2021 Global Peace Photo Award
September 21, 2021 (International Day of Peace) – I was deeply honored to travel to Vienna, Austria to accept the Global Peace Photo Award – also known as the Alfred Fried Peace Medal – for my photo series One and a Half Acres: Images from America’s Decommissioned Minuteman Missile Silos. The award ceremony took place at the Austrian Parliament within the Hofburg Palace.
An international jury shortlisted 28 photographers from over 16,000 total images from 114 countries. From that, five medals – one of which was chosen for the top prize of Peace Image of the Year (which I did not get) plus one additional award for The Children’s Peace Image of the Year.
The Alfred Fried Peace Medal: Hofer was one of five 2021 Global Peace Photo Award Medalists
Hofer (center) being presented with the award from Claudia Dannhauser Editor ORF Zeit im Bild; Austria (left) and Rolf Nobel Photographer, professor of photography and Photo Gallery GAF Hannover, Germany (right).
I will say, after a lot of rejection letters for arts funding, competitions, and one cancelled solo show, being one of the five medalists felt really good.
Vienna was an auspicious city for me in terms of the people and organizations there working for a safer world. I was aware of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the initial success and recent failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to bring Iran and its nuclear program back into compliance – but I also learned of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non‑Proliferation.
In short, I was honored to be in the same city as those organizations and people who have helped to inspire this project.
After all, it’s the future safety of the world that this photo series has in mind as it looks backward to clear proof of what arms control, disarmament, and nuclear nonproliferation have done 30 years ago and can hopefully do again today and tomorrow in a time when treaties are disappearing, nationalistic foreign policies, and new nuclear weapons development worldwide. All of this force-multiplied against a background of misinformation campaigns and polarizing divisions in our society. Hope may not be a policy but there have been policies that have worked before and perhaps can again. Is that light, these photos are images of optimism.
And there’s more to come. This medal doesn’t mean the end of a race by any means, but rather motivation for continued work: More photos from America’s decommissioned nuclear arsenal for sure and hopefully – with some funding – parallel images from the other side of the former Iron Curtain.
12 photos from this series are currently on display at the Johnson County Library at Lenexa City Center through the end of the year. Please DM me if you’d like more information about my photos or a short in-person tour.
From the GPPA website: "The Global Peace Photo Award celebrates the ability of humans to be caring and supportive. Inspired by Nobel Peace Laureates 1911 Alfred Fried and Tobias Asser, it celebrates all kinds of pacifism and disarmament of individuals and society as a whole."
See Nate Hofer’s photo essay entry.
See event press release.
See Hofer’s One and a Half Acres series web page
Learn more about the Global Peace Photo Award.
The Global Peace Photo Award (formerly the Alfred Fried Photography Award) is organized by Edition Lammerhuber and Photographische Gesellschaft (PHG) in partnership with UNESCO, Austrian Parliament, Austrian Parliamentary Reporting Association, International Press Institute (IPI), German Youth Photography Award and the World Press Photo Foundation.