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Five years ago, on January 6th, 2021 the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

The attack was unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. Within 36 hours, five people died and 174 police officers were injured, including 4 who committed suicide weeks after the siege, according to AP News.

The historic and damaging attack on the U.S. Capitol has resulted in millions of dollars in damages and led to a bipartisan investigation into security failures on Jan. 6th. President Trump's pardons of the defendants ended the largest criminal prosecution in American history, while freeing more than 1,500 defendants from criminal liability.

On January 6th, 2026, House Democrats are expected to call a number of the police victims as public witnesses. Despite the President's claims that minimize the riot, there is an ongoing effort to dispel false narratives about Jan. 6th.

January 6th, 2026 : 5 Years Since...

In 2015, Larry Towell was given access to the notorious General Penitentiary of Venezuela (PGV) in Guarico State. He was accompanied by Alberto Vollmer who runs Project Alcatraz a grass roots rehabilitation program for the those inside. He is also CEO of Santa Teresa Rum, a family business traced to the founding of the Santa Teresa Hacienda in 1598. When we visited, the prison was controlled by its inmates, or whichever Pran (“boss”) was in charge at the time. Unlike Central American gangs like MS-13, Venezuelan gang identity is not based on markings.
Guards entered only the periphery of the property while inmates controlled the sprawling interior. When we entered, one gang member sat by the door with an automatic weapon on his lap. Tables displayed and sold cocaine and marijuana along with food, toiletries and household items. All prisoners paid a tax to the pran to be allowed to live here among revolvers, rifles and hand grenades. Prostitutes flirted from tables and chairs. Visiting days for relatives, who also suppled money to their incarcerated family members for the food they needed, appeared to enter at random as prisoners walked freely, although cautiously, depending on affiliations. Makeshift shelters were built in the courtyard to accommodate overcrowded cells as the facility held five times its capacity. Gang rivalry often shook the corridors.
After a long negotiation with the pran, the photographer was given brief but free access, however, not until all drugs, guns and contraband were hidden from view.

Even though there were no incriminating images, Towell had promised not to publish for ten years. What you see is simply a glimpse of the bare bones and overcrowded environment at the time.
A few months later, the pran in charge was murdered. Then in September 2016, a hand grenade caused the prison’s foundation to shake. When the smoke cleared, 20 prisoners with their visitors were dead. Inmate then turned against inmate and the following two weeks of hay hem left 80 more dead. Then government soldiers entered and cleared the prison. Inmates were scattered into national detention centres around the country and the General Penitentiary was abandoned.

Venezuela General Penitentiary....

In November 2025, Emin Özmen travelled to Colombia to meet young Venezuelans who had been forced to flee their country. Through photos and video interviews, he portrays a lost generation.

“These young people don’t see a future for themselves in Venezuela. They have given up hope for their country, but they haven’t given up hope for themselves. That is why they leave”, Özmen says.

Inflation, violence, gang warfare, crime rates and shortages of food, medicine and essential services in Venezuela are forcing millions to flee. Since 2014, more than 8 million people - a quarter of the population - have left the country. Those who remain live in poverty and fear, missing the family members who have left. Özmen already worked in Venezuela in 2019, documenting not only the political upheaval, but also the poverty and despair that lies behind the tensions.

Venezuelan Youth in Exile

In 2025 Chien-Chi Chang travelled to Taiwan several times, documenting what he calls "Taiwan Last Summer " via military exercise and civilians in preparedness - An edit is presented in this album here. "This ongoing project captures a turning point in global history, as U.S. alliances waver and democracies like Ukraine and Taiwan prepare to stand alone. I’ve documented Ukraine’s resistance over ten trips and now continue to capture Taiwan’s growing readiness in the face of a looming invasion."

In Taiwan, the line between civilian and soldier is rapidly fading. As Chinese military aircraft cross the median line with alarming regularity and invasion scenarios shift from speculation to contingency planning, a growing number of Taiwanese are taking survival into their own hands.

On weekends and after hours, classrooms become triage zones and abandoned warehouses transform into mock warzones. Civilians students, software engineers, retirees—train to stop bleeding, clear rooms, and navigate jungle terrain with rifles, real or replica, slung across their chests. Instructors, many of them former special forces or combat medics, don’t sugarcoat the stakes. There may be no time for rescue, no room for hesitation.

