'World Press Photo', images to feel the world

The winning works of the contest review a year marked by the Gaza war until the 24th in an exhibition at the Cajasol Foundation

The image, located at the back of the room, initially catches attention due to its powerful color. As the visitor approaches, he understands that he will not forget the photograph, and not only because of the impeccable composition, but because of the mastery of the technique with which its author, Mohammed Salem, has made it: the viewer perceives the scene as a symbol of the pain of the Gaza war. A Palestinian woman, dressed in a purple robe and an orange veil, hugs the body, covered by a white cloth, of her niece, a girl who died along with four other members of her family when a missile hit their home. . The portrait, which was chosen as the photo of the year by the World Press Photo jury, can be seen until May 24 at the Cajasol Foundation headquarters along with other works selected in this contest. Seville, Cajasol points out, is once again the first destination of this exhibition on its world tour.

The World Press Photo, a contest that has become a benchmark in its specialty and in which a jury made up of 30 professionals chooses the best photojournalism works in the world, could not remain oblivious to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Two images from this drama have deserved mentions in the contest and trace a chilling sequence: a photograph signed by the British Leon Neal captures an officer of the Israeli security forces who explores the damage caused by the attack on the Supernova festival, in October ; Another image by Mustafa Hassouna immortalizes a woman who, a few months later, in March, walks in a destroyed neighborhood – Al-Zhara, in Gaza – after the Israeli air strikes in the area. With these mentions, the jury wants to highlight both "the extreme suffering of civilians" and the work of "the photographers who report on this war, subjected to enormous trauma, risks and personal losses, especially in Gaza."

The group brought together by World Press Photo once again appeals, with its record of reality, to the dormant consciousness of the world and reflects the passivity of institutions in the face of challenges such as the migratory flow, climate change or the aging of the population. Venezuelan Alejandro Cegarra denounces the strict immigration policies that Mexico has adopted in recent years, emulating its northern neighbor, the United States, in rejecting foreigners. The Japanese Kazuhiko Matsumura collects, with restrained delicacy, the high rate of elderly people in his country and the abundant cases of dementia suffered by these elderly people.

The Brazilian Lalo de Almeida addresses the drought of the Amazon through the figure of a fisherman who walks along the dry bed of a branch of the river, while the Australian Eddie Jim warns of the rise in sea level with the story of an old man from the island Kioa, in Fiji, which today sees the coast of its childhood flooded.

Two photographs by Leon Neal and Mustafa Hassouna that address the conflict between Israel and Hamas received the competition's mentions.Two photographs by Leon Neal and Mustafa Hassouna that address the conflict between Israel and Hamas received the competition's mentions.
Two photographs by Leon Neal and Mustafa Hassouna that address the conflict between Israel and Hamas received mentions of the contest.

The exhibition was inaugurated yesterday by the president of the Cajasol Foundation, Antonio Pulido, the curator of the exhibition Mariana Rettore, the coordinator Juan Carlos Sánchez de Lamadrid, and the regional winner of the World Press Photo and cover of National Geographic magazine for his report about monarch butterflies, Jaime Rojo.

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