Contemporary photojournalism, between document and art. The Aftermath Project

Abstract

Contemporary photojournalism cannot be thought without a deep reflection on its aims, ways of production, forms of representation, publishing and social contextualization. Today, photojournalists don´t find space in the media to publish their long-form projects, Consequently, they are exploring new ways to produce their own work; among possible options there are two that have become regulars: crowdfunding and the grants that many organizations and institutions provide for it. In addition, the same cause pushes the authors towards other ways to publish and spread own to the art field —the photo-book and the gallery, among other—, thus promoting an enriching transfer of creative strategies. Over the past ten years, the nonprofit organization The Aftermath Project has conducted a contest to support projects of documentary photography, focusing on issues related to the consequences of war. Their purpose is that these projects serve to show the suffering behind the end of the battle and, at the same time, contribute to rebuild the damaged society. This paper analyzes all the 58 projects selected from 2006 to 2016, focusing on thematic and formal perspective on the current documentary photography. Topics, geographical areas and aesthetic choices are analyzed, from the hypothesis that there is an increasing convergence between the modes of creation in documentary and artistic photography. The results point to a Euro-Anglocentric bias in relation to the themes and geographies addressed and, mainly, many creative connections with contemporary artistic photography.