2025 SDN Visual Storytelling Festival Speaker Series
Ukraine: Living with War
Tuesday, March 18, 1:30 pm ET via Zoom
Oksana Parafeniuk
Laetitia Vancon
Natalie Keyssar
Svetlana Bachenanova, Publisher, FotoEvidence
Sarah Leen: Moderator
Photographers from Ukraine: Love + War, published by FotoEvidence
A performance in front of a theater in Odesa in June, 2022. Credit. Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
Svetlana Bachevanova
Svetlana Bachevanova is the executive director of the FotoEvidence Association. She is a Bulgarian American photojournalist and the co-founder of FotoEvidence Press (2010). The books she and her team publish expose injustice, create enduring evidence of violations of human rights, and inspire social change.
Svetlana has worked with some of the most skilled and dedicated documentary photographers of our time. She’s helped publish many human stories recounting indisputable evidence of social injustice. In addition to managing the publication of books, she curated FotoEvidence exhibits that have been shown around the world to promote justice.
Svetlana conceived the FotoEvidence Book Award and the FotoEvidence W Award to support the work of photographers dedicated to the pursuit of human rights who are publishing work that is unlikely to find commercial publication. Under her management, FotoEvidence has occupied a unique space in the world of photojournalism as both a publishing house and activist organization.
Natalie Keyssar
Natalie Keyssar is a documentary photographer whose work focuses on inequality, youth culture, and the personal effects of political turmoil and conflict. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and illustration from The Pratt Institute, has taught New Media at the International Center of Photography in New York and has instructed at various workshops across the US and Latin America. Her work has been supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center, the IWMF, and the Magnum Foundation, was the winner of the 2018 ICP Infinity Emerging Photographer Award, and the 2019 PH Museum Women Photographer's Grant among many other awards. She's a regular contributor to National Geographic and The New York Times among many other publications. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.
Sarah Leen, Moderator
For nearly 20 years Sarah Leen worked as an independent photographer for National Geographic magazine until 2004 when she joined the staff as a Senior Photo Editor. In 2013, Leen became the first female Director of Photography for National Geographic Magazine and Partners. As a photographer she published 16 National Geographic magazine stories, one book and produced five covers. She has won numerous awards for both her photography and photo editing from the Pictures of the Year, the World Press Photo Awards, and the International Photography Awards. Leen teaches visual storytelling and photo editing at the Eddie Adams and Missouri Photo workshops and her own Female Perspectives in Visual Storytelling. She has edited ten photobooks since 2020 including Ukraine: A War Crime, the POY Photobook of the Year in 2023, Ukraine Love + War, HABIBI by Antonio Facciolongo, We Cry in Silence by Smita Sharma, the 2022 Lucie Book Award for Independent Book, The Phoenician Collapse by Diego Ibarra Sanchez and A Troubled Home by Anush Babajanyan. Leen is the Co-Chairperson of the Board of the International League of Conservation Photographers, is a member of the Lucie Awards Board of Advisors and in 2024 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from her alma mater the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She is an Oskar Barnack Award nominator and participates on many juries and portfolio reviews.
Oksana Parafeniuk
Oksana Parafeniuk (she/her) is an independent photographer based in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she is exploring the manifestations of human resilience and dignity among people facing hardships. In addition to her personal projects, Oksana has worked with and published her work in The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, NBC News, Der Spiegel and others. She took part in multiple group exhibitions in Ukraine, as well as in Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United States and other countries. She is a member of Women Photograph and The Journal Collective.
Laetitia Vançon
Laetitia Vançon is a French photographer based in Germany. She is recognized for her powerful and thoughtful documentary work. Through her lens, she explores themes of identity, youth, and the impact of external forces and events on individuals and communities, revealing universal aspects of resilience, fragility, and adaptation.
Laetitia has been capturing human stories worldwide for over a decade, working primarily with The New York Times. Her approach is deeply immersive, prioritizing empathy over sensationalism and seeking to connect individual experiences to broader societal narratives
A significant turning point in her career began in 2022 when she documented the Ukrainian refugee crisis, traveling through Hungary, Moldova, and Georgia, followed by the rising political tensions in Transnistria and South Ossetia. That same year, she undertook her first assignment in a country at war, Ukraine, first in Odesa, capturing the city's symbolic resilience during the war. In 2023, she returned to Ukraine to focus on one of her core themes: the youth—not directly on the front lines, but fighting different battles to rebuild their lives, revealing moments of courage and hope in the ordinary.
Laetitia’s documentary work extends beyond conflict zones. She is committed to telling stories highlighting human strength and dignity, whether focusing on cultural belonging, social upheaval, or personal struggles
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