Fighting for abortion rights

John Trotter

On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion. Thousands of people, mostly women, marched in […]

Please Don’t Feed the Whale Sharks?

Hannah Reyes Morales

The chance to swim with the world’s biggest fish drew tourists to a Philippines town, but conservation groups denounce the hand-feeding that keeps the gentle creatures around. In an assignment […]

Ukraine, the silence left by the war

Massimo Berruti

The Kiyv region is now a ghost area, where the echo of fear and violence resonate in the silence left behind by the war. Massimo Berruti was in Borodyanka, Irpin […]

Ukraine, life among the ruins

Alessandro Penso

In Bucha, the Russian army left a city in ruins and traces of appalling crimes. More than 420 bodies have already been found. In the Kiev region, prosecutors have already […]

Redefining Beauty

Hannah Reyes Morales

Throughout history, beauty has played an integral role across human societies. Today, what Darwin once phrased ‘the taste for the beautiful’ remains ubiquitous in our lives. I came into this […]

USA elections as seen on TV

The reputation damage the USA has suffered following the Trump presidency and his attitude following the outcome of the presidential elections is still difficult to assess. In this age of […]

Frontiera

Alessandro Penso

After the closure of the main Balkan migration route in 2015 and an EU deal with Turkey a year later, the number of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants knocking on […]

Stay Home

Alessandro Penso

As the Covid-19 has spread all over the world, an injunction has risen globally: stay home. Without a cure, the only way to prevent the spread of the virus is […]

Living Lullabies

Hannah Reyes Morales

The song comes alive as night draws in. Hear it curl beneath the blanket, slip between the fold of cradling arms, in rooms across the world. To an audience of […]

Adolescent Mothers at Risk

Ashfika Rahman

In Kamrangirchar (Bangladesh), many girls are married at a young age and face early parenthood. However, the needs of these girls and young women are often overlooked in the health […]

Hurricane Ida Aftermath

Kitra Cahana

Grand Isle, Louisiana, has always existed at the mercy of weather from the Gulf. For centuries it endured a harrowing cycle of destruction and reconstruction, as storm after storm razed […]

Isola

Simona Ghizzoni

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

Italy, The First Western Outbreak

Massimo Berruti

Italy was the first country to face an outbreak of Coronavirus in the west. On 10 March 2020, the country enters lockdown to the disbelief of its inhabitants as well […]

Precarious Architecture

The Sonian Forest in the vicinity of Brussels is an incredible playground for children and a feeding ground for their imaginary world. Wolves are befriended, dragons are slain, princes or […]

Brussels with COVID-19

Views of the Belgian capital throughout the successive waves of the pandemic. From March 2020 to December 2021.

COVID-19 in Wealthy Switzerland

Dominic Nahr

Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and has been listed in 2020 as the most expensive country to live in, in 2020, by CEOWORLD. Because of […]

COVID-19 Holidays

At the beginning of what looks like the second Covid-19 wave, popular holiday destinations in France are accessible to most Europeans. The cities of Deauville and Trouville, a mere 2 […]

Colonial Legacy in Belgium

In the streets of Brussels, the colonial past is hidden in plain sight. The many street names and monuments honouring personalities, places and events linked to colonial history are so […]

The Rush for White Gold

Cédric Gerbehaye

What gold meant to earlier eras, and petrolum to the previous century, lithium may eclipse in the coming years. As demand soars for powerful batteries, Bolivia dreams of striking it […]

Adrift in Blue

Nicolas Janowski

“Adrift in blue” is the story of a legendary place, from the moment that the imaginary of the End of that Inhospitable World is installed until its transmutation into a […]

Liquid Serpent

Nicolas Janowski

The Amazon is neither man nor animal. She is nature’s hybrid. Mirrors of man’s contradiction, of a world to which she belongs and yet remains distant. The Amazon bears forth […]

Condor

João Pina

In 1975, at the height of the Cold War, six Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay) then ruled by right wing military dictatorships, created Operation Condor. […]

Cuba’s New Special Period

João Pina

With the death of Fidel Castro and his brother Raul’s retirement, Cuba is now living a new “special period” somehow similar to what happened in the 1990’s after the collapse […]

Copan Quarantine

João Pina

The Copan building, the largest residential building in Brazil, with 1160 apartments and over 5000 residents living in downtown São Paulo is a small city. Designed by the famous architect […]

Coronavirus in Mexico

Daniel Berehulak

“In the Epicenter of Mexico’s Epicenter, Feeling Like a ‘Trapped Animal’”

