The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography is now $35,000. It is presented annually in October to a photographer whose past work and proposed project, is judged by a panel of experts; it follows the tradition of W. Eugene Smith’s concerned photography and dedicated compassion exhibited during his 45-year career as a photographic essayist. The Fund was started in 1978. Applications are due by this coming Wednesday, May 31st, 2017.
The Board of the Smith Fund reached out to past recipients and asked them to write about the impact the grant had on their careers and what they have been doing recently.
Justyna Mielnikiewicz received the grant for 2016 to complete her project A Diverging Frontier, in which she looks at life in the former Soviet states, 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the role ethnicity plays in the political development of these countries.
She will return to New York in October and give a Smith talk on Monday evening, October 16th, 2017. Details will be released closer to that date. She will also be a presenter at the Smith Fund Annual Ceremony on October 18th. At that time, the Smith Grantee for 2017 will be announced.
How did receiving the Smith Grant propel your career forwards?
Justyna Mielnikiewicz: I think it is too early to talk about any concrete outcome because I am still finishing the work supported by the grant. The Smith Fund Grant is no doubt widely perceived as one of the most important recognitions in the field of documentary photography. Because of that I definitely felt how it certified my work as one of those photographers to keep an eye on as the work grows. The grant allowed me to produce a completely new body of work based on the decade of work I had produced before. The Smith Grant continuously supports stories which are often too complex to complete within the short time of an editorial assignment. Stories which require rethinking, revisiting and unfold fully only within the longer period of time. The Grant gives the space to create stories and to reflect on the work.
How did you use the grant money?
I used the grant money to kick start my new long term project – which will become the third part of work I did in Caucasus and Ukraine – since 2002. As I described in my application proposal, I followed ethnic Russians and Russian speaking communities living outside of modern Russia: in Kazakhstan, Latvia, Estonia (trip planned for July 2017), Ukraine and Caucasus (still ongoing). With the grant I was able to produce an extensive body of work which sets the base for a future book and exhibition on that topic. Beside images there are videos and in-depth interviews. I plan to continue that project for the next couple of years extending that to Europe to document who are the Russians living outside of Former Soviet Space and how in many instances they influence concrete policies on the ground. As in the work I did with the W.E. Smith grant, I will document places where Russians live in big numbers, such as Montenegro (a relatively recent diaspora) or France (an old Russian diaspora dating back to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution as well as a new one of oligarchs and rich Russians who moved to France recently).
What opportunities were opened up to you as a result of receiving the grant?
I have had the ability to create a new body of work on a topic I would not be able to do just with assignments or on my own. As I already said being the most recent recipient of the grant who is still working on the project I might not be the best person to answer that. It might be too early to say. But I have no doubt that the grant is a milestone in my career. On the personal level, I am reassured that the choice I made in 2002 to focus on various aspects of life in post-Soviet states (*FSU see Editor’s note below) was the right decision (which I actually never doubted much), and there is a growing interest in the issues and regions I document. The Smith Grant, like the Aftermath Grant a couple of years earlier, has kept me going and given me a stronger sense of purpose.
What advice do you have for current and future applicants?
Envision your work as a novelist would do but execute it as a short story writer does. Think of the stories you would like to do, research them and start doing them so later you can use grants like the Smith to help them being completed. Any bigger body of work I have completed I initiated and started on my own. Along the way the bigger story was carefully carved out of possible options I had at a given moment. I propose and get assigned to do small stories which later become part of bigger project.
Be focused on what you care for and what you understand. Study and research your subject continuously. Do not try to adjust your application to what you think judges might want to see because it will not work one cannot predict it.
When writing the grant proposal be personal and passionate about the ideas you plan to work on. A proposal created with the past and theoretical preaching is boring.
Use the internet to plan your work ahead. Today, unlike any time before, information is easily accessible. One can really start the project with minimal cost – research the topic on the internet, even find heroes there and schedule the week of shooting. In many smaller stories I have done I was able to organize my complete shooting ahead of my actual arrival to the spot, and that way I did my stories with minimal cost.
Remember that this is a grant for photography first and foremost. There are so many photographers who get carried away with words and ideas and forget about the most important element the image. Keep a good balance between written words and images which can move the viewer and can speak for themselves.
Read books and long journalistic pieces – it helps you to stay sane, to maintain a necessary distance and to feed your imagination and creativity.
What would you look for in the work of a future grant recipient?
With the internet, photography has become a very democratic medium, given voice to photographers working for years on their stories, often in the remote regions they come from. It is no longer necessary to be in Paris or New York to communicate your ideas to wider audience. I love the work of Omar Imam recently awarded Tim Hetherington Visionary Award – it took painfully long to see such substantial work done on Syria.
With the Smith Grant, I would like to see works which create new visual references for places like the Middle East, China, Africa or South America. It can be both stories from under-reported places as well as from those that are over-reported spots, all telling me a new story, from a new perspective about a place I thought I knew very well from the news.
That those can be done by local or foreign photographers does not matter. They need to be strongly grounded within an intimate understanding of the places and issues the photographer documents.
Are there any photographers you would like to see enter this year’s grant? If so, please list them and we will reach out to them.
I admire the work of many photographers and I am sure there are many I do not know about. But Smith is specific not so many of them have ongoing big project. From those which I know personally and have discussed the problems of our profession three people come to my mind: Guy Martin, Newsha Tavakolian, George Georgiou.
Where has your work been featured recently?
Photo Lucida – 50 Photographers to Watch with an exhibition in Denver; and Time Magazine – Lightbox / “Women in Photography: 34 Voices From Around the World” And coming up, there are: Cortona on the Move – exhibition in July 2017, my image will be a main image of the festival; PIX House, Poznan, Poland in June 2017 and an exhibition and talk at the Rencontres d’Arles 2017 – “The Night of Photography” has invited me to show my work.
Interview by Lou Desiderio and W.M. Hunt
For more information about Justyna Mielnikiewicz and her work:
Applications for the W.E. Smith Grant are due by May 31st:
