'A quiet moment of reckoning': Edmonton photojournalist captures world prize for Kamloops Residential School image

A poignant photo of girls' dresses draped over crosses placed near Kamloops, captured by a local photojournalist, has won the top honour in the world.

Edmonton-based Amber Bracken, a freelance photojournalist who travels across western North America, was awarded the 2022 World Press Photo of the Year award on Thursday for taking the evocative picture.

In the foreground, a dress is seen hanging from a wooden cross along a path to commemorate last year's discovery of 215 possible unmarked graves, later revised to 200. To the right, in the background, a rainbow appears in front of breaking dark clouds.

The photo, taken for The New York Times, represents one of many photos Bracken has taken examining the intergenerational trauma from residential schools.

Some of her other works have appeared in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Maclean's, ESPN and National Geographic.

'SENSORY IMAGE'

According to the jury for the contest, the photo helps focus on the shameful legacy of residential schools in a haunting and symbolic way.

"The sensory image offers a quiet moment of reckoning with the global legacy of colonization and exploitation, while amplifying the voices of First Nations communities who are demanding justice," the World Press Photo jury said in a statement.

"The single image requires an active eye and encourages us to hold governments, social institutions, and ourselves accountable."

On Twitter, Bracken said while the traumas of residential schools were not hers, their legacy is a shared history calling all Canadians into action.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to announce this picture has won World Press Photo of the Year — which is a hell of a title isn't it?" Bracken said.

"I'm keenly aware this photograph could not exist without the hard work of the community to heal, to search, to recount their stories, to honour their missing children," she added.

Rena Effendi, jury chair, said the photograph inspires a sensory reaction.

"It is a kind of image that sears itself into your memory," Effendi said in a statement. "I could almost hear the quietness in this photograph, a quiet moment of global reckoning for the history of colonization, not only in Canada but around the world."

Bracken's work has also been recognized by the Amsterdam-based competition in 2017. She earned the first prize in the Contemporary Issues category for an image showing protesters in front of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

The win comes less than a week after Pope Francis apologized to Indigenous people for "deplorable" abuses suffered at Catholic-administered residential schools in Canada and begged for forgiveness.

“So we started to have, I suppose, a personification of some of the children that went to these schools that didn't come home,” Bracken said in comments released by contest organizers.

“There's also these little crosses by the highway. And I knew right away that I wanted to photograph the line of these crosses with these little children's clothes hanging on them to commemorate and to honour those kids and to make them visible in a way that they hadn't been for a long time.”

With files from the Associated Press

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If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419, or the Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll-free line at 1-800-721-0066.

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.