Files of the Disappeared

Ashfika Rahman

2018-ongoing Photography has the potential to play more than a photograph. It is time to explore that role in society. This project is an initiative to start a social movement […]

Rape is Political

Ashfika Rahman

2016- ongoing Rape is used as the controlling method or power dominance on indigenous communities/ ethnic minori- ties in South Asia. ‘Rape is political’ is a portrait series of Indigenous […]

Afro Argentina

Nicolas Janowski

The historically dominant narrative conceived by the Argentinian nation-state presents the country as predominantly white, with European roots, excluding any reference to Africa in the construction of its identity. Based […]

46750

João Pina

As Rio de Janeiro prepared to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Summer Olympic games in 2016, an enormous transformation was supposed to take place in the so-called “Marvelous […]

Cambodia, the Lure and its Curse

Shiny things are like a car coming towards you at night: you can’t see anything else but the light. Cambodia is steaming full speed ahead on the path of development. […]

Roots from Ashes

Hannah Reyes Morales

They call themselves the Malaya Lolas. Grandmothers of Freedom. They found each other after decades of silence. Once they gathered, the stories began to flow. Almost 75 years ago, their […]

Youth for Climate: New York, Brussels and Lausanne

Maps Members

All over the world, young people take to the streets to demand action on climate change. John Vink has been photographing the demonstrations happening every week in Brussels since January, […]

Niger, Europe’s new Southern border

Alessandro Penso

Niger, second only to the Central African Republic as the poorest country in the world, is at the heart of Africa’s Sahel region. Nigerians have always crossed the Sahara, which […]

The ruins of Marawi

Hannah Reyes Morales

In the ruins of Marawi, time feels like it is standing still. It has been more than three years since the Philippine military declared the Muslim-majority city of Marawi “liberated” […]

Belgium, youth for climate

Belgium abstained from signing the Katowice Climate Conference agreement in December 2018, partly because of the complex political configuration of a country with 4 (four!) environment ministers. This happened days […]

Caravana Migrante, Tijuana

Kitra Cahana

Until it reached the US border in mid-November, the migrant caravan that set out from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on October 12 had largely been a success. Leaving that crime-benighted […]

Eagle Hunters, Mongolia

Hannah Reyes Morales

For centuries, the Altaic Kazakh nomads in Bayan Ulgii have practiced the ancient art of hunting with golden eagles. But the art of falconry has dwindled through time due to […]

Rêve Géologique

Simona Ghizzoni

Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to an official expert group who presented […]

Cities Made of Water

Hannah Reyes Morales

In the Philippine archipelago life is deeply interdependent: the survival of all is inextricably intertwined not just with the sea, but also with the deepening climate change crisis. Philippine fisherfolk […]

The Pearl River

Private: Christian Lutz

The Pearl River offers a photographic immersion in Macao, high place of gambling and luxury, a spectacular symbol of a megalomaniac and conquering China. This city with a mythical and […]

Ghana, Understanding Water

Dominic Nahr

In Ghana, Dominic Nahr has crossed swamps, followed rivers to the beaches and into the Gulf of Guinea. He portrayed the tenuous links between the inhabitants of the Ghanaian coast […]

Ethiopia , Recycling Plastic

Alessandro Penso

According to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MEFCC), in Ethiopia, plastics constitute 9-14 percent of cities’ waste, and more than 50 percent is not disposed of correctly. […]

2018 essentials

Maps Members

This was 2019

Maps Members

2019 has been a time of exploration and discoveries. Of reflection and coming together. Of defining and redefining what MAPS represents and stands for. It is now time to set […]

Abkhazia, Syrians coming back home

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

The Russian conquest of Caucasus was completed by the second half of the 19th century. Local elites who converted to Islam were forced to flee across the sea to Ottoman […]

South Sudan – Homes

Hannah Reyes Morales

Mothers have built the safest homes of the world’s newest country We’re exploring how South Sudanese mothers, amidst their own trauma in conflict, must create homes for a generation of […]

Migrants and Citizens

When the “Calais Jungle” was dismantled a little more than one year ago, many migrants headed for Brussels to seek an alternative opportunity of crossing the Channel. They hang around […]

Invisible Cities

Hannah Reyes Morales

Inside Manila’s Invisible Cities “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live […]

H+

Matthieu Gafsou

Transhumanism is an intellectual movement that aims to enhance and augment the human body through the use of sciences and technique. This topic refers to everyday purposes, which are already […]

Women march into American politics

John Trotter

After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, a man who campaigned on sexist, racist rhetoric, an unprecedented number of women have decided to run for political office across the United […]

