Maryam Ashrafi

Maryam Ashrafi was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with Mines, memory, and migration on Bosnia’s perilous border.

Maryam Ashrafi is a Paris-based Iranian photographer. She is passionate about sociology, which led her to focus her interest on social and political issues. For several years, she worked on various subjects in Paris: from the mobilisation of the Kurdish and Iranian diasporas to riots over social and political issues. Above all, as an independent freelance photographer who believes in long-term projects, she has covered the aftermath of wars from Kobani in Northern Syria to Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan from 2012 to 2018. Her work on Kurdish resistance movements has been the subject of several exhibitions and publications. Her first book, “Rising among ruins, Dancing amid bullets,” has won the PrixHip and Lucie Photo Book prize.

Andrew Connelly

Andrew Connelly was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with Mines, memory, and migration on Bosnia’s perilous border.

Andrew Connelly is a freelance journalist focusing on politics, migration, and conflict, and host of the ‘Fortress Europe ’podcast. His work from over twenty countries has appeared in Al Jazeera, VICE News, Foreign Policy, The New Humanitarian, The World, NPR, Politico, Prospect Magazine, The Telegraph, Radio France International, The Atlantic, The Independent, Deutsche Welle, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, Index on Censorship, and others.