amelie’s documentary photo series is an artistic exploration of the global phenomenon of migration and its many facets, which are often ignored in European migration politics. Migration has always been an integral part of human experience and will continue to be. Yet in public discourse it is presented as an aberration, while the existence of nation-state borders is hardly ever questioned. On the globe, Kyrgyzstan nestles inconspicuously next to Kazakhstan and China, but on the ground the vastness and heights of the mountains seem endless. In contrast to the natural beauty, prefabricated housing estates spring up in the capital, Bishkek. Here lives a young population that, despite all the adversities of post-Soviet reality, faces the world with great confidence. In a collection of portraying photographs that foreground the individual stories, the series is an expression of solidarity and empathy, and shows that migration can mean both an opportunity as well as the painful loss of a beloved Missing Member.
The series and the book of the same name were the basis of the BERLIN BISHKEK Art WEEKS and were presented for the first time in the course of this art festival.
©Louise Amelie, Azis
Berlin-based photographer and director Louise Amelie, born in 1991, is acclaimed for her documentary and street photography. She is also the founder and Chairwoman of ArtCity e.V., an international Art and Culture Association. In 2023, she collaborated with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Phase One, and Hatje Cantz Publishers for her book “MISSING MEMBER,” focusing on migration in Central Asia. The series received the World Report Award and the IWPA. Before this, her 2020 book “OFF WORLDS” explored the outskirts of American society, winning the Portrait of Humanity 2021 prize and the German Photo Book Prize 20/21. Amelie’s earlier work includes the photo series “SOLE HARLEM,” depicting New York’s Harlem district, earning her the German Photo Book Prize 18/19 and a spot in the “Portrait Of Humanity” collection by Magnum Photos and the British Journal Of Photography in 2019. She has a history of international exhibitions, with her latest work showcased at Tokyo, Lodi (Italy), and Berlin. Her notable awards include the IWPA, World Report Award, and recognition at the German Photo Book Prize, Portrait Of Humanity, and Belfast Photo Festival. Amelie’s exhibitions span from Tokyo to Los Angeles, Belfast, Arles, and beyond, showcasing her dedication to capturing the human experience and shedding light on vital social issues.
A special edition of her book, Missing Member, is available here.
Follow Louise on Instagram: @louise.amelie
©Louise Amelie, Bermet
©Louise Amelie, Countryside Contained
©Louise Amelie, Gas Station Convo
©Louise Amelie, Girl in Little Store
©Louise Amelie, Ivan in National Dress
©Louise Amelie, Man of Honor
©Louise Amelie, Mountain Night
©Louise Amelie, Passage
©Louise Amelie, Room for More
©Louise Amelie, Saadat Sundown
©Louise Amelie, Tea Time
International Women in Photo, IWPA, is a French non profit association that pursues two major MISSIONS on a global scale:
- work for equality through photography in the world.
- The promotion of women photographers and visual storytellers of all origins and nationalities.
The roots for IWPA’s goals lie in the under representation of women photographers. Unfortunately, women photographers still do not receive sufficient recognition nor assignments and only make up for a small percentage of all the photographs we see every day in the press, social media, museums or art fairs. IWPA fulfills a social role by drawing attention to social issues that are often ignored or simply not covered by the male dominated perspective of our world.
How do they fulfill these missions? IWPA wants to make women’s vision count by
- Increasing the visibility and diversity of women photographers in the field of photography
- Proposing actions around education and training in photography for women and students, enhancing their skills and reinforcing capacity buildin
- Promote photography as an empowerment tool for girls and women
- Using photography as a tool to promote tolerant and non-sexist values
In order to give more visibility to women photographers, IWPA acts as a platform and organizes the annual IWPA Award, a photography competition that is followed by exhibitions in major cities and capitals across the Middle East, Asia and Europe showing the work of the laureate and finalists to a large and international audience.
Instagram @IWPA_photo
Posts on Lenscratch may not be reproduced without the permission of the Lenscratch staff and the photographer.
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![In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of the United Klans of AmericaÑThomas Edwin Blanton Jr.,Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank CherryÑplanted a minimum of 15 sticks of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, close to the basement.
At approximately 10:22 a.m., an anonymous man phoned the 16th Street Baptist Church. The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary: a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull. To Maull, the anonymous caller simply said the words, "Three minutes", before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded as five children were present within the basement assembly, changing into their choir robes in preparation for a sermon entitled "A Love That Forgives". According to one survivor, the explosion shook the entire building and propelled the girls' bodies through the air "like rag dolls".
The explosion blew a hole measuring seven feet in diameter in the church's rear wall, and a crater five feet wide and two feet deep in the ladies' basement lounge, destroying the rear steps to the church and blowing one passing motorist out of his car. Several other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed, and windows of properties located more than two blocks from the church were also damaged. All but one of the church's stained-glass windows were destroyed in the explosion. The sole stained-glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children.
Hundreds of individuals, some of them lightly wounded, converged on the church to search the debris for survivors as police erected barricades around the church and several outraged men scuffled with police. An estimated 2,000 black people, many of them hysterical, converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion as the church's pastor, the Reverend John Cross Jr., attempted to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the 23rd Psalm through a bullhorn. One individual who converged on the scene to help search for survivors, Charles Vann, later recollected that he had observed a solitary white man whom he recognized as Robert Edward Chambliss (a known member of the Ku Klux Klan) standing alone and motionless at a barricade. According to Vann's later testimony, Chambliss was standing "looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire".
Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14, born April 18, 1949), Carol Denise McNair (age 11, born November 17, 1951), Carole Robertson (age 14, born April 24, 1949), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14, born April 30, 1949), were killed in the attack. The explosion was so intense that one of the girls' bodies was decapitated and so badly mutilated in the explosion that her body could only be identified through her clothing and a ring, whereas another victim had been killed by a piece of mortar embedded in her skull. The then-pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, would recollect in 2001 that the girls' bodies were found "stacked on top of each other, clung together". All four girls were pronounced dead on arrival at the Hillman Emergency Clinic.
More than 20 additional people were injured in the explosion, one of whom was Addie Mae's younger sister, 12-year-old Sarah Collins, who had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face and was blinded in one eye. In her later recollections of the bombing, Collins would recall that in the moments immediately before the explosion, she had observed her sister, Addie, tying her dress sash.[33] Another sister of Addie Mae Collins, 16-year-old Junie Collins, would later recall that shortly before the explosion, she had been sitting in the basement of the church reading the Bible and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise McNair before she had herself returned upstairs to the ground floor of the church.](https://lenscratch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/001-16th-Street-Baptist-Church-Easter-v2-14x14-150x150.jpg)
