André Liohn


André Liohn is a freelance photojournalist born in Botucatu, Brazil, frequently contributing to the publications Der Spiegel, L'Espresso, Time, Newsweek, Le Monde, Veja and others.

Biography

André Liohn lived in Botucatu, Brazil during his childhood. In his early 20s, he moved to Trondheim, Norway where he lived for 15 years. He started photographing at the age of 30. In his first years in photography, he met the Czech photographer Antonín Kratochvíl who became his personal friend and mentor, influencing his work and his views about photography.
In 2011 he became the first Latin American photojournalist to receive the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal by the Overseas Press Club for his work on the Libyan Civil War and nominated by the Prix Bayeux-Calvados des Correspondants de Guerre.
His work documenting the challenges faced by health care personal working in conflict areas has been used by the ICRC's Health Care in Danger project, denouncing cases violence against health care personal around the world

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

In April 2010, Liohn made public the case where the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee and World Press Photo winner, Marco Vernaschi, requested a Ugandan mother to exhume her recently deceased child, offering payment after the fact. Liohn learned about the case after visiting Uganda to report on cases of human sacrifices and after observing vague photo captions written by Vernaschi, that he was not present at the time of burial and had, in essence, staged a photo and offered payment in return. After notifying the Pulitzer Center and the photojournalist Anne Holmes, who subsequently removed an interview with Vernaschi that had previously been on her blog, Liohn went public on the journalist's forum Lightstalkers. The story drew more attention when Roy Greenslade wrote it up in The Guardian. As of October 2011, the Pulitzer Center remains firmly behind Vernaschi's work, although it has withdrawn several images from this and another story and hosted a debate and discussion about the photographer's working methods, journalistic integrity, and professional ethics.

ADIL - Almost Dawn in Libya

In 2012, with fellow photographers Christopher Morris, Jehad Nga, , Lynsey Addario, Eric Bouvet and Finbarr O'Reilly, he created the project Almost Dawn in Libya, four photo exhibits in the main Libyan cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Misurata and Zintan. The project gained great media coverage and was funded partly by a crowdfunding campaign hosted by the website Emphas.is and partly by the international NGO International Medical Corps. The project's idea was to use photojournalism as a possible bridge for reconciliation in Libya after its civil war. The exhibits were curated by Italian curator Annalisa D'Angelo and photographer Paolo Pellegrin.

Political Views

André Liohn follows the Mutualism political and economic theory originated from the writings of philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Awards