LSI Announces First Women in Photography Grant Recipient
Leica Society International (LSI) is proud to announce its first-ever Women in Photography Grant recipient for 2023 - Adriana Loureiro Fernandez.
This grant of $10,000 is made possible through the LSI Philanthropy Fund and in partnership with Leica North America. In addition to the financial award, Fernandez will receive a new Leica Q2 camera, courtesy of Leica NA. LSI is committed to supporting the photography community, especially the voices of under-represented, deserving photographers.
Congratulations to Adriana Loureiro Fernandez! - LSI’s first Women in Photography Grant Recipient!
Adriana Loureiro Fernandez
Adriana Loureiro Fernandez is a freelance photojournalist currently based in Caracas, Venezuela.
Focusing on social conflict in Latin America, her work has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, the Los Angeles Times, Der Spiegel, NPR, and Reuters, among many others. She is currently a frequent contributor to The New York Times.
In 2016 and 2017, her work was exhibited in Photoville, New York, as part of the emerging artist exhibition and among the first generation of Adobe Rising Stars. In 2017, she received Ian Parry's Highly Commended Award, and in 2019, she received the Remi Ochlik Award at Visa Pour L’Image. Her work has been exhibited in several European and Latin American countries, as well as several cities in the United States. She was a 2018 fellow with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which funded a reporting project in North Africa to explore the migrant crisis.
She has a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University in the city of New York, where she was a fellow at the Global Migration Program. She is a 2018 alumni of the Eddie Adams Workshop, where she received the Nikon Award. Apart from assignment work covering several Latin American countries, she is currently continuing her ongoing personal project in Venezuela, Paradise Lost.
Her project, Paradise Lost, is an ongoing project documenting Venezuela for the last 10 years. Venezuela is one of the Latin American countries with the least media presence, with a dictatorship that tightened its grip on power, and a monthly inflation rate of 40%. Documenting the country as it is today has never been as challenging. Fernadez is among a handful of photographers living and working in Venezuela. With the help of Leica Society International’s grant, she wants to open a new chapter for Paradise Lost. She intends to focus on the new face of a country living under a dictatorship self-described as socialist until 2019 but has now shifted into an autocratic capitalist system. Thousands of Venezuelan migrants are choosing to return, many in hopes of rebuilding the country. Those who never left, either by choice or force, are also reshaping the country as we collectively reimagine ourselves. She says, “I want to spend the rest of the year photographing an emerging identity centered around resilience, those who are building and rebuilding a severely damaged country, out of love for our future. Perhaps we are making our way back to the Paradise we lost. Through my work in the country, I had the opportunity of encountering amazing people with projects aimed at reshaping our future through helping one another, I would like to shine a light on them.”
Below are a few images from Paradise Lost.
