Leobaldo Vásquez (65 years old) in Araya, Sucre in March 2022 - © Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Leobaldo Vásquez (65 years old) in Araya, Sucre in March 2022 - © Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Lauréats

Fabiola Ferrero

The 12th Carmignac Photojournalism Award, dedicated to Venezuela and its hardships at the individual, social and ecological levels, was awarded to Fabiola Ferrero.

Maracaibo, Zulia, 16th February 2022. Abandoned buses from LUZ (Universidad del Zulia). LUZ has suffered severe infrastructural damage due to lack of budget from the state. Out of its 14 libraries, 12 are not operational - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Maracaibo, Zulia, 16th February 2022. Abandoned buses from LUZ (Universidad del Zulia). LUZ has suffered severe infrastructural damage due to lack of budget from the state. Out of its 14 libraries, 12 are not operational - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac


In her report, Fabiola Ferrero explores the disappearance of the Venezuelan middle
class. A prosperous democracy in the 1960s-1970s, Venezuela is now struggling to extricate
itself from a deep political and economic crisis that has widened the inequality gap and destroyed the middle class. Mixing archival images, videos and photographs, Fabiola Ferrero
chronicles this vanished economic success and contrasts it with the Venezuela of today.

“My family, friends and later myself left Venezuela, leaving only traces of a long gone promise. I went back to dig into the past to photograph the remains of a lost glory built on oil. This project is a search for a country that existed before collapse.”
Fabiola Ferrero

Some images from Fabiola Ferrero's report in Venezuela

Araya, Sucre, 13th November 2021. Two men work on the Laguna Madre (Mother Lagoon), extracting salt in Araya - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Araya, Sucre, 13th November 2021. Two men work on the Laguna Madre (Mother Lagoon), extracting salt in Araya - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Cumaná, Sucre, March 11th 2022. The third floor of the Universidad de Oriente library in Sucre. Years of investment have been lost in the destruction and fire at the university. - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Cumaná, Sucre, March 11th 2022. The third floor of the Universidad de Oriente library in Sucre. Years of investment have been lost in the destruction and fire at the university. - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Campo Alegría, Zulia, 18th February 2022. Jeonaldo Rodríguez in his house in Campo Alegría, an oil camp - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Campo Alegría, Zulia, 18th February 2022. Jeonaldo Rodríguez in his house in Campo Alegría, an oil camp - Fabiola Ferrero for Fondation Carmignac
Jeonaldo Rodríguez in his house in Campo Alegría, an oil camp. He worked for 22 years in the oil industry until he was let go in 2003, after the national oil strike. His name appeared in the press as part of famous lists made by late president Hugo Chávez, who fired everyone involved in the strike. Jeonaldo raises cows and trades milk for other food. The house he lives in is still legally property of PDVSA, the state oil company.
Exhibition VENEZUELA - THE WELLS RUN DRY, Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris
Exhibition VENEZUELA - THE WELLS RUN DRY, Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris
Photo: Nicolas Brasseur, adagp Paris 2022

« Aux pires heures, lorsque je m’immergeais dans une mer calme, blanche et gelée, j’ai tiré quelques conclusions que j’ai ensuite minimisées : il existerait une force d’autodestruction au Venezuela, le pays a voulu se désintégrer, peut-être pour tout reprendre à zéro. La société elle-même a convoqué son bourreau et lui a confié une masse pour faire voler en éclat toute construction et toute pensée. Avais-je raison ou raison en partie ? Je ne m’en soucie plus. Les sociétés d’études de marché qui mènent des enquêtes dans le pays se sont heurtées à une certitude : les Vénézuéliens veulent la normalité. Former un couple, fonder une famille et lui assurer logement et sécurité, scolariser ses enfants et les emmener à la plage le samedi. Beaucoup de ceux qui, confrontés à d’innombrables périls, ont quitté le pays, l’ont fait dans la conviction qu’ils n’y trouveraient jamais la normalité. Cette normalité-là. Parce qu’au Venezuela, le manque de liberté ne consiste pas à être emprisonné (bien sûr, il y a des centaines de prisonniers politiques), mais à affronter chaque jour, à chaque instant, un pouvoir omniprésent, et plus fort que vous, qui contrôle votre liberté de vous déplacer, de choisir, d’évoluer selon vos capacités et même de manger ce que vous voulez. Le régime est toujours là à vous surveiller, à vous demander ce que vous allez faire, pourquoi vous êtes là, où vous allez, ce que vous avez dans votre sac, quels messages vous avez sur votre téléphone portable ; à dévaluer votre salaire, les services publics, les lois ; à faire tomber des murs, à parrainer le saccage de la propriété privée et des universités, entre autres institutions ; à organiser le pillage, à livrer le patrimoine de la république à la rapine… comme si la jungle du désastre engloutissait tout ce qui a été construit. »

Milagros Socorro
Journaliste et écrivaine vénézuélienne
Extrait de la monographie The Wells Run Dry, de Fabiola Ferrero, oct. 2022.

Fabiola Ferrero
Fabiola Ferrero

Fabiola Ferrero is a journalist and photographer born in Caracas in 1991 and currently based in Bogota (Colombia).

Her personal work is the result of how her childhood memories contrast with nowadays Venezuela, her home country. Using her background in writing and investigative journalism, which she studied in Caracas (UCAB), she develops long term visual projects about South America, and especially Venezuela’s crisis. Her educational background in photography includes the Joop Swart Masterclass 2019 and the Eddie Adams Workshop.
She was a jury member for the World Press Photo 2022 contest South American region and Magnum Foundation Fellow for the Social Justice Program in 2018. Interested in bringing opportunities to other newcomer photographers in the region, Fabiola founded Semillero Migrante, a photography mentorship program around migration. Among her recognitions are the Inge Morath Award, 6Mois Photojournalism Award and the Getty Images Editorial Grant. She was also a finalist for the Alexia Grant, Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award. As well as developing independent investigations in South America, her work has been featured in TIME, The New York Times, National Geographic, M Magazine, Le Monde, and others.

She is the 12th Carmignac Photojournalism Award laureate.

couv projet

MONOGRAPH

Price: 35 euros, 45 USD, 58 CAD, 35 GBP

Size:
21 × 28 cm, 160 pages

Contributors:
Fabiola Ferrero, 12th laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award,
Milagros Soccoro, journalist and writer

Publishers:
Fondation Carmignac and Reliefs Editions

Photo: © Olivier Moritz for Reliefs 

THE JURY


Quentin Bajac, CHAIR
Director, Jeu de Paume

Marcos Gómez
Director of Amnesty International Venezuela

Whitney Johnson
Director of visuals and immersive experiences at National Geographic

Patricia Laya
Venezuela bureau chief for Bloomberg News

Finbarr O’Reilly
Laureate of the 11th Edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award

Sandra Stevenson
Associate director of photography at CNN

THE OTHER LAUREATES

Finbar O'Reilly

Finbarr O'Reilly


11th edition - Democratic Republic of the Congo
Tommaso Protti

Tommaso Protti


10th edition - Amazonia
Kadir van Lohuizen

Yuri Kozyrev & Kadir van Lohuizen


9th Carmignac Photojournalisme Award, ARTIC - NEW FRONTIER

9th edition - Arctic