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“Hands Off” Protests Across the U.S.

On March 5th at least 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of participants were staged across all 50 states in largest show of opposition to the current administration since President Trump began his second term of office in January.

Alessandra Sanguinetti and Jim Goldberg photographed in San Francisco, while Alex Webb covered the march in NYC. Click here to see their images.

Forty-six hours before Rüdiger Koch officially seized the Guinness World Record for the longest time spent living in an underwater fixed habitat, New York Times Magazine reporter Mark Yarm took a 15-minute motorboat ride from Linton Bay Marina, in north-central Panama, to visit him. It was a warm afternoon in January, and Koch was approaching a full 120 days spent working, eating, sleeping, drinking and smoking cigars in a room 36 feet below the surface of the Caribbean.

His 304-square-foot habitat was inside the underwater buoyancy chamber that helps stabilize a floating home called SeaPod Alpha Deep. An armed security guard was in the above-water part of the structure, monitoring Koch and ensuring that the pod did not have “any visitors that we don’t want.” When Yarm's boat arrived, Koch threw down a cable and winched Yarm up.

Koch arrived here, in small part, via a San Francisco-based nonprofit called the Seasteading Institute, which promotes “living on environmentally restorative floating islands with some degree of political autonomy.” The vision, as the Institute’s president, the “seavangelist” Joe Quirk, once told Guernica, is “startup societies where people could form whatever kind of community they wanted” — a libertarian-inflected world where, it is said, you could “vote with your boat,” relocating to a community in line with your views.

The concept captured people’s imaginations long before it had a name. In 1895, Jules Verne published “Propeller Island,” a novel about a moving man-made island inhabited by millionaires. By the 1960s, real attempts were being made: Ernest Hemingway’s brother, Leicester, founded the Republic of New Atlantis, a bamboo raft anchored about six miles off the coast of Jamaica. (It washed away.) Still extant is the Principality of Sealand, founded in 1967 on a disused antiaircraft platform seven miles off the shore of Britain. The inventor R. Buckminster Fuller helped design a floating metropolis called Tetrahedron City; the project’s financier died, and plans to build it were abandoned.

Koch spent his career in aerospace engineering; he is also a “long-term” believer and investor in Bitcoin. Now his time is occupied by Ocean Builders, the company that has set up three solar-powered SeaPods, of differing designs, near Linton Bay Marina. It is a partnership between Koch and two other independently wealthy men: Chad Elwartowski, an American Bitcoin enthusiast; and Grant Romundt, a Canadian tech entrepreneur on an “anti-aging health-span journey.” Alec Soth photographed Koch and his business partners for The New York Times Magazine.

The Techno-Utopians Who Want to...

Peruvian writer and politician Mario Vargas Llosa has died at the age of 89.
Achieving international recognition in 1960s, Vargas Llosa is considered to be one of the most important Spanish language authors of his generation.
Vargas Llosa was engaged in politics for much of his career. Originally drawn to liberal causes, he eventually shifted toward the center-right and in 1990, unsuccessfully ran against Alberto Fujimori for the Peruvian presidency.

Mario Vargas Llosa: 1936 - 2025...

On March 5th at least 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of participants were staged across all 50 states in largest show of opposition to the current administration since President Trump began his second term of office in January.
Alessandra Sanguinetti and Jim Goldberg photographed in San Francisco, while Alex Webb covered the march in NYC.

"Hands Off" Protests Across the...

Tens of thousands of Turkish protesters took to the streets of Istanbul this weekend following the arrest of President Tayyib Erdogan's main political opponent, Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, on corruption charges.

Turkish photographer Emin Ozmen documented the historic protest and the widespread rioting that followed, with Turkish police firing rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. Imamoglu has defeated Erdogan's AKP party three times in previous elections and has announced his candidacy for the next general election in May 2028.

Protests Against Imamoglu's Arrest...

Since 2023, Thomas Dworzak has been traveling along the Russian border, from Finland to eastern Kazakhstan, to assess the impact of the war in Ukraine on neighboring countries: their perceptions of and relations with Russia, the influence of the United States, and the evolution of their own national security policies after the invasion. Since Winston Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, the term has come to define the separation between Russia and the West, a way to examine the shifting ideological and geopolitical boundary between Russia and its influence on Eastern Europe, and these longstanding tensions with the West.

Covering military training, landscapes, museums, and ordinary moments of life, Dworzak explores each place with a specific geographical angle, linking each to its historical significance. Each of these countries has its specific complex history with Russia, and the war in Ukraine has moved people with a particular sentiment, whether it be independence or aggressivity towards Russia, like in the Baltics where volunteer military training is expanding, or a more tempered sentiment and assimilation of Russian culture such as in Kazakhstan.The photographer explores the tensions linked to a painful past, stretching back to Imperial Russia, and awakened again by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The New Iron Curtain - Ongoing...

