It's always a pleasure to announce the opening of a new grant cycle for The Aftermath Project. This year it's a special privilege as we open for applications for our new granting focus, which begins with our 2024 grant: '1492/1619 American Aftermaths'

As always, we will name one winner of our $25,000 grant, and four finalists.

The 1492/1619 grant is open to wide interpretation of America's original sins – the 1492 "discovery" of this land by Christopher Columbus and the assault on indigenous peoples and their cultures which followed; and the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved Africans and the legacy of more than two centuries of a system of slavery based on white supremacy and the treatment of Blacks as chattel.

The Aftermath Project is grounded in the understanding that unresolved conflicts – including those where actual conflict itself has stopped (ie, the Civil War) — continue to have an impact across generations. We welcome proposals that explore the contemporary aftermaths of these historical events, which continue to shape our society today. Proposals may include historical or archival elements; they may be portrait projects; they may be landscapes; they may be surveys or family histories; they may be fine art, conceptual, or documentary projects. Most proposals will focus on 1492 or 1619, but the judges will consider proposals that combine them as well.

As always, the grant is open to working photographers worldwide. However, the judges will be most interested in creating opportunities for photographers from under-represented communities to tell their own stories. They will also be interested in proposals from white photographers who want to interrogate the role of white privilege in creating and sustaining these injustices; a descendant of slave owners, for example, may suggest an examination of their own family history. They will be interested in proposals from African photographers who may want to propose a project that examines the roots of the slave trade and its impact in their countries.