Johanna Alarcón has won the 2026 Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage award, an annual prize given to female photographers who address social issues with a focus on positivity. Her project, When the Earth Gives Birth, explores Indigenous maternal healthcare in Ecuador.
Winning Project: Indigenous Maternal Healthcare
Alarcón's work documents community midwives conducting check-ups in the homes of women in the Kichwa Amazonian Sinchi Warmi community. The project highlights how healthcare is brought directly to residents in remote areas far from cities. One image shows a butterfly hovering on a window of the midwifery hospital, emphasizing the natural surroundings that envelop these communities.
Another photograph depicts midwife Maria Tapuy massaging Violeta Tapuy, who is expecting her sixth child. Like most Amazonian Indigenous women, she lives in a community far from urban centers.
Shortlisted Projects
The award also features several shortlisted photographers and their projects:
- Laura Pannack – The Journey Home: A work created with young people of Cape Flats in South Africa, documenting a simple, nostalgic, universal activity. However, daily gang shootings make it a dangerous journey.
- Natela Grigalashvili – The Final Days of Georgian Nomads: Focuses on families in the Adjara region of Georgia, whose way of life is threatened by economic hardship and depopulation.
- Ana Carolina de Lima – Sempre Vivas: A work in progress documenting the Apanhadores de Flores culture in Brazil's Cerrado region, who rely on harvesting flowers and time their lives by the flowering season.
- Sara Swaty – The Body Wasn’t the Problem: A long-term documentary project across Los Angeles that reframes subjects as people living full lives in limiting systems.
- Ranita Roy – The Withering Vein: Kosi’s Water and Almora’s Survival: Examines the water crisis faced by the Kosi River and how dependent communities respond.
- Birte Kaufmann – The Travellers: Next Generation: Revisits members of an Irish travelling community first photographed in 2001, moving beyond common stereotypes to focus on universal themes of family and identity.
- Ginevra Bonina – Out for Blood: Explores menstruation and period poverty in Indian culture, surrounded by shame, stigma, and taboo.
- Lea Greub – De la gare à la mer: Looks at gay life in Marseille and Berlin, examining how people from migrant backgrounds shape their lives in vibrant and cosmopolitan cities.
- Valeria Luongo – Among Flowing Waters: A documentary project exploring environmental transformations affecting the Cholula region in Puebla, Mexico, where residents face water scarcity and urban expansion into farmland.
Impact and Significance
The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage award, established to support female photographers, emphasizes positivity in addressing social issues. Alarcón's winning project brings attention to the challenges and resilience of Indigenous communities in Ecuador, particularly in maternal healthcare. The shortlisted works collectively highlight a range of global social and environmental issues, from gang violence in South Africa to water crises in India and Mexico.
