The days after

È ormai noto quanto necessari e significativi possano essere i lavori fotografici basati sul concetto di slow journalism, quando l'autore precede la news e ne anticipa la portata dirompente con un'approfondita indagine sul campo. Ma il racconto lento è fondamentale anche nel post-news, lungo la strada—ultimamente un po' meno battuta—di quel che accade dopo la notizia, quel che rimane dopo che il circo mediatico ha abbandonato la partita e di un evento drammatico restano solo le meno affascinanti ma anche più complesse conseguenze. Nel 2008, dopo aver portato a termine Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace, la fotografa Sara Terry ha detto vita a The Aftermath Project, un programma volto a esortare—ovvero ad aiutare con un grant in denaro—i fotografi al racconto di quel che c'è dopo la guerra, ovvero l'aspetto meno visto dei grandi conflitti mondiali. Disegnato da Teun van der Heijden, pubblicato da Dewi Lewis e accompagnato dalle poesie della grande Wisława Szymborska, War is Only Half the Story è resoconto, riassunto e retrospettiva dei dieci anni del progetto, in cui si sono avvicendati autori del calibro, tra gli altri, di Jim Goldberg, Nina Berman, Jessica Hines, Stanley Greene, Kathryn Cook, Justyna Mielnikiewicz, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Adam Patterson, Rodrigo Abd, Donald Weber, Simon Brann Thorpe, Monika Bulaj, Luca Locatelli, Isabel Kiesewetter, Bruno Boudjelal, Louie Palu, Juan Arredondo e Davide Monteleone

Simon Brann Thorpe — FINALIST, 2012 “TOY SOLDIERS” Toy Soldiers Budraiga No.02. “Toy Soldiers” is a unique collaboration between a military commander and an artist in the creation of an allegory of modern warfare that stages real soldiers, posed as toy soldiers, in an investigation into the impact, legacy and dehumanizing effects of war. The series is set in Western Sahara, an invisible conflict stuck within a paradigm of post-colonial conflict for over 40 years

Philippe Dudouit — FINALIST, 2014 “SAHEL – THE DYNAMICS OF DUST” (From left to right) Bibi, Al Hussein, Mohamed and Akli are part of a Tuareg rebels music band, founded by the Niger Movement for Justice, a primarily Tuareg militant group, to spread their message all over the Sahel region. In the 1990s, as the first rebellion took place, another Tuareg band became famous as far away as Europe. Northern Niger, 2008

Isabel Kiesewetter — FINALIST, 2013 “CONVERSION” Fusion Festival, Larz, Former Rechlin-Larz military airfield 1933 - 1945: Main testing ground of the Third Reich’s Luftwaffe 1945 - 1993: Used by the 19th Fighter Bomber Regiment West of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany

Jim Goldberg — GRANT WINNER, 2017 “OPEN SEE” Crows flying over a deserted field in winter. Ukraine, 2007

Juan Arredondo — FINALIST, 2016 “EVERYBODY NEEDS A GOOD NEIGHBOR” Angél 14, and Daniel (right), 16, members of the ELN Che Guevara Front pose for a picture at their camp in Choc. The Che Guevara front operates on the Pacific coast of Colombia patrolling important corridors to allow the export of cocaine to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexico. February 17, 2014

Gwenn Dubourthoumieu — FINALIST, 2013 “RAPED LIVES” This couple has benefited from mediation work by the women activists of AFPDE, an NGO which provides medical aid to rape victims. The wife was raped by several men who came to punish her husband. She said, “When my husband returned home, I told everything to him. He did not react, did not say a word and took me to the hospital. I believed that he was angry with me. I was suddenly afraid that he would abandon me. But instead, he took me to the police and encouraged me to tell everything.”

