LHSA Announces 2018 Grant Recipient: Mark Kauzlarich
The Leica Society is proud to announce the recipient of the second annual LHSA Photography Grant: Mark Kauzlarich. The announcement was made during the annual meeting in Wetzlar, Germany, home of Leica AG, at the Saturday night closing banquet. Mark will receive the LHSA Grant in the amount of $5,000. He was chosen from over sixty grant proposals, submitted from all over the globe. LHSA wishes to thank the Photography Grant committee and our distinguished jury, Maggie Steber, Craig Semetko, and Peter Turnley for making this special event possible.
Originally from Wisconsin, Mark Kauzlarich is a New York City-based documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer. His recent work focuses on isolation and marginalization in the United States, with a special interest in the rural Midwest. In 2018, he was twice nominated for the Remi Ochlik Award and was a winner of the 2018 Magenta Foundation Flash Forward. He holds a Master's of Arts in Journalism from the University of Missouri and dual Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Middle East Studies from the University of Wisconsin. In 2015, Mark interned at The New York Times. He is a contributor to an originator of the hashtag for Everyday Rural America. Mark has contributed to the following publications and clients: The New York Times, TIME, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The Weather Channel, The New York Times Lens Blog, TIME Lightbox, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Die Zeit.
The McFarthest Place Project
“The McFarthest Place” documents the social, economic, and political reality of the disappearing rural Midwest. In Perkins County, SD, recently the furthest point in America from a McDonald’s, a comical metric belies devastating issues. People aren’t just 145 miles from McDonald’s but also from medical specialists, mental health care, affordable groceries, higher education, and jobs. These issues, factors of decades of national urbanization, drive population loss in rural America – 73.7% in Perkins County in 110 years – threatening the community-oriented nature of rural society, fostering fear, cultural and political isolation.
Below are a few of the images from his project, The McFarthest Place for which he will use the grant funds to further develop and bring to publication.
