The image was one of a series at the former Kamloops Residential Indian School taken by Edmonton photographer Amber Bracken for the New York Times. “It’s a kind of image that lingers in your memory. It inspires a kind of sensory response,” said Rena Efenti, chair of the global jury, in a statement about the image, entitled Kamloops Residential School. “I could almost hear the silence in this photo, a quiet moment of global appreciation for the history of colonization, not just in Canada but around the world.” It was not the first recognition of Bracken’s work in the Amsterdam competition. It won first prize in the Contemporary Themes category of the 2017 Contest for Pictures of Protesters on the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. Her latest victory came less than a week after Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the “worthwhile” abuses they suffered in Catholic’s home-run schools in Canada.

Making the invisible visible

In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc Nation announced the discovery of 215 possible tombs on the site of a former residential school near Kamloops, BC. It was the first of many similar discoveries across the country. Bracken said the crosses were placed on a steep hill along a busy road in Kamloops, BC, by Willow George and Cee-Cee Camille. Red dresses symbolize the disproportionate violence faced by indigenous women, while orange shirts recognize the pain caused to children by the home school system. “They did it to help make these kids visible,” Bracken told CBC’s Daybreak South on Thursday. “I immediately responded to the visual symbolism they created by personifying children in these tiny children’s clothes along the crosses.” I’m absolutely excited to announce that this photo won the World Press Photo of the Year – which is a damn title, isn’t it? Before I get to her incredible and profound appreciation, I wanted to share some thoughts from the head of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc https: // t.co/JjF3CmeGDP – @ photobracken
Bracken said one of the community’s night owls, Matt Casimir, drove her up the hill one night so he could take the picture. “It was dark and raining … until we climbed this small mound. The evening light broke the clouds and just lit up everything so perfectly and opened this beautiful rainbow over the valley. Matt showed his foot “A rainbow seemed to rest on the spot where the children’s graves had been discovered,” Bracken said. “I honestly do not feel like it was taken by a person. It’s not a photo that belongs to me, exactly. There were too many hands to carry it.” He described the award as “incredible”. “It’s just a great honor to be able to tell a story like this and a community as amazing as this,” he said.

Other winners

Indigenous peoples from other parts of the world participated in two of the top prizes in the annual competition. The winners were selected from 64,823 photographs and open format entries by 4,066 photographers from 130 countries. “Together, world winners pay homage to the past, while living in the present and looking to the future,” Effendi said. Australian photographer Matthew Abbott has won the Photo Story of the Year award for a series of National Geographic / Panos Pictures images documenting how the Nawarddeken of West Arnhem Land in northern Australia fight fire by burning deliberately burning undergrowth to remove fuel that will could trigger much larger fires. At previously announced regional awards, Bram Janssen of the Associated Press won the Asia Stories category with a series of photographs from Kabul cinemas, and AP photographer Dar Yasin won the Kashmir “Endless War” award. Yasin, along with Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand, won the Pulitzer Prize 2020 in Feature Photography to Cover the Kashmir War.