These scenes are not military rehearsals. They are Taiwan’s grassroots response to a mounting threat—one that feels more inevitable with each news cycle. In a country that has lived for decades in a fragile peace, war preparation has become a matter of personal responsibility. Quietly, urgently, the island is bracing for impact.

"Taiwan Last Summer" - Preparedness...

From the 19th century, the entirety of Sudan was conquered by the Egyptians. In 1899, under British pressure, Egypt agreed to share sovereignty over Sudan with the United Kingdom as a condominium. The Egyptian revolution of 1952 toppled the monarchy and demanded the withdrawal of British forces from all of Egypt and Sudan.
On 1 January 1956, Sudan was declared an independent state.

After Sudan became independent, the Gaafar Nimeiry regime began Islamist rule. This exacerbated the rift between the Islamic North, the seat of the government, and the Animists and Christians in the South. A civil war erupted between government forces, influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which eventually led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Between 1989 and 2019, a 30-year-long military dictatorship led by Omar al-Bashir ruled Sudan and committed widespread human rights abuses, including torture, persecution of minorities, alleged sponsorship of global terrorism, and ethnic genocide in Darfur from 2003–2020. Overall, the regime killed an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people.

Protests erupted in 2018, demanding Bashir's resignation, which resulted in a coup d'état on 11 April 2019 and Bashir's imprisonment. On 2025, Sudan is currently embroiled in a civil war between two rival factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Magnum photographers have documented since 1941 the richness of this country, as well as its times of crisis, political conflict and wars.

January 1st, 2026 : 70th anniversary...

Assigned by the NYT, Nanna Heitmann traveled to Tehran to document the aftermath of the June 12-Day War, during which Israel launched heavy strikes on the country, killing more than 1,000 people, most of whom were civilians, as well as nuclear scientists and high-ranking officers.

Heitmann photographed the scars of war, visualized through victims still recovering in hospitals and commemorations of the deceased in the symbolic Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, where Khomeini rushed upon his return from exile in 1979, as well as in central places such as Palestine Square. Heitmann also documented Tehran's return to a fragile normalcy in its busy streets and cafés - a normalcy clouded by the population's doubts regarding the future of their country.

Iran, 40 days after the 12-day...

French actress Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934, Paris, France. Right from her first role, in Roger Vadim's movie Et Dieu créa la femme (1956; And God Created Woman), at the age of 22, Bardot seduced the audience and soon became the ultimate sex symbol of the 50s and 60s. She starred in most notable films such as La Vérité (The Truth, 1960) Le Mépris (Contempt, 1963), Viva Maria! (1965), En cas de malheur (In Case of Adversity, 1958). She eventually retired in 1973 and became an outspoken animal rights activist. In a her 2019 biography, ‘’Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir’’, she stated “Humans have hurt me. Deeply. And it is only with animals, with nature, that I found peace.”

Magnum Photographers have had the opportunity to capture her magnetism along her career.

The Best of Brigitte Bardot

With the year coming to a close we look back at highlights of the photographers' work from 2025.
Even though their projects - both commissioned and personal - were varied in topic and location, many focused on some of the year's major events: Donald Trump’s return to office and resulting policy changes and public reaction; the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War and regional effects; and Syria following the overthrow of the Ba’athist regime.

End of Year: 2025

On December 17, 2010, Tunisian vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, triggering protests across the Arab world.

15 years since the Arab Spring...

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of beloved photographer Martin Parr on December 6th, 2025 in his home in Bristol.

Martin Parr built an extraordinary legacy, publishing more than 100 of his own books, curating major photography festivals, and founding the Martin Parr Foundation in 2017. Widely regarded as one of the foremost documentary photographers of his generation, Parr had been a member of Magnum Photos since 1994 and served as its president from 2013 to 2017.
Martin Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey, UK, in 1952. When he was a boy, his budding interest in the medium of photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer. Martin Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic, from 1970 to 1973.
Since that time, Parr has worked on numerous photographic projects. He has developed an international reputation for his innovative imagery, his oblique approach to social documentary, and his input to photographic culture within the UK and abroad.

The Martin Parr Foundation and Magnum Photos will work together to preserve and share Martin’s legacy.

Martin will be greatly missed.

