Award: First Place for Nashman Community Engagement in the Arts and Design
Project: Individual Survival
Photographer Sabrina Godin won First Place for the annual Arts and Design prize in spring 2022, an award given to students who engage in advocacy and social justice community relationships. She founded GW's first chapter of the National Press Photographer Association (NPPA) in the spring of 2020. Within the New Media Photojournalism (MA) department, Godin captured the diverse experiences of members from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, the nation's largest non-profit organization battling sexual violence and bringing survivors to light.
"Rest assured that what you endured was not for you but the healing of nations," a participant's statement reads.
Bringing intent to every element of this project, Godin exhibits survivors' portraits with interactive elements like a cotton fabric that emulates movement and transforms stills into moving digital clips. Using informative dialogue, landscapes, and pictures, she tells a story of survivors and their navigation in a life-altering world of survival.
As a survivor herself, Godin uses the project as a means to extend her perception beyond the harm done and heal. The collaborative portraits she used to demonstrate self expression goes beyond this project, as Godin announced her plans to continue collaboration with more survivors on a broader geographic scale.
A survivor is pictured looking into the camera for Sabrina Godin's "Individual Survival" Project, which gives survivors of abuse and members of an anti-sexual assault organization an opportunity to share their stories in a medium that proves valuable for their recovery.
Read more about the Nashman Prize here and her work here.
