For those PAN readers planning a visit to Visa Pour L’image in Perpignan, France this year the festival organisers have sent me the official event poster above (the image is by Paula Bronstein at Getty Images) and a link to the planned events here.
2024 will see the 36th edition of the festival – August 31 to September 15, 2024 – will see it host four retrospectives from some of the biggest names in photojournalism: Paula Bronstein, Alfred Yaghobzadeh, Emilio Morenatti and Ad van Denderen. Each photographer explores themes such as war and migration across different countries and periods of time.
Several of this year’s expositions focus on conflict, both domestic and international. Corentin Fohlen explores the escalation of gang violence in Haiti. Similarly, John Moore captures the effects of the Ecuadorian government’s crackdown on gang violence and drug trafficking. On a larger scale, Sergey Ponomarev, Afshin Ismaeli and Anastasia Taylor-Lind (winner of the 2023 Canon Female Photojournalist Grant) focus on the ongoing conflicts in Palestine, Afghanistan and Ukraine, respectively. Each photographer depicts the daily lives of their subjects, and their resilience whilst living under the harrowing conditions of war.
Cinzia Canneri, winner of the 2023 Camille Lepage Award, covers the war in Tigray by focusing on the victims of sexual violence from both sides of the conflict.
Various humanitarian crises are also captured by the photographers of this year’s edition of the festival. For over a decade, Karen Ballard recorded the evolution of Venice Beach from a community and popular tourist attraction into an encampment for the unhoused and experiencing the early signs of gentrification. Gaël Turine explored a new wave of the opioid crisis in the United States through the popularization of Tranq Dope in Kensington, Philadelphia. Alejandro Cegarra exposes the brutality faced by Central and South American immigrants who seek asylum in the United States, despite stricter policies enforced by the American and Mexican governments. Francisco Proner highlights how environmental destruction impacts human lives by exploring the consequences of mining on three Brazilian towns.