7th December 2025

Martin Parr : 1952-2025

"I decided to migrate to fight for an ideal, for a dream, for the pursuit of freedom; the journey opened my eyes, showed me that equality does not exist and that ideas of control and power rule our days. I have walked a long way and heard heartbreaking stories that have led me to question who we are, our perception of others, of ourselves; what leads us to destroy each other.I continue walking without finding those answers, following voices that call for struggle, for what seems to be returning. Because those voices emerge when everything seems lost, they emerge when strength is about to run out.It is so difficult to think about hope when everything is falling apart, when time tells us that in the end everything will be destroyed. It is so difficult to think about dreams when reality fades away.We need to join our voices of struggle and let the song of existence burn brightly." YM

Yael Martinez first traveled to California in 2007 from Mexico. He was 21 years old with a dream of working to earn enough money for a camera. He joined his uncle in El Cajon, in San Diego County, where he worked in construction for just over a year, along with other family members. In 2025, when the Trump's administration enforced its strongest migration policies, Martinez travels to the US revisiting El Cajon to document the personal journeys of his relatives; to Los Angeles where the first national demonstration against ICE became visible; to NYC where regular ICE evictions happen in the Federal building. Yael is continuing his look into the endemic violence migration carry and continue to face.

ORIGINAL POEM from YM:
*Donde se quema el horizonte*
California
Texas
Nueva York
El sudor
La sangre
La piel quemada
El tiempo
Un horizonte que se desdibuja
Por el miedo,
Por el control,
Por tiempo,
Por la voluntad
Por el terror de nuestros fantasmas.
Que las palabras se pierdan en el polvo que somos.
Que nuestros actos se diluyan en la fuerza invisible que nos controla
No podrá ser
No podrá ser
No podrá ser
El calor de una estrella quema todo."
Y.M.

Where The Horizon Burns

South Sudan is experiencing one of the world's most protracted humanitarian crises—one that is frequently overlooked by the international community.

Since the civil war broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Force on 15 April 2023, 800,000 South Sudanese in Sudan have returned to their country due to the increasing danger of remaining in the war-torn country. Upon arrival, they often find that they have nothing in a country whose internal situation is becoming increasingly unsafe: no shelter, food, water or access to healthcare, leading to increased rates of diseases.

According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, more than half of South Sudan's population (7.7 million people) are severely malnourished, and 83,000 of them are experiencing "catastrophic levels of food insecurity". Internal conflicts, intercommunal violence, and floods have exacerbated this already dire situation, and the continuous influx of refugees and returnees into the country has placed additional strain on limited resources and services, particularly those related to food, water, education, and healthcare.

In September 2025, Alex Majoli embedded with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which continues to carry out vital work to assist vulnerable populations and promote respect for international humanitarian law in the country. He photographed families in need and people undergoing physical rehabilitation at hospitals and medical facilities supported by the ICRC, documenting the human impact of the deepening crisis.

South Sudan's Worsening Crisis

Mark Power

A few meters beneath the bright neon lights and opulence of Las Vegas casinos, another city exists. Invisible, underground, forgotten. In more than 300 kilometers of tunnels dug to channel floodwaters, hundreds of women, men, and children live and survive out of sight.

These tunnels, unknown to tourists and ignored by residents, have become precarious refuges— sometimes permanent ones—for those left behind by the entertainment economy: veterans of distant wars, victims of the 2008 financial crisis and massive waves of foreclosures, precarious workers, families broken by the unfulfilled promise of the American dream.

Through his lens, Jérôme Sessini reveals the other side of the world capital of illusion. Under the Strip confronts two realities that coexist without ever meeting: that of a city built on excess and that of poverty made invisible, buried beneath the very foundations of wealth.

A powerful visual narrative about exclusion, resilience, and contemporary social divisions—where the dream collapses, right beneath our feet.

Beneath the Strip

December 8th 2025 marks one year since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syrian president of the Ba’athist regime in power since 1971.

Syria: One Year Since the Fall...

Since the 1970s, the Gabès region in eastern Tunisia has been living in the smoke of a huge phosphate processing complex, a mineral used in the production of agricultural fertilizers. Denouncing numerous environmental and health impacts, the population is now calling for the site to be dismantled.
In October 2025, general strikes brought Gabes to a standstill. Shops, schools, and markets closed their doors as residents took to the streets to demand the shutdown or dismantling of the most polluting industrial units.
For several years, cases of poisoning and asphyxiation have risen, particularly among children exposed to toxic emissions from the factories of the Tunisian Chemical Group, whose phosphate processing activities represent nearly 20% or the PI, continue to severely harm public health and the environment.