South Sudan refugee crisis

Alessandro Penso

The Republic of South Sudan faces considerable humanitarian challenges, which have increased substantially since the start of the conflict in December 2013. The legacy of civil war and chronic underdevelopment […]

Life on the edge: migrants in Italy

Alessandro Penso

This work explores the situation for migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, particularly from Africa, in Italy since 2010. Most wish to continue their journey on to countries that are more welcoming […]

The Intelligence of Flowers

Nicolas Janowski

“From living things, the soul is seen fundamentally, while bodies become nebulous realities” Materlinck, 1911. “Wisdom never says one thing and nature another” Juvenal, S VIII. The humanizing process of […]

Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

The Syrian war has triggered a 1,5 million refugee flow towards Lebanon, starting in 2011. Since 6 years the burden is immense on the country with 6 million people, and […]

Civil Society Resistances in Belgium

The elections of D. Trump, the Brexit, the I.S. threat, the war in Ukraine, the emergence of totalitarianism in S.E.Asia, are just a few of scary symptoms of a rising […]

Drops

Massimo Berruti

Gaza is an isolated land so tiny and poor of resources, that it remains totally dependent from the “exterior,” even just to feed its population. The main resource for survival, […]

Epidemic

Massimo Berruti

In the shadow of the Vesuvius, the area of Naples is subject to a major political, ecological and sanitary furore. In twenty-two years, about 10 million tonnes of industrial waste […]

Lost in Kabul

Massimo Berruti

Kabul is an open laboratory and a broken experiment, a place where things mixes up under no control what so ever. What happens there is not just about a war […]

Manila Drug War

Hannah Reyes Morales

Rodrigo Duterte's Bloody War on Drugs Across the Philippines, dead bodies have turned up in communities—men with heads wrapped in packaging tape, blood covered bodies discovered inside shanty homes and […]

Odd days

Simona Ghizzoni

Quod me nutrit me destruit I first met Simona in March 2008 at Palazzo Francisci in Todi, a rehabilitation centre for the treatment of Eating Disorders. She got rushed to […]

Rayuela

Simona Ghizzoni

These are the last things, she wrote. One by one they disappear and never come back. I can tell you of the ones I have seen, of the ones that […]

Uncut

Simona Ghizzoni

Women’s alliances against female genital mutilations An ordinary room, or a dark hut in a rural village. A razor blade bought at a market will suffice, or a sharp knife, […]

A Ukraine Runs Through It

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

Project explores modern Ukraine in turmoil with the Dnieper river a metaphor of present split in the country. It documents how the mixed ethnic and historical legacies of Ukraine brought […]

Nothing to See Here

Dominic Nahr

Nuclear life has a long legacy in contemporary Japan. It spans from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the one tested off the Bikini Island that contaminated […]

Cycle

Dominic Nahr

I first arrived in Somalia in 2011 to cover the famine and military offensive in Mogadishu and surrounding regions, my last trip to Somalia was in February 2017 to cover […]

No Agua, No Vida

John Trotter

Since 2001, I have been photographing the consequences of the sweeping human alteration of the Colorado River, in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. The Colorado, I soon learned, […]

Nevada

John Trotter

About twenty years ago I was wandering around in Nevada with my camera, compelled to photograph there and hoping that doing so would help me articulate the story I needed […]

Dammed

Cambodia is developing fast, creating profound social shifts. It needs ever increasing numbers of Megawatts to feed its growth. Cambodia has rivers. Particularly in the more varied terrain of the […]

My Quiet Place

Massimo Berruti

A quiet place is what we are all looking for, a place where we feel good and safe, sometimes it can just be an imaginary one. Green Bank is actually […]

Trumpistan, the resistance

John Trotter

Following the nomination of Donald Trump as president of the United States, demonstrations have spread in the streets, unlike what has been seen in the US in the past decades, […]

Urban Single Parents

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

Single parenthood is on the rise everywhere in the world, including the EU. Single parents now constitute about 19% of the households with children in the EU. Majority of those […]

Maqbooza Kashmir

Cédric Gerbehaye

In the last weeks, tensions exploded between India and Pakistan. Warplanes screeched across the sky dropping bombs, and thousands of soldiers mobilized in Kashmir, bringing the two nuclear powers to […]

Unaccompanied minors in Serbia

Alessandro Penso

Further along the Balkans route, I found 1,500 people stuck, living in old industrial warehouses in the Serbian capital Belgrade. More than half of these people were unaccompanied minors who […]

