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With the year coming to a close we look back at photographers' work from 2024.
Even though their projects - both commissioned and personal - were varied in topic and location, many focused on some of the year's major crises: the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, the war in Ukraine, and the US presidential election.

End of Year: 2024

December 31, 2024 marks 25 years since Vladimir Putin became leader of Russia.
Having first served in the USSR and then Russian Federation as an intelligence officer, Putin served as President from 1999 to 2008, then retained control of the country while assuming the office of Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012, when he was again reelected President. Through successive changes in term-limits, Putin has retained the Presidency ever since and with his reelection in 2024, and changes to the constitution that he had influenced in 2021, he could potentially retain his office until 2036.
As of December, 2024, only Joseph Stalin has served longer as leader of Russia or the Soviet Union.

25 Years of Putin's Primacy

Sabiha Çimen has been photographically documenting the USA since 2019, capturing images of the country and its people through the lens of a Turkish immigrant.

Viewing the United States - Ongoing...

Antimicrobial resistance is likely to kill 8.22 million people a year by 2050, according to a study published in The Lancet in September 2024, making it a major health concern, especially in war zones. The health realities of conflict are often not seen in their full complexity. War means that victims are wounded with weapons full of microbes, and those who survive often scar in unclean areas, making the spread of infection more likely.

"As wealthier countries bomb poorer ones, devastating essential infrastructure, they have created the tragic social conditions that foster antibiotic resistance. The public-health fallout knows no borders and can carry on indefinitely, even after the bombs stop," writes Francesca Mari for the NYT Magazine.

Enri Canaj traveled to Beirut and Baghdad to report on antimicrobial resistance and research in the two cities' major hospitals. He followed Omar Dewachi, a medical anthropologist who studies antibiotic resistance and war, in his quest to understand the mechanism and significance of this health phenomenon. With a first stop at the American University of Beirut Hospital, at the time starting to be a place of refuge for Palestinian refugees fleeing Gaza, they met with Antoine Abou Fayad, a researcher in conflict medicine since 2017. Adam Afana, a 5-year-old Gazan boy being treated in Beirut, was one of the first to arrive in the capital. An infection in his severely wounded left arm required intravenous antibiotics. Writer and photographer then travel with Dewachi to Baghdad, the researcher's hometown, where microbial resistance is also a growing concern in a healthcare industry still reeling from the ravages of Saddam Hussein's reign.

Antimicrobial Resistance in Wartime...

On assignment for Die Zeit, Myriam Boulos shares images from Syria following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government on December 8, which marked the end of more than five decades of the brutal al-Assad regime.

On assignment for Libération, Emin Ozmen has been documenting the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus since 13 December, capturing the celebrations in Ummayad Square and the people's search for the fate of their detained relatives after thousands of prisoners were released.

Syria, December 2024

In just over a week, rebel forces ended the Assad family's decades-long rule, halting thirteen years of war that claimed nearly half a million lives and displaced half the population. Over the years, millions have fled to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Europe.

From the start, Magnum photographers documented the war’s brutal realities: the migrant crisis, foreign interventions, atrocities committed by regime forces, and, above all, the unyielding struggle of Syrians for survival.

Syria: The Fall of Assad's Regime...

(From Art Flow, 2024:)
Since the publication of his long-term photographic observation of the people who live on the Mississippi ("Sleeping by the Mississippi", 2004), Alec Soth has been Invited to work in the Limmattal as part of ART FLOW and for this project has made the specific energy of the Emma Kunz Center in Würenlos the starting point of a photographic journey of discovery. He was impressed by the power of the place and the fascination of the visitors, some of whom come from far away to engage with the Emma Kunz Grotto. On the basis of this focus, the artist worked in the Limmattal in spring 2024 .

He visited people who deal professionally with the topic of energy and healing - fortune tellers, forest bathers, shamans, herbal healers, hypnotists, mediums, etc. He got involved in their working realities, exposed himself to the specific practices and portrayed the people in their extraordinary world. This resulted in a diary, the "Limmat Valley Diary". The photographic diary, supplemented with the artist's handwritten thoughts and impressions, allows a special view of the Limmat Valley, shows us a scene, indeed a culture, that often operates in secret. "Limmat Valley Diary" documents a photographic journey that explores the relationships between landscape and people and addresses the energy contained therein. Soth says: "This work is about the restorative power of tactile encounters with place".

The exhibition is a cooperation between ART FLOW and the Emma Kunz Center.