Two time heavyweight boxing world champion George Foreman has died at the age of 76. Following his loss to Muhammed Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle, Foreman retired but in 1994, at the age of 45, made a comeback and defeated Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in professional boxing history.

George Foreman: 1949 - 2025

2024 has seen unprecedented violence and turmoil in the Middle East.

Killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese, displacing millions, and wounding many more, Israel's massive military retaliation for Hamas's October 7 attacks leaves open wounds and scars in Palestine and Lebanon, and profoundly destabilizes the region.

A week after the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon on November 27, neighboring Syria saw the historic liberation of Bachar al Assad on December 3, leaving the door open for mourning, development and reconstruction in a country deeply shaken by dictatorship.

Lebanese photographer Myriam Boulos, based in Beirut, witnessed the unfolding events and shared her perspective through the lens of her camera during the months she spent in her homeland and while on assignment in the neighboring country.

Syria & Lebanon After October 7th...

Philippe Halsman

Nowruz, the Iranian or Persian New Year, has been celebrated for centuries by communities across Southwest Asia during the Spring Equinox. Magnum photographers have documented these vibrant celebrations by various ethnicities, capturing moments where, amid conflict, the light of a new year and new life shines through.

Nowruz

Countries worldwide are feeling the impact of the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid, which eliminated over 90% of contracts and reduced funding by around $60 billion. Many programs in vulnerable nations rely on USAID for health systems and nutrition, while efforts to combat terrorism and trafficking, including fentanyl, will also be affected, according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Magnum Photographers have traveled to many of the countries benefiting from or relying on foreign aid, many now shuttered and leaving millions of people without access to life-saving care.

USAID: The Human Cost of Trump's...

On assignment for The Washington Post, photographer Emin Ozmen traveled to Calais with journalist Karla Adam in early February to document the perilous conditions for migrants attempting to cross the English Channel from France to England.

According to the British Home Office, in 2024 nearly 37,000 migrants crossed the channel in small boats. The British government has recently announced that it will step up its response to the border security threat, a move that has raised concerns among experts who fear that migrants will face criminal charges and even worse conditions without more responsibility being placed on smugglers.

Migrants in Calais: The Channel...

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, before it spread to other areas of Asia, and then worldwide in early 2020. As of 28 May 2024, the pandemic has caused 7,049,376 confirmed deaths, making it the fifth-deadliest pandemic or epidemic in history.

The pandemic caused severe social and economic disruption around the world, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression. Reduced human activity led to an unprecedented temporary decrease in pollution. Educational institutions and public areas were partially or fully closed in many jurisdictions, and many events were cancelled or postponed during 2020 and 2021. Telework became much more common for white-collar workers as the pandemic evolved. The pandemic raised issues of health equity, and the balance between public health imperatives and individual rights.

March 2025: 5 years since covid-19...

The beginning of the Lebanese Civil War is typically dated to April 13th, 1975, when the Phalangists attacked a bus taking Palestinians to a refugee camp. The war is complex, marked by violence between communities (Christians, Druze, Shiites, Sunnis), clashes within communities and multiple foreign interventions - invasions by Syria and Israel, and less direct interventions by notably France, the Arab League, and Iran.

Between 150,000 and 250,000 people were killed during the war and many disappeared or were exiled. In 1989, the Taif Agreement marked the end of the fighting on paper. The after-effects of the conflict were felt over a long period with occasional outbreaks of violence and considerable political instability, continuing in the region today.

April 13th, 2025: 50 years since...

In a historic move, imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan urged members of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Thursday to lay down their weapons in order to end a decades-long conflict with the Turkish government. While Turkey, the United States, and other countries classify Mr. Ocalan as a terrorist and the P.K.K. as a terrorist organization, many Kurds view Mr. Ocalan as a powerful symbol of the struggle for Kurdish rights.

If the PKK acts on Ocalan's call for disarmament, it could have far-reaching implications for the entire Middle East, particularly for the millions of ethnic Kurds living in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

Magnum Photographers have been documenting the Kurdish community, their fight for autonomy, independence, statehood, and resistance against state violence across the region for decades.

Kurdistan from the Archives

At the start of 2025, Emin Özmen documented the living conditions of children in Damascus for the Washington Post during a period of change following the fall of the Assad regime. Many children are traumatized by the long-lasting war they endured.

The photographer traveled to Damascus' southern suburbs of Douma and Daraya, areas of Goutha where a chemical massacre took place in 2013, destroying many schools and causing overcrowding in those that remained viable. Children play on soccer fields as barrel bombs from the Assad regime's chemical attacks on the Syrian people are still visible, while NGOs are helping them cope with trauma and physical injuries caused by the war.

