honorable mention
Mélanie Wenger belgium
title
Unspoken plunder
These surprising characters, by surpassing their victim status, that weakens them, become Humans of strength from whom one has to learn a lot, beings who worked on themselves, learnt to know themselves, to be cured, and often, to forgive.
These heroes of the ordinary tell stories of wounds and their cure through a posture and wounds. There are the ones who, in the shadows, in the silence, can teach us the most about us and our world.
A series of portraits, characters, led by light and shadows that the abuse causes. As to show that in everything which the light allows us to see remains shadows, things which we do not see, which we do not look at. It is nevertheless this shadow which is interesting, and produces the beautiful overview. What is untold, hidden under silence.
I have already met victims of abuse in Zimbabwe and Colombia and I am on my way to the mine settlements of Rustenberg, South Africa. The next steps of these series are India, the USA to finish with Europe. I would need the help of the ND Awards to push further the series and settle for a while in the USA, in the Pierce County, in a clinic that welcomes victims of sexual assaults in a very violent urban context.
In 2011, she starts to work on the serie ' Wasted Young Libya ' which will take her three years.
Between 2014 and 2016, she focuses on migrations between Libya, Malta and Belgium, for the serie ' Lost in migration '. She will also spend 6 months in the psychiatric asylum seeker's center CARDA in Bierset. In parallel she works on ivory trafficking and poaching in Africa and follows anti-poaching teams, poachers, trackers and hunters in the forest and the bush in Cameroon and Zimbabwe.
Since 2014, she has been developping a long-term documentary serie in the intimacy of an elderly isolated person in Brittany: ' Marie-Claude, the dolls' lady '. She is the 2017 laureate of the HSBC Prize.
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entry description
Silence, they fight. They have multiple faces, no voice, they are strong, anchored in the shade, they set light to the unspeakable, the taboo. The photographic documentary series about sexual violence around the world 'Unspoken plunder' started in the districts of opposition to Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2016. Itinerant, it sneaked in the gang warfare of Colombians to end in whispers, in the rooms of Occidental cities.These surprising characters, by surpassing their victim status, that weakens them, become Humans of strength from whom one has to learn a lot, beings who worked on themselves, learnt to know themselves, to be cured, and often, to forgive.
These heroes of the ordinary tell stories of wounds and their cure through a posture and wounds. There are the ones who, in the shadows, in the silence, can teach us the most about us and our world.
A series of portraits, characters, led by light and shadows that the abuse causes. As to show that in everything which the light allows us to see remains shadows, things which we do not see, which we do not look at. It is nevertheless this shadow which is interesting, and produces the beautiful overview. What is untold, hidden under silence.
I have already met victims of abuse in Zimbabwe and Colombia and I am on my way to the mine settlements of Rustenberg, South Africa. The next steps of these series are India, the USA to finish with Europe. I would need the help of the ND Awards to push further the series and settle for a while in the USA, in the Pierce County, in a clinic that welcomes victims of sexual assaults in a very violent urban context.
about the photographer
Mélanie Wenger is a documentary photographer represented by Cosmos agency based in Brussels. Graduate in Litterature and a Master's degree of journalism, she chose to tell stories about human beings, heros of the ordinary, to reveal their depth through the permanent immediacy of the photography. Without forgetting the harshness that makes them so unique.In 2011, she starts to work on the serie ' Wasted Young Libya ' which will take her three years.
Between 2014 and 2016, she focuses on migrations between Libya, Malta and Belgium, for the serie ' Lost in migration '. She will also spend 6 months in the psychiatric asylum seeker's center CARDA in Bierset. In parallel she works on ivory trafficking and poaching in Africa and follows anti-poaching teams, poachers, trackers and hunters in the forest and the bush in Cameroon and Zimbabwe.
Since 2014, she has been developping a long-term documentary serie in the intimacy of an elderly isolated person in Brittany: ' Marie-Claude, the dolls' lady '. She is the 2017 laureate of the HSBC Prize.
back to gallery
