The Documentary Center and the Photo Journalism Department extend a warm congratulations to MFA student Whitney Martin, recipient of the 2009 UT Documentary Center Photo Journalism MFA Master’s Thesis Scholarship Award.
Bhutanese Refugees in San Antonio
Whitney will receive a $1500 award to be used towards her Thesis project on the indigenous culture of the endangered Bribri Indians of the Talamanca region of Costa Rica.
Award Recipient Bio
“My fascination of native cultures developed at a young age, as I spent much of my youth walking the west Texas hills of my grandfather’s ranch searching for arrowheads and other signs of Indian life. However, there is very little that allowed me a direct and visual understanding of this culture. Many of the tribes, whose culture I explored in my youth, are unfortunately gone and their records left to mystery. It is with the intention to preserve the irreplaceable indigenous traditions that inform our modern culture that I wish to document the culture of the disappearing Bribri Indians of Costa Rica.”
Award Jurors:
The scholarship recipient was selected by following professional photojournalists:
John Moore Graduated from UT Austin in 1990 with a BS in Radio-TV-Film
Leslie Mazoch Graduated from UT Austin in 1999 with a BA in Journalism
[...] Finally… It’s really great to be to sink my teeth into something and learn and learn. As Dona Soriah, one of the indigenous woman in the Huetares community, told me, ‘Indigenous are more than feathers’. And this is true. I’m learning so much of their complex situation. They are endangered of losing their culture and language that elders cling to, passed on from before the Spaniards entered Costa Rica in the late sixteenth century. They did not give themselves to the Spaniards then and they are not giving themselves completely to modernization now. I’m fascinated by these communities and feel fortunate they are letting me into their life to share a hopefully intimate glimpse of their background and situation. I’ll be working with the Huetares between Ciudad Colon and Puriscal in an area I can’t even begin to spell, much less pronounce. I don’t think I will be posting individual photos of this work because I’d like for it to be presented in the end as a body of work. So I think I will be posting photos of things I see and do outside the reserve. But this is what I’m doing until I return to Texas. And maybe I’ll return to Costa Rica in January to tie up lose ends before I submit the work to UT Documentary Center. [...]