Maria Abranches, a 33-year-old photographer, has won the WPP award in the “Stories” category for the European region with her reportage “Maria,” which focuses on domestic worker and caregiver Ana Maria Jeremias. Jeremias was “trafficked from Angola to Portugal at the age of nine under false promises of education,” as stated in the project’s description on the official WPP website.
In an interview following the announcement of the award, Abranches expressed her hope that “the visibility of work on the scars left by Portuguese colonialism might serve as a starting point for discussions on historical reparations.”
“That is my main goal, and also to pay tribute to all the women like Ana Maria, who dedicate their lives to building the world and enabling people and institutions to continue their lives,” she said.
Moreover, “Maria” serves as “in some ways, a tribute to the centuries-old African presence in Portugal, which was also crucial in shaping Portuguese identity.”
Acknowledging that there have been “many attempts by others” to bring historical reparations into public discourse, Abranches argues that “this topic should have been addressed more than it has been.”
“I believe it has never received the attention it deserves, and I think it would be crucial to change some of the social structures in our country that have persisted since colonialism, as well as the racism that comes as a consequence,” she remarked.
The “invisible work with a massive impact, often unrecognized,” performed by women like Ana Maria Jeremias, drove Maria Abranches to tell this story.
Her awareness of this issue grew as she matured.
“I was raised by a woman named Júlia, who, along with my mother, helped shape me as a person. Her story, although not the same, reminds me a lot of Ana Maria Jeremias’s. Júlia came from a small village in Portugal to Lisbon seeking opportunities, playing a crucial role that went far beyond her professional duties,” she explained.
Alongside this, she interwove another very personal theme: colonialism.
Maria Abranches’s father served as a soldier in the Colonial War, leaving him with “deep scars,” so much so that “it was a subject never discussed at home.”
“The two aspects connected, and I knew I wanted to tell this story. It was only possible when I was selected for the Masterclass Narrativa with photographer Mário Cruz, who guided and edited this work and taught me how to tell stories,” she noted.
Contacting Ana Maria Jeremias was straightforward, as she was also part of her childhood. “Ana began working in the home of a close friend of mine, Madalena, after finally escaping from the Portuguese family that had taken her to Coimbra. She was a very affectionate and joyful person, always sharing stories,” Abranches remembered.
The news of “Maria” winning a WPP delighted Ana Maria, though Maria Abranches feels that what mattered most to her “was seeing her story told aloud, something she had never done seriously before.”
“There were things she remembered during the process, as I photographed and asked questions, because much was dormant,” Abranches shared.
Maria believes Ana Maria “truly wanted to see her story in a book to somehow organize her memories and give them new meaning as well.”
This is set to happen. The diary-format book about the work awarded at the WPP will be presented on April 27 at the Narrativa space in Lisbon.
Along with the awarded images, the book contains “a series of collages from Ana Maria’s own photographic archive, featuring a vast collection of her life documents, photographs, postcards, and all of this is in the book.”
There are also two powerful handwritten texts by Ana Maria included.
The award won by Maria Abranches places her as a finalist for “Photograph of the Year,” with the winner to be announced on April 17.
As a freelance photographer, Maria Abranches shifted from Architecture to Photography five years ago.
“I quit in 2020, a week before the pandemic. It turned out well, but at the time, it was frightening. I decided to take a photography course at Ar.Co, then interned at Público, and opportunities began to arise,” she recalled.
Maria Abranches hopes the WPP prize will primarily allow her to “continue telling stories about women.”
“However, I haven’t thought much about the future. I have ideas for other projects I want to do, but for now, I am focused on this story and the book I plan to publish in April,” she mentioned.
The photographer also hopes the award “opens doors for future projects” and offers more opportunities for her to pursue photojournalism and documentary photography. “Because I have to do other things to support myself, aside from these passion projects.”
