An Ecuadorian photographer has been named as the recipient of the 2026 Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award for a series documenting indigenous maternal healthcare in her native country’s Amazonian and Andean regions.
When the Earth Gives Birth tells the story of AMUPAKIN and Partera de Anaku, the first Indigenous midwifery schools and hospitals in the Amazon and Andes.
Assuming the eyes of midwives, apprentices, and patients, the series sheds light on these women-led initiatives which, for more than thirty years, have provided obstetric healthcare in a part of the world where indigenous women face disproportionately high maternal mortality rates.
Johanna Alarcón is the photojournalist behind the project. A Magnum Foundation Member and winner of numerous photography accolades, her work focuses on themes of collective memory, spirituality, and the relationship between community and territory across the Latin American region.
“I receive this award with the deep joy of knowing that what I love most co-exists - photography, motherhood, and spirituality - coming together in this project to give birth to an intimate story about the work of women and Indigenous peoples to sustain life in a context that destroys it,” she said.
The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award is an annual competition. Named after Marilyn Stafford, the renowned woman 20th century US photojournalist, and facilitated by FotoDocument, an arts social enterprise, it celebrates professional female photographers documenting social, environmental, economic, or cultural issues.
Alarcón received the £4,000 (approximately $5,300 / AU$7,700) award and will gain widespread recognition for her winning series. For more information on the award, and to see this year’s shortlist from which When the Earth Gives Birth was crowned, head to the Marilyn Stafford Photography website.
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