Limmat Valley Diary

Carolyn Drake

Patrick Zachmann has been documenting the reconstruction of Notre Dame's Cathedral for the last five years.
Find here a selection of the last chapter of the reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral, capturing the meticulous efforts to finalize the restoration of this iconic Parisian monument, until its first religious mass.

Rebirth of Notre Dame de Paris....

"'Murmurings of the Skin' is an exploration of the human connection to the body, the intersection of bodies and technology and the human need for physical contact. Over nearly eight years, Olivia Arthur has been making work that looks at people’s relationship with their bodies, what it means to feel comfortable in one’s own skin, and the importance of touch and intimacy. This work has included a series about young people, physicality and sexuality, stability and robotics, about touch, gestures, and solitude in COVID times. The work was triggered by her own pregnancy and the birth of her two children, images of whom appear throughout the series."

Publisher : VOID
November 2024
22,5 x 28 cm
160 pages
Softcover with dustjacket

Murmurings of the skin

"During his six-year journey across the United States creating the project that became American Geography, Matt Black collected objects in the locations he visited. Each location is designated as an area of “concentrated poverty”—a US Census definition for places with poverty rates of 20% or higher. Over time, the objects he found and collected began to take on symbolic significance.

As Black crisscrossed the United States, his collection grew into the thousands: plastic spoons and forks, lottery tickets, liquor bottles, lighters, and matchbooks. Some items were important, like job applications, medical paperwork, driver’s licenses; some were lost personal effects, like family photographs, bracelets, eyeglasses, notes, and letters. And there was the detritus of labor: work gloves, broken tools and supplies, wire, bolts, padlocks, and bent nails.

This new monograph, presented as a companion volume to Black’s seminal photobook, American Geography, presents photographs of these objects, assemblages, and collages, as well as previously unpublished images from American Geography, and the voices of those who are cut off from the “American Dream.”

These humble, discarded objects form a portrait of America assembled from its roadways and sidewalks, an archaeology of dispossession."

Thames & Hudson
IBSN: 0500027757
Release date: November 19th, 2024

American Artifacts

Magnum photographers are on the ground, documenting the 2024 United States Presidential Election as it unfolds. This coverage is ongoing and will be updated as new content becomes available.

The 2024 United States Presidential...

Magnum America is not a comprehensive photographic history of the United States, but rather draws on stories from the Magnum Archives to ask: What is ‘America’?

Arranged into decade-by-decade chapters spanning from the 1940s to the present day – complete with timelines, story-led individual portfolios and collective portfolios – Magnum America places ordinary and extraordinary people and events side by side, offering a moving interpretation of the nation’s past and present, whilst calling into question its future.

This expansive publication features over 600 illustrations from photographers including Bruce Davidson, Wayne Miller, Eve Arnold, Martin Parr, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Bieke Depoorter, Paul Fusco, Susan Meiselas, Sabiha Çimen and Leonard Freed. Edited by Magnum photographer Peter van Agtmael and Professor Laura Wexler, who also contributes an introductory essay, Magnum America is complemented by a computational analysis and data visualization by Lauren Tilton and Taylor Arnold that works to unpack the myth and mystery of the United States of America.

Breathtaking in scope and abundant with the photographic riches and intelligent, insightful authorship for which Magnum’s photographers are renowned, Magnum America is a vital contribution to the documentation of contemporary American history and a landmark photobook.

Magnum America
The United States
Published by Thames & Hudson
Edited by Laura Wexler and Peter van Agtmael
With an introductory essay by Laura Wexler
With a computational analysis and data visualization by Lauren Tilton and Taylor Arnold

Magnum America: The United States...

Azerbaijan will host COP-29 from November 11 to 22, 2024. But the small oil state is suffering greatly from the causes and effects of climate change, and faces significant trade-offs.

On assignment for the NYT, Nanna Heitmann documented the small country in July 2024. Together with journalist Max Bearak, she reported from remote mountain villages, an offshore oil platform and the capital, Baku.

"As alarm over global warming soars amid record-breaking heat and increasingly erratic weather, Azerbaijan has barely begun the process of replacing oil and gas. It has argued, as many less developed nations have, that rich nations must cough up billions of dollars to help them transition their economies, given that the world’s wealthier countries are responsible, in historical terms, for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions," wrote Max Bearak for the NYT.

Azerbaijan's Climate Change Dilemmas...

