Justyna Mielnikiewicz in Perpignan

Justynan Mielnikiewicz

A young girl plays with her sister in Shavshvebi, one tof the newly constructed settlements in Georgia for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Souh Ossetia. Most IDPs living in the settlement are from Eredvi, a Georgian village located within the South Ossetia administrative border. During the conflict in August 2008 ethnic Georgians fled and most houses were burned.

EurasiaNet contributing photojournalist and documentary photographer Justyna Mielnikiewicz will have an exhibition of her recent work from the south Caucasus at the Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival in the southern French town of Perpignan. Her recent project, "Shared Sorrows, Divide Lines," will open at the Couvent des Minimes exhibition hall during Pro Week on Aug. 28 and continue during the four weeks of the event. All exhibitions during Visa Pour l'Image are open to the public for free.

Mielnikiewicz won the Canon Female Photojournalist Award 2009 for her long term documentary work on Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the breakaway regions in the South Caucasus. Originally from Poland, Mielnikiewicz moved to Tbilisi in 2002 to work as a freelancer after working as staff photojournalist for Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. In addition to her work being posted on EurasiaNet, she has been published in The New York Times, Newsweek Poland, Monocle, Russian Reporter, Ogoniok, NG Travel, Le Monde and many more newspapers and magazines. In 2009 she won second prize in the "People in the News" category for the World Press Photo Awards.

Among the more than 20 exhibitions within the walled old town of Perpignan during the photojournalism festival, Stephen Dupont with Contact Press Images will show a collection of his work in Afghanistan, titled "Generation AK Afghanistan and the Perils of Freedom 1993-2008."