Crossing Borders: Stories From A Fractured World

Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Salwan Georges will join Aidan Sullivan for a wide ranging conversation that will explore how his life, shaped by Iraq, Syria, exile and years of global reporting, will guide the stories he will share on stage. The session will open with Salwan’s early years in both countries, his family’s experience of leaving everything behind in search of a better life, and the formative moments that will lead him toward photography as a way to understand the world.

The discussion will include some of his most impactful assignments for The Washington Post, such as child labour in the chocolate industry in Africa, the lived realities of climate change across different regions, coverage of the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, and efforts to save black rhinos in Africa. Throughout the session, Salwan and Aidan will focus on how to build trust across borders, work responsibly in difficult situations and tell complex stories without reducing people to statistics or stereotypes.

The session will also cover his reporting on the fentanyl epidemic in the United States and Mexico, revealing how addiction, policy and inequality will intersect on both sides of the border, and what it will require to remain present in situations of sustained grief and loss. It will conclude with Salwan’s return to Syria after twenty years, photographing a country caught between devastation and fragile renewal, and confronting the personal cost of looking back at a place that will be both home and story.

Across these four chapters, Salwan and Aidan will unpack not only the narratives themselves, but also the ethics, craft decisions and emotional resilience that will be required to work on extended humanitarian issues in a responsible way.

What you will take away:
• Approaches for building visual stories that connect personal history with global humanitarian and environmental issues
• Practical strategies for photographing sensitive subjects such as child labour, natural disasters, wildlife conservation and addiction with respect and care
• Insight into editing, sequencing and captioning that will help local stories speak to policymakers and international audiences

Who this is for:
• Photojournalists, documentary photographers, filmmakers and editors working on humanitarian, environmental or social justice stories
• Students, educators and researchers interested in contemporary Syria, displacement and the human impact of global crises
• Anyone who will want to understand how rigorous visual reporting can move beyond headlines to reveal the lives behind the news