Louie Palu — GRANT WINNER, 2009 “HOME FRONT” U.S. Marine LCpl. Damon “Commie” Connell, 20, at Forward Operating Base Apache North, after a patrol in Garmsir District. Damon is from Las Vegas, Nevada, and this is his first tour of Afghanistan

Jessica Hines — FINALIST, 2010 “MY BROTHER’S WAR” Chapter 4, Untitled #2, The Beginning. I was standing on my balcony one evening in Saigon watching in amazement the traffic below. When I decided to make this photograph, it was not planned but felt – the image formed in my mind as I stood there in the fading light. I quickly ran into my room, grabbed the camera and made the shot before the light disappeared. The photograph I held was taken by Gary of what appears to be smoke from a bomb blast. I don’t know the exact location where that photograph was made. This is but one of the mysteries surrounding Gary’s photographs and experiences during the war

Louie Palu — GRANT WINNER, 2009 “HOME FRONT” U.S. Marine LCpl. Damon “Commie” Connell, 20, at Forward Operating Base Apache North, after a patrol in Garmsir District. Damon is from Las Vegas, Nevada, and this is his first tour of Afghanistan

Nina Berman — GRANT WINNER, 2016 “ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF DANGER” Luis Lopez Cemetery, Socorro County, New Mexico. Luis Lopez is a town in one of four counties being studied for health impacts resulting from radiation fallout from the 1945 Trinity Atomic test. Unlike residents of Nevada and Utah, those in New Mexico have never been acknowledged or covered under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Luis Lopez residents say dozens of people in the cemetery died of cancer and wonder if it is linked to the Trinity test. Residents within 150 miles of the Trinity site show higher incidents of cancer than in other parts of New Mexico, according to a health impact study released in 2017 by the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. April 2, 2016

Olga Ingurazova — FINALIST, 2014 “SCARS OF INDEPENDENCE” An unguided missile launching mount, left in an Orthodox church destroyed during the war. Anukhva, Abkhazia. 2013

Luca Locatelli — GRANT WINNER, 2014 “UNITED COLOURS OF WAR” A demonstration at SOFEX weapons fair, the world’s most important weapons fair, which caters exclusively to Special Operations Forces and Homeland Security. It’s held biennially in Amman, Jordan. 2012

Rodrigo Abd — FINALIST, 2009 “RECLAIMING THE DEAD: MASS GRAVES IN GUATEMALA, A STORY ONLY PARTIALLY TOLD” Lorenzo Cuxil and Felicita Oligaria look at a picture of a victim killed by the Guatemalan Army in a former military base in Comolapa, 80 km west of Guatemala City. Guatemalans honor their deceased loved ones on November 1 and 2. November 2, 2004

Andrew Lichtenstein — GRANT WINNER, 2012 “AMERICAN MEMORY” Montgomery, Alabama, 2011. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of President Jefferson Davis, Civil War re-enactors hold a rally in downtown Montgomery, the first capitol of the Confederacy. Perhaps by coincidence, these women, waiting for the rally to begin, are sitting on a park bench where Rosa Parks boarded the city bus she was arrested on in 1955, which helped launch the Civil Rights movement

Natela Grigalashvili — SPECIAL $2,500 GRANT, 2008 “REFUGEES OF GEORGIAN VILLAGES” Sisters, Kaspi, Georgia, 2005

Stanley Greene — GRANT WINNER, 2013 “HIDDEN SCARS” A scarecrow and his guard dog watch over the village of Bamut, which was always a rebel stronghold, and was the last village to fall to Russian forces. The entire village was leveled by the Russian military. Bamut is near the Chechen border with neighboring Ingushetia, which lies to the west of Chechnya. In April 2014, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov sent forces on a cross-border raid into Ingushetia. A few years previously, he sent forces on a similar raid into Dagestan, to the east. Kadyrov’s pan- Caucasus ambitions are making his neighbors uneasy. Bamut, Chechnya, 2013

Danny Wilcox Frazier — GRANT WINNER, 2010 “SURVIVING WOUNDED KNEE” Horse races at the Oglala Lakota Nation Pow Wow, Pine Ridge Reservation. Lakotas celebrate traditional life throughout late summer with Sun Dances, Pow Wows, and horse races across the reservation. Pine Ridge sits in the poorest region of America, but is nonetheless a part of the country that is rich with culture and traditional life