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Review: Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

August 11 – 17, 2019
Kigali, Rwanda
www.foundryphotoworkshop.org
In Kigali, Rwanda, from August 11th to the 17th, 2019, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop brought together students and professionals from across Africa. Foundry is a project of the VII Academy working in partnership with PhotoWings, and seeks to inspire and educate future generations of men and women to address important issues through the medium of photography. In 2019, Foundry came to the heart of Africa and invited photographers from across the continent and beyond to a week of inspiration and education. Over seventy students received full or partial scholarships to attend the workshop.
Review: The Life That Remains – Photographing America’s Rural Spaces

June 15 – 21, 2019
Mexico, Missouri
Instructor: Danny Wilcox Frazier
The VII Academy invited eight photographers with strong connections and commitment to rural issues, both in and outside of the United States, to join Danny Wilcox Frazier for a documentary workshop in small-town America. The weeklong program was tuition-free and funded by the VII Academy to support photographers from low-income communities as well as those working on issues about underrepresented populations. The workshop was limited to eight photographers.
Review: After the Image 2019

This three-day “After the Image” workshop with VII Photo Agency’s Philip Blenkinsop and Daniel Schwartz in Sarajevo addressed the critical period between the end of a photographic project and the moment when a designer genius embarks on squeezing your images and vision into a book that will neither make you proud nor rich, or when an artist-turned-curator hijacks them to illustrate his agenda. In other words, the period when you need to exercise an author’s authority but still want to listen to those with experience in making books and exhibitions. Generally, it is a period marked by mental exhaustion, self-doubt, and disappointment. Nothing you had envisaged in the field seems to work on pages or walls.
Review: VII in Sarajevo: Festival of the Image 2019

In May 2019, the VII Academy, the educational arm of the VII Foundation, hosted “VII in Sarajevo: Festival of the Image”: two workshops, thirty-one students, nine presentations, panel discussions on the state of the media in the Balkans, conversations with VII Photo Agency photographers, and an exhibition “Her Take: (Re)Thinking Masculinity,” featuring the work of the seven women photographers of VII. There were 200 festival participants from thirty-seven countries, including fifty-six scholarships for students from the region!
Review: Kuma International Summer School

July 8 – 22, 2019
The Bosniak Institute – Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation in Sarajevo
The Kuma International Summer School was held July 8-22, 2019 at the Bosniak Institute – Adil Zulfikarpašić Foundation in Sarajevo. The VII Academy supported twelve scholarships for Bosnian students who applied to the summer school programs, and this year the students who were chosen were all women hailing from several Bosnian cities—Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Gračanica.
Review: War Art Remembrance and Memory (WARM) Festival

July 8-13, 2019
Sarajevo
The VII Academy supported two of our closest Balkan partners–the Post-Conflict Research Center (P-CRC) and WARM Foundation–who hosted the the 6th War Art Remembrance and Memory (WARM) Festival and the first WARM Academy in Sarajevo in July 2019.
Review: Chobi Mela

February 28-March 9, 2019
Dhaka, Bangladesh
In 2019, the VII Academy supported three workshops and multiple portfolio reviews at the Chobi Mela festival. Fifty-nine students received scholarships to participate in one of three workshops: “Your Photojournalism Survival Kit” with Ron Haviv; “Learning to See” with Christopher Morris; and “A Better Future For Independent Journalists” with Vaughan Smith. Eleven students attended portfolio review sessions with Gary Knight and Anush Babajanyan.
Review: Burmese Days: Documenting an Extraordinary Voyage of Discovery

December 1, 2018 - December 7, 2018
Instructors: Daniel Schwartz, Philip Blenkinsop
Seven days with instructors Daniel Schwartz and Philip Blenkinsop in Myanmar were spent observing, building confidence, and seeking out those special moments that as photographers we live for; documenting them as they happen, whether walking the streets, journeying by train, bus or boat or simply sat at a tea shop watching the world go by.