Entry Title: " BECOMING SOUTH SUDAN"
Name: ALINKA echeverria, United Kingdom
Category: Professional, Photo Essay and Feature Story


Entry Description: Until 9th January 2011, The Republic of South Sudan existed only in the imagination of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation movement. On that day, with the eyes of the world on them, the long-awaited referendum took place. 98.83 % of approximately four million voters voted for secession from the North, and the idea of a new sovereign nation for the people of South Sudan became a reality. After a six month gestation period, amidst huge challenges including counterinsurgencies and ongoing violence in the contested oil rich border regions, the Republic of South Sudan came into being on 9th July 2011, becoming the world’s 193rd nation. In the weeks leading up to Independence I photographed a place and a people in transformation – many returning home, rebuilding their communities, reconciling vast ethnic differences and constructing their identity as a unified nation.

Echeverría is a graduate of The International Center of Photography in New York and has an M.A in Social Anthropology from The University of Edinburgh. In 2011 she was the recipient of the HSBC Prix pour la Photographie and a participant of World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass. Her work has been featured in over fourty exhibitions worldwide, including solo exhibitions at the 2012 Lima Biennial of Photography, the Moscow Photobiennale, and the upcoming Festival of Light in Buenos Aires and Eb&Flow Gallery in London. Notable collective exhibitions include the 52nd Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), The New York Photo Festival (2010), Steven Kasher Gallery in New York (2010), Flash Forward Festival in Toronto (2010,2011), Galerie Réverbère in Lyon (2011), Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris (2011), Maison de la Photographie in Lille (2011), Maison European de la Photographie in Paris (2011), The Royal College of Art in London (2011), the National Portrait Gallery in London (2011), Bibliothèque Nationale de France François Mitterrand (2011), Fototeca Nacional del INAH and Museo Archivo de la Fotografía in Mexico (2011). Over recent years she has been awarded by PX3 Prix Pour la Photographie, CENTER, Magenta Foundation, American Photo and ASMP among others. Collections include: Beth Rudin DeWoody, Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, HSBC France/Fondation de France, Lehigh University Art Galleries LUAG. Publications include GEO, Marie Claire, Liberation, Le Monde Magazine, Le Monde, The British Journal of Photography, Visura Magazine, PHOTO, Ogoniok and Foam, as well as her first book with a foreword by Christian Caujolle published by Actes Sud in 2011.