Pulitzer Center Update

Daniella Zalcman Wins Canada's National Magazine Award Gold Cover Grand Prix

June 05, 2018 | Awards
By
Kate Karstens
RICK PELLETIER, Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School, 1965-1966. “My parents came to visit and I told them I was being beaten. My teachers said that I had an active imagination, so they didn’t believe me at first. But after summer break they tried to take me back, and I cried and cried and cried. I ran away the first night, and when my grandparents went to take me back, I told them I’d keep running away, that I’d walk back to Regina if I had to. They believed me then.” Image by Daniella Zalcman. Canada, 2016.

RICK PELLETIER, Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School, 1965-1966. “My parents came to visit and I told them I was being beaten. My teachers said that I had an active imagination, so they didn’t believe me at first. But after summer break they tried to take me back, and I cried and cried and cried. I ran away the first night, and when my grandparents went to take me back, I told them I’d keep running away, that I’d walk back to Regina if I had to. They believed me then.” Image by Daniella Zalcman. Canada, 2016.

Pulitzer Center grantee Daniella Zalcman is a 2018 Canadian National Magazine Award Winner. The NMA's mandate is: "to recognize and promote excellence in content creation of Canadian print and digital publications through an annual program of awards and national publicity efforts."

The photo selected for the cover of New Trails magazine won gold for the Cover Grand Prix. It was one from a group of ten photos documenting forced assimilation in Canada, one section of a much larger series by Zalcman titled "Signs of Your Identity." Zalcman used double exposure to express the complexity of indigenous Canadians who still struggle with memories of mandatory residential schools. 

Her hardback book, Signs of Your Identity, is available for purchase here, and was the 2016 FotoEvidence Book Award, one of the Most Stunning Photo Books of 2016 by Mother Jones, and one of the Best Books of 2016 by Photo-eye.