Ozmen also documented the struggling health care system, reliant on outdated equipment due to international sanctions imposed as a result of Assad's rule. "Before the start of the conflict, the local pharmaceutical industry covered up to 90 percent of the needs of the local market. Since 2011, the various sanctions packages have made it very difficult for those who produce or import medicines," Samir Kattan, a 65 year-old Damascus-based pharmaceutical worker, told the photographer.

Children in Damascus

The war in Gaza is a conflict with little chance of escape — even for the thousands of Palestinians who have been grievously wounded in Israel’s attacks. But a small number of the sick and injured make it onto a list of critical cases to be treated by doctors abroad. The price to leave can be high: a missing leg, a lost arm. But for these few, there is a way out. More than 8,000 Gazans have been brought to a floating hospital off the coast of Egypt run by the United Arab Emirates for treatment since the start of the war in October 2023.
In May, Israel entered Rafah, and the border was closed, blocking access to the hospital there. By the end of the summer, the U.A.E. had found a new way out for the wounded -- a humanitarian flight aboard a converted passenger jet to a housing complex in Abu Dhabi.
Every few weeks now, desperate families depart Gaza in the early morning hours, making their way on buses to an airport just across the border in Israel. Their destination was the Emirates Humanitarian City, a custom-built housing complex. If there is a place to return to a normal life after Gaza, it is here.

Escape from Gaza: UAE Evacuations...

‘In the morning, we dash along the sidewalks – you on your side, me on mine, watching as people cross the busy street.’ 

In I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours, photographers and longtime partners Carolyn Drake and Andres Gonzalez embark on a collaborative journey along the US–Mexico border, creating an imaginative portrait of life in these borderlands. Traversing towns and waterways together they photographed the same subjects from different perspectives, capturing everyday scenes that appear both staged and ad hoc. The resulting series of uncanny image pairings illuminates the serendipity of human connection while confronting the challenges of relating to one another, finding balance, and defying conventional identities. 

Through this striking sequence, Drake and Gonzalez reflect on their different family histories of migration and identity and the ways their backgrounds both intersect and diverge. Deliberately eschewing the temptation to follow a singular narrative or freeze a fleeting moment in time, their images instead suggest the multifarious nature of existence along the border.

MACK Books, 2024
Paperback with embossed jacket
23 x 29 cm
144 pages
ISBN 978-1-915743-51-0

I’ll let you be in my dreams if...

On assignment for the New Yorker, Moises Saman documented the search for relatives by Syrian families in the Sednaya prison in December 2024, two days after the fall of the Assad regime.

Over the past twenty years, New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson and Moises Saman have covered a range of conflicts together. After the fall of the dictatorships in Iraq and Libya, they uncovered significant evidence of their brutality. However, Assad's actions appear to have been particularly brutal. In 2012, as Syria descended into violence, Moises and Jon traveled to Aleppo with a group of insurgent rebels and witnessed an early glimpse of the war’s horrors. Twelve years later, the death toll is estimated to be as high as six hundred and twenty thousand, while another fourteen million people—more than half the country’s population—have been forced to flee their homes.

During the decades of Assad rule, any form of resistance was ruthlessly suppressed, with those involved being arrested and tortured in a network of facilities scattered across the country. Sednaya became the most notorious of these. Established in the late 1980s on a desolate limestone hilltop just forty minutes from downtown Damascus, it earned a terrifying reputation of torture and atrocity.

Sednaya Prison

On Saturday, October 7th, Israel was taken by surprise in an unexpected and severe cross-border assault by Hamas from Gaza, resulting in the initial deaths of 900 people. The BBC reported that included in this number were 260 individuals attending a music festival. With many still missing or abducted by Hamas in Israel, families are left desperately seeking information as the conflict unfolds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on Hamas, vowing to use “enormous force” by launching strikes in Gaza and imposing a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, freezing the flow of essential supplies. According to the BBC, as of October 9th approximately 690 people in Gaza had lost their lives and more than 120,000 had been displaced from their homes.

The result of this has triggered the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing in outside powers and echoing across the broader Arab region.

Israel and Palestine from the Archives...

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014, triggered by Ukraine's Maidan Revolution. Over the following eight years, the conflict escalated with naval skirmishes, cyberattacks, Russia's annexation of Crimea and support to pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukraine’s military in the ongoing Donbas War. In February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, deepening its occupation and igniting the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has caused a massive refugee crisis and led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

Magnum Photographers have been documenting the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, capturing scenes from the front lines and inside both countries, illustrating the impact of the war on people's daily lives. The selection below showcases our ongoing coverage in the region, which has spanned over a decade.

Russo-Ukrainian War

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