Catchlight

On April 27, 2024, CatchLight held its 5th annual Visual Storytelling Summit, our signature event connecting artists, innovators, and audiences. Our theme was "Seeing Truths," reflecting the unique power of photography, visual journalism, and creative practices can have to help usher a return to critical thinking. The goal of the Summit is to build an inclusive network, centering CatchLight and our partners as leaders in a relevant, future-facing, diverse, inclusive, and community-building space. As always, the Summit was free and open to the public, inviting audiences of all kinds to connect with a global community of visual storytellers, media, and technology leaders. The event sold out three weeks after the launch and exceeded our targets-and last year's numbers-with 450 registrants and 300 attendees. This year's Summit gathered leaders using photography, art, film, and technology to discuss how the rise of synthetic images undermines our ability to trust what we see and what the role of visual storytellers and journalists is in ushering a return to critical thinking and cooperation.

The CatchLight Global Fellowship supports innovative leaders leveraging visual storytelling to inspire human connection and ignite social change by providing two-year grants for long-form storytelling projects. Since 2017, CatchLight has awarded $30,000 to 26 innovative visual storytellers covering a multitude of topics from all over the world. From working with Indigenous women fighting to defend their land and promote rainforest conservation in Ecuador to documenting the racial divide and reclamation of Black history more than 100 years after a race massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, to recording the civilian experiences of war in eastern Ukraine, CatchLight 2024 Global Fellows Harlan Bozeman, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, and Johanna Alarcon are leaders who are leveraging the power of visual storytelling to inform the world, connect and transform their communities.