IO, Jakarta – Erasmus Huis collaborated with Jakarta Bentara Budaya to hold a Photography Exhibition entitled ‘World Press Photo’. In the exhibition the exhibition featured works from photographers all over the world who had been selected as winners of the ‘The 2018 World Press Photo Contest’ competition. There were 42 photographers from 22 countries whose work was exhibited, including Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK, USA and Venezuela. Of all these numbers, 15 of them have won World Press Photo in previous years and 27 others have received appreciation in this competition for the first time.
World Press Photo is a very prestigious jour nalistic photography competition. This year there were 4. 548 photographers who sent their work, and the number of images received by the committee was recorded at 73,044 from 125 countries. The judges consisted of professional photo journalism activists and chaired by Magdalena Herrera had their selection in Amsterdam so that the winners of the 8 categories were contested.hese categories include Nature (Nature), Environment (Environment), Human (People), Sports (Sports), General News (General News), Contemporary Issues (Contemporary Issues), Long-Term Projects, and Actual News (Spot News).
None of the Indonesian photographers works were included in the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ nominations, yet, Indonesia’s face still emblazoned the prestigious photojournalism event.
“Although, there were no photos by Indonesian photographers, but, there is a photo of Indonesia on display here,” said the World Press Photo Exhibition Curator, Carla Vlaun, (5/9/2018). The photo referred to by Carla is a series of photographs by a Belgian photographer, Alain Schroeder, which tells about the tradition of Maen Jaran horse racing on Sumbawa Island.
Carla said, the photo was awarded the first winner for the sports story category in the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ event.
“This photo tells about the sports side of the Maen Jaran tradition,” Carla said. Maen Jaran is a tradition where Sumbawa children race to race horses as a form of celebration of harvest.
The photos that won the competition are planned to be exhibited in 100 different locations in 45 countries and published in a multi-language book. The first World Press Photo exhibition for this year has taken place in De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam on April 14, 2018. The competition is organized by The World Press Photo Foundation which has a mission to connect the world through a series of stories contained in a photographic work.
This institution itself was formed in 1955 by Dutch photographers and regularly organizes competitions as an effort to expand photographic work for an international audience that brings together professional photographers with the public through photojournalism and reliable storytelling. World Press Photo which is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands has the support of Dutch Postcode Lottery and foreign sponsors by Canon.
In order to better understand this exhibition, there will also be a discussion about the important role of photojournalism in recording actual events that occur in various parts of the world. The discussion was titled “Reading the Winning Works of the World Press Photo Contest” which will be held on Wednesday, 12 September 2018 at 14.00 WIB at Bentara Budaya Jakarta. This photo exhibition itself has been opened to the public from September 6-26 2018 from 10.00-18.00 WIB. (Aldo)