“Civic Engagement” Photo Contest Winners

As part of the University’s 2020-2021 academic theme year, Penn IUR held a photo contest on civic engagement in cities around the world. Participants were asked to capture the ways that urban community engagement has adapted to altered social circumstances and working conditions amid a year of unprecedented public need. Guest judges included Penn IUR Faculty Fellows Ira Harkavy, Associate Vice President and Founding Director, Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships; Ken Lum, Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and Chair of Fine Arts, Weitzman School of Design; and Akira Drake Rodriguez, Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design.

The jury selected Avijit Ghosh’s photograph “Together we Fight, Together We Win” which depicts Pavel Biswas, a volunteer from a youth wing of the Indian political party CPIM, sanitizing a COVID-19-positive family's home in Kolkata, India.

Ghosh noted that many young people like Pavel volunteered to help fight India’s deadly second wave of the pandemic. “Many people have not been able to afford this service [having their homes sanitized],” said Ghosh, adding that he submitted this photograph in hopes it will inspire others. “We have not yet overcome Covid,” he said. “In future if a similar situation arises again, more youths can come up inspired by Pavel’s story and photograph.”

Judges selected the winning photograph for its expression of the contest theme and its remarkable composition. Lum described the image as a picture within a picture. “There are pictures of family above the bedroom doorway and the point of view is rather startling, from what feels like the far end of the bedroom while a stranger goes about sanitizing the home,” he said. Rodriguez added that it “captures … our fragmented approach that blend[s] public and private in ways that may disappear from view but which are forever going to be embedded in our futures.”

The jury also selected three runners-up and a finalist.

Runner-up photograph “Memories from An Unusually Sunny and Warm November 7th of Last Year,” by Yeonhwa Lee, shows masked West Philadelphia residents coming together on 43rd & Baltimore by the neighborhood’s Clark Park and erupting in spontaneous cheers and dancing after the Biden-Harris win was declared by major news outlets. “After many months of confinement, fear, and uncertainty, it was a therapeutic collective expression of hope and joy, of community.”

Runner-up photograph “Warrior in White,” by Sudip Maiti, depicts a volunteer in West Bengal, India. “After the second wave of the coronavirus, the Indian public health system was overwhelmed,” said Maiti. “People were afraid to go to hospitals for minor symptoms, instead choosing to quarantine themselves in the safety of their homes, which could lead to the rapid spread of the virus. Local volunteers battled this situation with community sanitization.” He said he submitted this photograph because it shows “that people can still unite against a great disaster and urban civic engagement is a powerful tool to fight a great number of obstacles.”

The third runner-up, “Oakland's Fruitvale District in California,” depicts on August 15, 2020 the Mayan Mam community in Oakland, California—the largest Mayan Mam community outside of Guatemala, which has been heavily impacted by COVID-19. Photographer Harvey Castro said he took this picture to illustrate coordinated action between the Alameda County Public Health department and the local Street Level Health Project to mobilize members of the Mayan Mam community hit the streets to distribute PPE equipment, including hand sanitizer, along with informational pamphlets and posters for local businesses.

The jury selected Mohammad Rafayat Haque Khan’s “Sylhet Metropolitan Police Raising Awareness” as contest finalist. Taken March 26, 2020, the photograph depicts Metropolitan Police in Sylhet, Bangladesh providing sanitizer to people as a precautionary measure against the spread of COVID-19. 

The top images were selected based on adherence to the contest theme and composition quality. Over 150 photographs were submitted from 42 participants, representing 12 countries spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. To view contest winners, visit the Penn IUR website.