Ilvy Njiokiktjien
Press Release
Communiqué de Presse
The CANON Female Photojournalist Award for 2011 presented by the French Association of Female Journalists (AFJ) has gone to Ilvy Njiokiktjien (Netherlands) for her project in South Africa, reporting on Afrikaner teenagers.
The jury met in Paris on July 1, 2011. Jury members were: Cyril Drouhet (Le Figaro Magazine), Magali Jauffret (L’Humanité), Delphine Lelu (Visa pour l’Image), Romain Lacroix (Grazia), Jean-Bernard Maurel (DirectSoir) and, for the AFJ, Brigitte Huard, Catherine Lalanne (Pèlerin) and Florence Panoussian (AFP).
The prize, sponsored by Canon France with support from the Figaro Magazine, will be presented to the winner on September 3, 2011, in Perpignan, at the 23rd International Festival of Photojournalism, Visa Pour l’Image. The prize money (8000 euros) will help support the award-winner who has one year to complete the project which will be presented at the 2012 Visa Pour l’Image festival, either as an exhibition or screened as a feature in an evening program.
The jury for the 2011 Canon/AFJ award chose to support the photographer Ilvy Njiokiktjien to help her continue the work on Afrikaner teenagers in South Africa.
Since the end of the apartheid regime, in 1994, white Afrikaners have had trouble fitting into society in the new South Africa. Often without a secure income or steady job, they tend to cut themselves off and stick together, with their own language, their own history and culture and often their own racist ideas. With the soaring crime rate and security problems, many send their children off to learn the art of self-defense in camps run by former members of the armed forces who served under apartheid. They may learn to defend themselves, but fiercely nationalistic Afrikaner sentiment is also inculcated in them. On arriving at the camp, many of the young people still believe in change and integration, and respect the former president, Nelson Mandela; but on leaving afterwards, they are convinced that they will never become part of mainstream society and will never feel any sense of belonging to South Africa.
The photographer has already covered a nine-day period of training sessions led by a racist leader. With great talent, she shows the ironic contrast between the children’s faces of these young Afrikaners and the ruthless, martial style of training. She will continue this work, reporting on groups of teenagers, their training and indoctrination, and the racist leaders in charge of them. Her ambition is to go inside a camp where trainees use real firearms (AK 47s), to see them with their families, some of whom have plans to join a resistance movement as soon as Nelson Mandela dies.
Link : Ilvy Njiokiktjien Interview on Canon website