In 1991 Dario Mitidieri received the W. Eugene Smith Award in humanistic photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. The annual award grants a photo-journalist economic and editorial independence to carry out a long-term project.
The idea of Mitidieri was to document throughout 1992 the daily life of about 30,000 street children in Bombay. The main goal was to shatter the indifference and clichés that surround these children and place them at the lower level of the Indian social ladder. The finished work earned him the Visa d’Or 1993 as the best photographic project of the year at Visa Pour L’image, the annual festival of photojournalism held in Perpignan, France, and is published in a photographic book translated in six languages after being the recipient of the first edition of the European Publishers Award for Photography 1994.
Part of Mitidieri’s introduction to his book “Children of Bombay” best summarizes his work:
“Although these photographs were taken within a year, the total time they represent is less than a second. They are fragments, moments of a complex reality that I have tried to depict. They are also a tribute to the spirit of the street children of Bombay and a testimony to the contradictions of their lives: innocent but made shrewd by the street, always in a group, but alone, childless children, but so adaptable and so brave that most adults are disfigured.”
Opening: 1-11 September 2021
You can find more information at the website of the venue.