The Photography program at Notre Dame University–Louaize (NDU) has again proudly produced two more successful students.
The Arab Fund for Art and Culture (AFAC) and the Prince Claus Fund (PCF) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in partnership with the Magnum Foundation (MF) in New York, USA, recently announced their selection of the latest group of grantees for the fourth cycle of the 2017 Arab Documentary Photography Program (ADPP).
This regional and prestigious award, which consists of a production grant of US$5,000 per grantee and two intensive workshops along with a six-month mentorship program to accompany the development of the selectees' individual projects, was given to Rawan Mazeh and Tarek Haddad, the only two Lebanese among the nine grantees selected from the MENA region.
The fourth call for the ADPP received 80 applications from 15 Arab countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen. Award-winning photographers Fouad el-Khoury and Susan Meiselas were among the jury members.
ADPP is an initiative that provides support and mentorship to photographers from across the Arab region. The AFAC, in partnership with the MF and the PCF, established the ADPP to stimulate compelling work by Arab Photographers, working across a range of experimental styles of storytelling.
For his part, Haddad said, “Besides the pride and the experience that come with receiving a significant grant, such as AFAC’s ADPP, the award comes as a confirmation that you are on the right track and that your hard work has already started to pay off.”
Mazeh said, “Through documentary photography, I can talk on behalf of who and what I photograph and reach the audience in a way that goes beyond pictures.”
NDU’s Carmen Yahchouchy, winner of the 2015 ‘Byblos Bank Award for Photography,’ was a previous recipient of ADPP’s third cycle grant in 2016. Mazeh, along with Joe Ghanem and Tracy Majdalany, have also been shortlisted for this year’s ‘Byblos Bank Award for Photography,’ due in September 2017.
All updates and progress on this achievement will be shared with the NDU community via the various University communication platforms.