Il mare non bagna Napoli

Simona Ghizzoni

The subway train exits on a causeway in the northern suburbs of Naples: popular blocks, an almond field, concrete terraces. Piscinola/ Scampia is the last stop. Known since a few […]

“KazaRusy”, Russians in Kazakhstan

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

V. Putin his speech in Moscow announcing the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 told the audience «Millions of people went to bed in one country and awoke in different […]

Lost Generation, Turkey

Alessandro Penso

This work seeks to shine a light on the real situation for many refugee children in Turkey, particularly in view of the multibillion-dollar agreement made with the EU that came […]

The Power Box

Ashfika Rahman

This body of work projects typological survey of televisions in the villages of marginal people in Chalan bill (the largest wetlands of Bangladesh, surrounded by water). There is no electricity, […]

The Cycle of Rice

For centuries rice was a staple food in Cambodia and most of the social and religious activities of its citizens were shaped by the growing of rice which itself is […]

The European Dream

Alessandro Penso

For almost seven years, I have been photographing the conditions of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Europe, with a particular focus on European Union border countries. I have aimed […]

Shelter from the Storm

Hannah Reyes Morales

In the Philippines, displaced women and girls wind up in sex trade after typhoons ‘Shelter from the Storm’ examines how the displacement of Filipina women after frequent typhoons have made […]

Fractured State

Dominic Nahr

With independence on July 9th 2011, South Sudan became the youngest nation of the world. It was the result of a series of civil wars and conflict lasting over decades. […]

Cambodia, Women at the Forefront of Resistance

Cambodia has seen an accelerated erosion of democratic values and human rights over the last 15 years. The hope within the population of living in a peaceful country where one […]

Khmer Rouge victims remarry

Hannah Reyes Morales

40 years ago, they married out of fear – if not they could be killed, sent away, raped, tortured. The Khmer Rouge wanted them to prove their loyalty in this […]

Best Images of 2017

Maps Members

A selection from the best images of 2017 by MAPS photographers

Cambodia, Chinese New Year celebrations

The Chinese community and the Cambodians from Chinese descent in Phnom Penh celebrate the new lunar year by offering pig meat to the lion statues at Wat Phnom. The more […]

The Last Audience

Ashfika Rahman

It was during one winter night when I was sitting on my cozy heaven like place on the earth, my grandmother’s lap. As I remember being in a cinema hall […]

They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals

Daniel Berehulak

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, began his anti-drug campaign when he took office on June 30, 2016: since then, according to the Philippine National Police (PNP), 22,983 such deaths […]

D’entre eux

Cédric Gerbehaye

Since 1830, Belgium brings together two peoples, united by the will of the great powers of the time to create a buffer state. Between Latin and Germanic cultures, it shows, […]

Migrant Workers Journey

Alessandro Penso

The project “Migrant Workers Journey” describes and documents the social and human working conditions of migrants employed illegally in Italy in the agricultural sector, mainly as seasonal worker during the […]

Cerro Rico

Cédric Gerbehaye

Potosí is a disconcerting example of how the economic system that enriches the industrialised world is facilitated by people who will never benefit from it themselves; people who – driven […]

Only God Can Judge Me

Matthieu Gafsou

Matthieu Gafsou was immersed in Lausanne’s drug scene for more than a year. By using various formal approaches, he prosaically and at the same time emphatically documented the life of […]

A Fine Thread in Cambodia

The garment sector in Cambodia employs more than 600000 people, mostly young women. It is at the basis of fundamental sociological changes with whole villages emptying to fill the factories […]

Refugees in Bulgaria

Alessandro Penso

In 2013, due principally to the war in Syria, Bulgaria found itself in the middle of international migration flows like never before. Caught completely unprepared for the around 11,000 refugees […]

Japan After the Wave

Daniel Berehulak

A year after the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated large areas of northeastern Japan, thousands of people remained without homes, and the Japanese government was still struggling […]

Braving Ebola

Daniel Berehulak

Portraits of those who labor and those who survived at an Ebola treatment center in rural Liberia. As the spread of the Ebola epidemic accelerated in 2015, Liberia’s national health […]

Ebola’s Deadly Spread

Daniel Berehulak

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, first reported in March 2014, and believed by scientists to have started in late December with the death of a 2-year-old boy, thought to […]

Hearths of Resistance

There was a surge in social and political turmoil during the 18 months after the 2013 legislative elections in Cambodia. With the opposition CNRP gaining a surprising 55 of the […]

