Cortona On The Move | BarTur Grant

In partnership with

Supported by

Visual Storytellers Fund

Cortona On The Move and BarTur Photo Award announce the conclusion of their collaboration, following a positive experience that led to the realization of the grant’s first edition.
Throughout the partnership, both organizations acted with independence, transparency, and in full respect of the integrity of the Award, the jury’s work, and the participating artists.
We would like to thank the respective teams, the jury, and all the artists who contributed to the project for their work and dedication.

Cortona On The Move | BarTur Grants 2025: Winners Announced

On July 19, 2025, at Teatro Signorelli in Cortona, Cortona On The Move and BarTur Photo Award announced the winners of the COTM | BarTur Grants 2025.
The $30,000 Grand Prize was awarded to Daniel Ochoa de Olza, while the Emerging Photographer Prizes were awarded to Anya Tsaruk and Matin Hashemi.

Main Prize $30,000

Daniel Ochoa de Olza — The Gap / La Frontera

The Spanish photographer Daniel Ochoa de Olza is the recipient of the $30,000 Grand Prize for The Gap / La Frontera, a long-term project investigating the wall along the United States–Mexico border.
A former staff photographer for Associated Press and the recipient of numerous international awards, Ochoa de Olza brings nearly two decades of experience to this work, combining landscape photography, architectural analysis, and geopolitical reflection.

“The wall is not where a territory ends, but where a way of seeing begins to fracture. I found not a boundary, but a performance — an active, fragile line maintained through power and fear.”

The grant will support a three-month expedition from Arizona to Texas, during which he will create a geolocated archive of the wall’s interruptions and contradictions.

Emerging Photographers Prize — $5,000 each

Anya Tsaruk — I Hope Your Family Is Safe

Ukrainian photographer Anya Tsaruk explores identity, trauma, and resilience through I Hope Your Family Is Safe, a project inspired by a phrase she has often heard since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
With an intimate and empathetic visual style, Tsaruk challenges stereotypical representations of conflict, offering a narrative rooted in personal experience and human dimension.

“This is my vision of Ukraine: a mosaic of courage, vulnerability, resistance, and longing. I hope to challenge the tendency to regard people in war as ‘others,’ and to foster empathy through a shared experience.”

The grant will allow her to continue her work between Ukraine and the diaspora, further expanding the project.

Matin Hashemi — Generation Z in Iran

Matin Hashemi

Born in 1998 in Tabriz, Matin Hashemi documents the lives of Generation Z in Iran, portraying a generation navigating social pressures, digital life, and everyday forms of resistance.

“They are creating change not through spectacle, but through persistence and presence.”

With a background in Computer Arts and a strong interest in visual storytelling, Hashemi builds a nuanced portrait of his generation. The grant will support the continuation of the project across different areas of Iran.

Cortona On The Move and the BarTur Photo Award are proud to announce their partnership to present the Cortona On The Move | BarTur Grant. Supported by the Visual Storytellers Fund, this initiative aims to support photographers worldwide by providing grants and resources to create compelling documentary photo essays. The Grant focuses on projects that illuminate urgent social, environmental, economic, and cultural issues of our time.

Prizes

The Cortona On The Move | BarTur Grant offers:

$30,000 Grand Prize: Awarded to one professional photographer.
Two $5,000 Prizes: Awarded to two emerging photographers under 30.

Photographers are invited to submit proposals for in-progress documentary projects that align with the fund’s central themes. The grand prize winner will be announced at Cortona On The Move Festival in July 2025. They will have nine months to complete their project, with the final work submitted by 15th March 2026. The completed work will be exhibited at the 2026 edition of Cortona On The Move, along with the two winning works by emerging photographers, offering a global stage to amplify their story.

Partners

BarTur Photo Award

The BarTur Photo Award celebrates the transformative power of photography in shaping our understanding of the world. By championing photographers who challenge conventional perspectives, the award aims to spark meaningful dialogue and inspire action on critical global issues.

Visual Storytellers Fund

The Visual Storytellers Fund provides financial support and resources to photographers worldwide, enabling the creation of impactful documentary photo essays. Supported by the BarTur Photo Award and generous contributors, the fund emphasizes projects that transcend boundaries, inspire empathy, and shed light on pressing contemporary issues. Through this initiative, the fund seeks to amplify visual storytelling that sparks dialogue and drives change.

Judging Criteria

Submissions are assessed on intellectual and substantive merits, as well as:

Creativity and Originality: The uniqueness of the approach and a compelling narrative.
Relevance: Alignment with the competition’s thematic areas (urgent social, environmental, economic, or cultural issues).
Technical and Aesthetic Excellence: The quality of the imagery and storytelling.
Potential Impact: The project’s capacity to engage audiences and inspire meaningful dialogue.
Feasibility: The clarity of the budget, timeline, and methodologies proposed.

Jury

Amnon Bar-Tur – Founder The BarTur Award
Brian Byrd – Writer / Advisor / Freelance Photographer
Kate Bubacz – Lead Photo Editor The Wall Street Journal
François Hébel – ICP’s Director at Large
Nathalie Herschdorfer – Curator and Director, Museum Photo Elysée
Hideko Kataoka – Photo Editor Newsweek Japan
Kublaiklan – Photography Curators Cortona On The Move
Lars Lindemann – International projects curator Cortona On The Move
Marie Monteleone – Senior Photo Editor Bloomberg News
Veronica Nicolardi – Director Cortona On The Move
Paul Ninson – Executive Director & Chief Curator Dikan Center
Azu Nwagbogu – Founder/ Director African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) / LagosPhoto Festival
Corine Perkins – North America Editor, Reuters Pictures Reuters
Vivek Prakash – Managing Editor, News – APAC Getty Images
Fiona Shields – Head of Photography The Guardian News & Media Group
Valerio Vincenzo – Photographer/Visual Artist/Head of Photo Departement GEO France
Paolo Woods – Artistic Director Cortona On The Move