L-R: Analia Cid, Angela Ponce, Francesca Volpi, Alice Proujansky, Bethany Mollenkof
Women Photograph is excited to announce our grantees for a special program supported by the Women’s Equality Center, to fund photographers documenting reproductive health, rights, and justice in the Americas.
Analia Cid (Argentina), Bethany Mollenkof (USA), Angela Ponce (Peru), Alice Proujansky (USA), and Francesca Volpi (Italy) will each receive a $5,000 grant to work on projects that range from documenting black home-birth advocates in Alabama to the lack of safe abortion access in Honduras. You can read more about their projects and connect with them online below.
ANALIA CID
Argentina | www.analiacid.com | @analia.cid
This project will follow the lives of a family of women from Buenos Aires who have each experienced a different kind of obstetric violence across three generations. Their story will be used as a way to understand how reproductive rights are being violated every day in Argentina, which rejected legalizing abortion in 2018 and routinely neglects the country’s existing progressive legislation.
BETHANY MOLLENKOF
USA | www.bethanymollenkof.com | @fancybethany
This work will document the rebirth of Alabama's midwifery movement through black home-birth advocates, and reflect on the history of black “granny midwives.” The project aims to refocus the narrative of maternal health care in rural communities by exploring the experiences and histories of black women and the disparities in treatment by race and class.
ANGELA PONCE
Peru | www.angela-ponce.com | @barrios.altos
Latin America and the Caribbean has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the world. An average of 38% of women in the region become pregnant before reaching the age of 20 and almost 20% of births are from teenage mothers. This project aims to call for reflection on adolescent pregnancy in Argentina and show how gendered inequality and the lack of opportunity impacts Argentine women.
ALICE PROUJANSKY
USA | www.aliceproujansky.com | @aliceproujansky
The U.S. is the only industrialized nation with a rising rate of maternal mortality, and that rate is two to four times worse for women of color than their white counterparts. But there is a movement from within to provide evidence-based, respectful, culturally-focused midwifery care. And the evidence shows that it’s working. This work examines the ways that reproductive healthcare embodies access, choice, history, misogyny and structural racism, revealing that negative birth outcomes are not just difficult personal experiences, but expressions of a complex interplay of medicine and culture manifested in women’s bodies.
FRANCESCA VOLPI
Italy | www.francescavolpi.com | @francesca_volpi_photo
Honduran abortion restrictions mean that women constantly use homemade and unsafe methods to abort: from pills bought on the internet to herbal infusions and the use of blunt objects. Often, abandoned fetuses or new born babies are found in city-dumps or on the floor on the main square in Tegucigalpa. The unjust criminalization of Honduran women’s reproductive decisions limits their civil rights and undermines Honduran democracy itself.