Since the 1980s, Springfield, Ohio, has experienced economic decline and demographic changes, marked by the closure of major factories and the loss of industrial jobs. Once a thriving manufacturing hub, the city now faces high unemployment and growing poverty. The population has dropped from over 80,000 to 50,000 people, 20,000 of whom are Haitian.

In Haiti, gangs have ravaged the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas, killing, raping, and kidnapping thousands, leaving hundreds of thousands without homes and unemployed, deepening poverty throughout the country. Haitians began arriving in Springfield around 2018, drawn to the city by job opportunities and affordable housing. This has exacerbated local tensions, particularly after Donald Trump and J.D. Vance spread rumors about their cultural practices, further fueling distrust and weakening Springfield’s social cohesion.

Jerome Sessini photographed the Haitian community early October 2024. This story is part of States of Our Union, a series presented in collaboration between The Nation, Magnum Photos, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Haitian Community in Springfield...

"What is it like to grow up in Palestine? How can you live amid violence, fear and oppression? What does the future look like when the past has been violently stripped of possibility? (...)"

With the people of Jenin and Nablus, Palestinian-Dutch photographer Sakir Khader explores the complex ways resistance counters occupation, and thrives in devotion to land and to life. Early encounters with repression, trauma and hardship necessitate resilience. Here, commitment to the land is found equally in the unshakable determination of fighters and the beekeeper’s dedication to his craft. It is the capacity to interweave childhood, family, mourning, play, and loss with an unyielding spirit of defiance, even when born into displacement.

"Khader bears witness to those who give up everything to sustain decades of resistance and those who persist, with remarkable tenacity, in building lives despite isolation from the freedom of their own lands." (Extract from curator Mohamed Somji's text)

"The West Bank has been on edge for the entirety of 2023. Danger lurks at every corner, and death has become an everyday reality. Before the cameras arrived, I captured what the world either couldn't see or simply refused to acknowledge. It was a suffocating journey toward inevitable collapse—a vicious cycle of violence that has gripped the people for longer than they can remember, with almost no way out. Every story starts with a nearly unbearable innocence and, without exception, ends either in injury, deep mourning, or, for an ever-growing number, carried on the shoulders of friends—silent, reverent—on their way to their final resting place." - Sakir Khader

"I have no more earth to lose"

The military clashes between Israel and various Lebanon-based militant groups trace back to Israel's founding in 1948, after which Lebanon and its neighbors declared war. Following the PLO's establishment in Lebanon in 1968, Israel invaded twice—in 1978 (Operation Litani) and in 1982—occupying southern Lebanon. In response, Hezbollah was formed to resist the occupation.

Israel withdrew in 2000, but conflict reignited in a month-long war with Hezbollah in 2006, which left significant damage in Lebanon but strengthened Hezbollah's political position. Since then, border skirmishes have continued, escalating further since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian war in October 2023.

Magnum photographers have documented this enduring conflict for decades.

Israel & Lebanon from the Archives...

On Saturday, October 7th, Israel was taken by surprise in an unexpected and severe cross-border assault by Hamas from Gaza, resulting in the initial deaths of 900 people. The BBC reported that included in this number were 260 individuals attending a music festival. With many still missing or abducted by Hamas in Israel, families are left desperately seeking information as the conflict unfolds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on Hamas, vowing to use “enormous force” by launching strikes in Gaza and imposing a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, freezing the flow of essential supplies. According to the BBC, as of October 9th approximately 690 people in Gaza had lost their lives and more than 120,000 had been displaced from their homes.

The result of this has triggered the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing in outside powers and echoing across the broader Arab region.

Israel and Palestine from the Archives...

Ukrainian President Vicktor Yanukovych’s cabinet abandoned an agreement on closer trade ties in the EU, favoring closer cooperation with Russia. What began as small protests escalated to the Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan Revolution, a violent protest with at least 88 deaths. Following the Euromaidan protests and removal of Yanukovych, partnered with pro-Russia unrest in Ukraine, Russian annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

Demonstrations in the Donbas area of Ukraine escalated into a war between the Ukrainian Government and Russian-backed separatist forces. Russian military vehicles crossed the border in several locations of Donetsk Oblast, which is believed to be responsible for the defeat of Ukrainian forces in early September of 2014. In November, Ukrainian military reported intensive movement of Russian combat troops into separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.

In October 2021, Russia reignited concerns of a potential invasion after moving troops and military equipment to the shared border with Ukraine. The buildup continued until Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February, 2022.

Russo-Ukrainian Conflict

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