BADEN.- The main prize "Peace Image of the Year 2024", endowed with 7,000 euros, went to the Mexican-British artist Elisa L. Iannacone.

They suffer from severe chronic kidney problems or are waiting for a heart transplant: little patients in the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital, South Africa. Much, maybe everything, that defines childhood - growing up carefree and with fun - is beyond their reach. But surely they have wishes, desires, dreams. Only, how to express them?

Photographer and multimedia artist Elisa L. Iannacone had an enchanting answer. She specializes in visualizing people's visions in comprehensive collages. She is a woman of whom you can say she can heal broken wings. With magic stage sets that help the insured to gather new strength.

The boys and girls in Mandela Hospital, as well as the hospital team itself, got kidnapped by Elisa L. Iannacone. Liberated through imagination and play. The beds: suddenly props in a wonderland. The pain: overcome with laughter. The sadness: reversed into cheerfulness. The fight: turned into peace.

Elisa L. Iannacone, born in Mexico to a Mexican mother and a Canadian father, saw herself as a "translator" from an early age. At first for her parents, who could barely speak the language of the other, then in her international career as a photographer as the voice of those who had lost theirs to grief. The victims of war and sexual violence. She has witnessed death, rape and destruction directly and from close quarters.

Iannacone studied in Toronto and London, worked as a photo reporter in Jordan and Iraq, in Egypt and other African countries. She has travelled in 75 countries, created large exhibitions and participated in festivals.

The best peace image in the children's and youth category, "The Children's Peace Image of the Year 2024", worth 1,000 euros, was won by 14-year-old Daria Heß from Germany with her picture "Happiness".

"Peace for me means being able to be happy and accept life, even while you also have worries and fears. Peace means having the energy to be led more by the beautiful things than by difficulties." This is what Daria Heß wrote under the picture she sent us from Hamburg.

Lois Lammerhuber, who initiated the Global Peace Photo Award together with his wife Silvia Lammerhuber and has organised it since the beginning, reminded the audience that "peace is not the absence of war, but something I would like to call 'successful living'. With all their creative and artistic passion, the photographers formulate an ode to respect for the fragility of our world. They evoke the relationships between people and nature as a mission for responsible living. With their talents, their gaze and their visions, they describe the social and ecological challenges that we can no longer afford to let go of. They captivate our gaze with photographs that go straight from the eye to the heart and encourage us to resist stagnation, indifference and the prevailing populism. An appeal to the world that is firmly inscribed in the heart of our award."

In addition to the award of the "Peace Picture of the Year" to Elisa L. Iannacone, the Alfred Fried Peace Medals 2024 went to Maryam Saeedpoor, Danila Tkachenko and Antonio Aragón Renuncio.

Maryam Saeedpoor from Iran for "Women, Life, Freedom". The hijab, the scarf. A piece of clothing has become a political issue. It stands for cultural history, political fight, oppression or, if left off, for resistance and rebellion. The work, which was honoured at the Global Peace Photo Award 2024, shows women's hair. And veiling. A game of hide and seek, a rebellion, an ambivalence. Against the background of famous carpet craft, refracted in colours of uprising and defiance. With the subtle means she has, Maryam Saeedpoor tries to work for a more peaceful life and for the recognition of the many great women in Iran.

Danila Tkachenko, Russia for "Inversion". Confronting a seemingly cosy world with war. Or: Showing the inhabitants of European cities why so many refugees are there. And what they fled from. This is what Russian-born photographer Danila Tkachenko, now living in exile in Italy, sets out to do. In cooperation with nine photojournalists he has created large-scale memory boards from their pictures of destroyed buildings in Ukraine – and put them up in front of tourist attractions in Western Europe. And in front of each board: refugees from Ukraine. There they stand, in front of bomb craters, collapsed apartment blocks, burnt parks, the ruins of churches and schools. In front of pictures of a disrupted, a shot-through homeland.

Antonio Aragón Renuncio from Spain for "The Dancer". Spanish photographer Antonio Aragón Renuncio has caught this moment of happiness in eight-year-old Ivan, when a personal victory over fate is on the horizon. The little boy is all smiles, looking forward to getting a new orthosis to stabilize his mobility system. A small scene in the Don Orione Center in Bonoua, Côte d'Ivoire. Here they operate on people with physical disabilities like congenital clubfeet and provide medical and psychological care. Renuncio writes about the Don Orione Centre: "What the little patients experience here will allow them ‘to leave the floor’. To stand up, not just physically."