Since the 1970s, the Tunisian Chemical Group has dumped more than 500 million tons of wet phosphogypsum into the sea of Gabes, and a recent audit of the plant commissioned by CGT estimates published in July 2025 that discharges continue at a rate of 14,000 to 15,000 tons per day along the coastline, causing an environmental impact that Magnum Photographer Zied Ben Rhomdane started documenting in 2014.

Tunisia environmental fallout

Agony in the Garden is a series by Lúa Ribeira created in the peripheries of Madrid, Málaga, Granada and Almería. Inspired by the potential of contemporary counter-culture, she has collaborated with young people to make images that reflect on the alienation and uncertainty of the present era, resulting in a landscape suspended in time, one that appears both contemporary and ancient.

The sequence takes us through a barren, almost videogame-like landscape, where we encounter people who emerge as characters of an environment that is both local and global. The clothing, gestures and signs show affinities with and influence from online worlds and personas, echoing the extremes of hedonism and nihilism, all of which plays out in the backdrop of a rapidly homogenising world.

From this dystopian and sometimes absurd atmosphere, Agony in the Garden reflects on the current phenomenon of material overproduction, widespread precariousness, institutional violence, and ongoing financial, migratory and environmental crises.
This visceral feeling of uncertainty permeates throughout the work, whilst Ribeira’s inclusion of religious motifs and imagery nods towards more universal themes and a suspension of temporality. Underpinning all of this is a sense of tragedy and rootlessness, countered only by the energetic vibrancy of the youthful bodies that parade through the photographs.

Dalpine, 2025
Photographs: Lúa Ribeira
64 pages
ISBN : 978-84-09-74386-5

Agony in the Garden. 2025.

Bruce Gilden’s new book is a raw, unflinching portrait of England seen through the eyes of one of street photography’s most daring practitioners. From Liverpool’s football terraces to the troubled corners of King’s Cross, from surreal nights in Newcastle to bruising encounters in Welsh mining towns, Gilden captures the tension, humour, and unease of everyday life with his signature intensity.

Inspired initially by Tony Ray-Jones’ A Day Off, Gilden set out to explore England not through its postcard views, but through its grit, its danger, and its people on the edge. His stories are as vivid as his pictures; being forced out of Anfield by police on his birthday, dodging pickpockets, navigating drug-fueled confrontations, stumbling upon a faded boxing legend, and witnessing chaos in working men’s clubs.

This is not a romantic England. It’s a place where photographing often wasn’t safe, where street smarts were as essential as the camera itself. Gilden’s lens turns voyeurism into confrontation, exposing the surreal theatre of public life, moments both violent and tender, absurd and unsettling.

The result is a book that sits between documentary and personal diary: a jagged, unforgettable journey into England’s shadows, where danger and humanity collide in every frame.

Setanta Books, 2025
Hardback with gold dust jacket
300 x 230 mm
108 pages
54 images
In a limited edition of 750 copies

The Empire On Which the Sun Never...

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages to Gaza, 48 of whom have not returned, according to the BBC.

By September 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that over 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ongoing war, which escalated after the attack. In August of this year, Israel announced an expanded offensive in Gaza City, home to 2 million people, where displaced residents now face famine amid continued strikes.

As the humanitarian crisis continues in Gaza and violence escalates in the West Bank, Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while 157 UN member states—81% of the UN—recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.

Explore Magnum photographers documentation since October 2023, along with selections of archival coverage of Israel and Palestine.

Oct. 7 & the War on Gaza

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014, triggered by Ukraine's Maidan Revolution. Over the following eight years, the conflict escalated with naval skirmishes, cyberattacks, Russia's annexation of Crimea and support to pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukraine’s military in the ongoing Donbas War. In February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, deepening its occupation and igniting the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has caused a massive refugee crisis and led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

Magnum Photographers have been documenting the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, capturing scenes from the front lines and inside both countries, illustrating the impact of the war on people's daily lives. The selection below showcases our ongoing coverage in the region, which has spanned over a decade.

Russo-Ukrainian War

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