© Christian Vium

Unlike AIDS, Malaria, or extreme poverty, human rights is an issue that every­one knows about, but rather not to talk about. That’s how Antropographia came about:

We believe images open up spaces that allow us to wit­ness abuses for­got­ten by the media. And it is through this process of wit­ness­ing, that we pro­vide the pub­lic an oppor­tu­nity to dia­logue, learn and take action on human rights issues.

Matthieu Rytz, whom I met at the Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap last year, enthu­si­as­ti­cally shared me many aspects of human rights that I’m unaware of, he brought to light some details that are rarely seen in the media.

One of the prob­lem, he revealed, is that many orga­ni­za­tions, social activists, often lack the skills needed to help pub­li­cize their cases; writ­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, film­mak­ing, social or even mul­ti­me­dia skills, are the basic tools in fight­ing this social-inequality-generated problem.

As part of their mis­sion, Anthropographia has announced the win­ners for the 2011 Anthropographia Award for Human Rights. Congratulation to Christian Vium, win­ner of the Photo Essay cat­e­gory, and Chien-Chi Chang, whose mul­ti­me­dia work Escape from North Korea swooped the mul­ti­me­dia cat­e­gory title.