2016 Alexia Grant Winners Announced

The Alexia Foundation today announced the winners of their 2016 grants. Aaron Vincent Elkaim was awarded the Professional Grant for his project “Where the River Runs Through,” about the impact of Brazil’s hydroelectric projects on the Amazon’s communities and ecosystems.

The First Place Student Winner is Nathaniel Brunt, whose project “#Shaheed” studies the war in Kashmir, its fighters, and the relationship between technology and the representation of the conflict.

Reportage photographer Alvaro Ybarra Zavala received a Judges Special Recognition award for “Colombia, The Parallel State,” which examines the impact of sixty years of war on civilian populations.

Finalists for the Professional Grant were Reportage Emerging Talent Adriane Ohanesian for “The Last Lives, Rebel Darfur,” Brendan Hoffman for “Brotherland: War in Ukraine,” Krisanne Johnson for “Post-Apartheid Youth,” and Asa Sjöström for “Moldova Silent Land.”

See more from these projects on the Alexia Foundation’s website.

The Alexia Foundation was created in 1991 in remembrance and celebration of Alexia Tsairis who was one of 35 Syracuse University students murdered in the terrorist bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland when returning home from their study abroad program in London.

Captions: Top, a group of boys climb a tree on the Xingu River by the city of Altamira, Brazil. One third of the city will be permanently flooded by the nearby Belo Monte Dam. Photo by Aaron Vincent Elkaim. Below, thousands of people gather in Kakapora, Kashmir for the funeral of 21 year old Talib Ahmed Shah, a Kashmiri Lashkar-E-Taiba militant. Photo by Nathaniel Brunt.