East Wing is proud to announce that
Daniel Castro Garcia has been shortlisted for the Tim Hetherington VISIONARY Award for his work “Foreigner”. In 2015, horrified by the plight of thousands seeking passage across the Mediterranean and appalled by the media’s insensitive coverage of their suffering and fortitude, Daniel dropped everything except his cameras and left his home in UK to visit Sicily. He has been living there ever since and has developed a remarkable practice that uses the image as a hub for research, outreach and reconstruction. In the process of telling their story, he is giving support and hope to some of the most vulnerable, helping them and the receiving countries to visualise a future that is bigger than the story currently offered by mainstream media. “Trauma is a reality in their lives yet it does not need to control or destroy their futures.”
Experts on five continents sent their recommendations for the Visionary Award with suggestions that included students and seasoned practitioners across a range of disciplines from photography and filmmaking to virtual reality, performance and more. But all the candidates share one common attribute: an ambition to seize this moment of change in world media to demonstrate more powerful opportunities to communicate the urgent issues of our times. The shortlist of five artists and journalists demonstrates the rich variety of themes and techniques now available to practitioners and consumers as we try to achieve a deeper understanding of the world we live in.
The Tim Hetherington Trust continues Tim's mission to inquire more deeply and to communicate more effectively by showcasing similarly inspirational work by today’s generation of visual storytellers. To this end the Visionary Award identifies journalists and artists breaking new ground in diverse visual disciplines and this evening’s discussion will introduce the five artists shortlisted for the 2018 Visionary Award to talk about their work. The event culminates with the announcement of the award itself.
About Tim HetheringtonTim Hetherington’s mission to create a better understanding of the world cast him in many roles: photojournalist, filmmaker, human rights advocate, artist and a leading thinker in media innovation. After graduating from Oxford in 1992 with a degree in Classics and English he began a deep exploration of visual media as a tool to explore and communicate the issues that fascinated him. With a second degree in photojournalism from Cardiff University (1997) he worked initially for the UK press and soon branched into international coverage. Working and living in Africa for many years he explored the consequences of conflict and quickly came to document conflict itself before delving deeper to understand the origins and causes of violence. This and other work took him around the world, including a year-long study of American fighting forces in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008 and ultimately to Libya where he was killed in a mortar attack in April 2011.
Tim’s output ranged from magazine photo essays, documentary films, art installations, multimedia exhibitions and investigative work for Human Rights Watch and the United Nations.
The winner of the award will be announced on Thursday 17 May at Photo London