The Dusty Path

Massimo Berruti

There are places to be seen with your own eyes, places and people that deserves a major attention and a deeper perspective. Some places are, even if very far away […]

Sète

Cédric Gerbehaye

This is Sète in winter. Sète as a discovery in terra incognita for someone who has accustomed us, rather, to distant lands – Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South […]

Woman with a monkey – Caucasus in short notes and photographs

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

This work ( which in 2014 was published as a book ) is my story of experiencing life in the Caucasus, by virtue of Georgia, where I live since 2002. […]

Rift

Dominic Nahr

Rift 1 (rft) n. Geology a long narrow zone of faulting resulting from tensional stress in the earth’s crust: The rift valley Rift 2 (rft) n. A break in friendly […]

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Trial

On July 26th 2010, the first verdict in the Khmer Rouge Trials was pronounced against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, in charge of the S21 interrogation center between 1975 and […]

Nomadic America

Kitra Cahana

The movement of human beings across the American landscape has been an enduring and central theme of American national iconography since the inception of the country. Movement can be found […]

Alpes

Matthieu Gafsou

With the series Alpes, Matthieu Gafsou reveals the complexity of the mountain torn as it is between different perceptions: untouched nature, romanticism heritage, and exploitation by the tourist industry. Since his series Espaces nomades Gafsou’s artistic preoccupations have been based on the connection between unspoilt nature and its domination by human beings.

Sacré

Matthieu Gafsou

Inevitably, this series suggest Catholicism is a male religion, and then only when they have reached a canonical age. It suggests that this is a faith deserted by its troupes, despite the child’s baptism, its confessionals awaiting clients, that it has no contact with the outside world (...)

Lost Generation

Alessandro Penso

This is the story of young, often underage migrants fleeing their home countries, trying to enter the European Union through Greece. Every day in Greece, these young people confront the […]

Land of cush

Cédric Gerbehaye

Land of Cush refers to the Ancient Egyptian realm of Cush, as mentioned in the Bible, which included the same territory now occupied by South Sudan. It is also the […]

Still Man

Kitra Cahana

“When my nape exploded, I entered another dimension; inchoate, sub-planetary, protozoan.” – Rabbi Ronnie Cahana In the summer of 2011 my father, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, had a severe brain-stem stroke […]

“Our Breasts Do Not Bite”- Femen protest group

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

Profile of  FEMEN- feminist activists group from Ukraine, who gain the fame for their topless protests. Founded in Ukraine, the group is now based in Paris. Femen office in their […]

American Teen

Kitra Cahana

Shot over four months in Austin Texas, I photographed the everyday lives of teenagers for the National Geographic Magazine cover story “Teenage Brains – Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers […]

Floods in Pakistan

Daniel Berehulak

At one point, approximately one-fifth of Pakistan’s total land area was underwater, Pakistan government authorities reported. The floods directly affected over 20 million people, mostly by destruction of property, crops, […]

Terres compromises

Matthieu Gafsou

The full body of pictures that makes up “Terres Compromises” is rich in subtlety, curiosity and a wry and unabashed intelligence. Photographer Matthieu Gafsou set out to document an admittedly […]

Congo in Limbo

Cédric Gerbehaye

Congo in Limbo is the photographic essay done by Cédric Gerbehaye in the Democratic Republic of Congo resulting from the time he spent there and his rigorous commitment. His viewpoint […]

Caspian – uncharted waters

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously described as the world’s largest lake or a sea. Over 130 rivers provide inflow to […]

Closed border between Armenia and Turkey.

Justyna Mielnikiewicz

Before Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 that border for about 70 years time that was tight sealed, an outpost of the Soviet Empire.  When in 1991 Armenia become Independent […]

Surfaces

Matthieu Gafsou

Matthieu Gafsou seeks coherence in the incoherence of a country, Tunisia, creating photographs for the series “Surfaces”. Torn between the desire of Western modernity and comforts, and the utilisation of […]

The Road to Nowhere

Dominic Nahr

I first arrived in Africa to cover the civil war in the eastern regions of Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008. Since then, I have returned numerous times travelling across […]

The Burden of Memory

John Trotter

"With the loss of memory the continuities of meaning and judgment are also lost to us. The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, […]

Czechoslovakia, the Velvet Revolution

In 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall triggered a domino reaction which would profoundly rearrange the political scene in Eastern Europe. In Czechoslovakia, the Communist regime, under a huge […]

Tour de France, 1985

The Tour de France is a mythical bicycle race, made of blood, sweat and mostly tarmac. Each year it attracts millions of spectators, scattered along the roads of France to […]