Stories from Polaroid and Magnum Photos Open Call winners

The competition winners’ empathy-building, perspective-changing stories emphasize the role of instant photography as a powerful medium for creative expression and building human connection.  

With guidance from Magnum Photographers - Enri Canaj, Jim Goldberg, and Newsha Tavakolian, the artists explore a broad range of themes from migration to gender roles, and from expressing one's own identity to reflecting on the poignant reality of living with a disease, or far away from family.

All work was created using the new Polaroid black-and-white film and the I-2 camera, a high-end instant camera with Polaroid's sharpest lens and built-in manual controls.  

Artists: Jakub Stanek, Jaír Fernando Coll, Maria Beatriz de Vilhena, Mengwen Cao, D. M. Terblanche, Mohamed Hassan, Stefan Pavic, Aleruchi Kinika, Natela Grigalashvil, Jed Bacason

Jakub Stanek (Poland)
Jakub Stanek documented his everyday life with his son, questioning the traditional perceptions of masculinity and perception of fathers as secondary parents. “This is the story of my struggle for love and my attempts to rebuild parenthood on new, fairer grounds.” 

Aleruchi Kinika (Nigeria)
Aleruchi Kinika’s project explores the complexities of womanhood, showing women in their element as mothers, friends and beings. A series of melancholic portraits where clothing, movement and background are intentional to express the kindness and joy, worry and pain of womanhood.

Maria Beatriz de Vilhena (Portugal)
Maria Beatriz de Vilhena returned to the place of their origins near the Portuguese-Spanish border, searching for traces of her family history in a common geography and the characteristics of this ancient territory. “This is a project about identity, memory and the geography in between.”

Mengwen Cao (China/USA)
As Mengwen Cao prepares to leave New York temporarily for the next chapter of their life, they wanted to create a ritual that honors the people and places that have shaped them. “IDareU2Feel Radio" is a series of collaborative portraits embroidered with affirmations from their friends, creating a heartfelt farewell that carries both grief and love; a testament to the connections they’ve built.

Jaír Fernando Coll (Colombia)

Jaír Fernando Coll follows the journey of Samara who lives with Zika-related microcephaly in Cali, Colombia.  He’s been documenting Samara’s story for seven years. For the latest chapter of his project Jaír produced black and white Polaroid photographs, in which the family intervened with drawings and scratchings to illustrate how they bring color to Samara's life.

Mohamed Hassan (Egypt/UK)

'Witnessing Wales' is a long-term study of community and nationhood, created through a series of journeys across the country. Mohamed Hassan’s work contains both landscapes and portraits and is an allegorical tale for finding a sense of belonging within the story of Wales today.

Stefan Pavic (Kosovo)

Stefan Pavic documents the everyday life of Kosovo Serbs and Albanians, reflecting on the changes in the country since the 1999 conflict and highlighting stories of enduring strength and unity among its people living in the hope of peaceful future.

Natela Grigalashvil (Georgia)
In the industrial town of Chiatura, Natela Grigalashvil documents the lives of miners and residents, focusing on a community shaped by economic decline, social challenges, and environmental degradation. Through these photographs Grigalashvil depicts the realities of those who continue to live and work in this difficult environment, offering a direct portrayal of a town grappling with its industrial past.

D. M. Terblanche (South Africa/Germany)
Drawing on their own experience, D. M. Terblanche explores the internal world of living with late-diagnosed autism.  Set in the context of a new country, away from the familiarity of the global south, Terblanche worked with self-portraiture, reflecting on having once written “autism is a loneliness for which I now have a name, after years of living in mistranslation”

Jed Bacason (Philippines/UAE)
Jed Bacason embraces the materiality of Polaroid photography in his “Love Mum” project, inspired by his own childhood experiences receiving his father’s letters from abroad. Now an overseas worker himself, Bacason asked five Filipino mothers in Dubai to write heartfelt letters to their children then captured their emotions in black-and-white Polaroid portraits. Bacason then sent these letters and photos to the women’s children as a tangible reminder of their mothers' love across the distance.

*Please ensure that all imagery is credited to the photographer in the filename (if provided) as well as Polaroid.