Creative Shortlist

I am Italian and have been living in Peru for more than 3 years. I moved because I wanted to deepen my long-term mining project and better understand Peruvian culture by living it every day. As I traveled through the Andes, I visited many homes and dwelt on the photos people had hanging in their homes that represented them; they were enlargements of their passport photos.
I wondered how people here perceive their image and wanted to understand more.
I increasingly ask myself if it is right to represent the Andean subjects I photograph with my European culture, and I felt the need to work on this. I worked four-handedly with a local photographer (Yhon Huachaca), comparing our two photographic visions, our image culture and the way people are represented, I photographed the same subjects he photographed, but with my own vision, European and sometimes, unfortunately, a bit exotic.

Alessandro Cinque, born in 1988, is an Italian photojournalist based between the US and Peru focusing on environmental and socio-political issues in Latin America.
His work delves into the devastating impact of mining on Indigenous communities.
Cinque documents environmental contamination and public health concerns, capturing the pollution's effects on crops, livestock, and homes near mining sites.
His photographs have been published by international media, including from the New York Times and Reuters.
In 2022, his work adorned the National Geographic cover, and he earned the title of National Geographic Explorer.
In 2023, Cinque won the World Press Photo and the Sustainability Award at the Sony World Photography Awards, also becoming a Prix Pictet finalist.