What war really is: the testimony of two highly appreciated and respected war photographers. Moderated by Marta Serafini.
Nicole Tung
Nicole Tung is a freelance photojournalist, born in Hong Kong. She graduated from New York University in 2009, and freelances for international publications and NGOs, primarily covering the Middle East region. After covering the conflicts in Libya and Syria extensively from 2011, focusing on the plight of civilians, she went on to document the lives of Native American war veterans in the U.S., as well as former child soldiers in the DR Congo, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and the refugee crisis in Europe, and the rising violence against women in Turkey with the support of a grant from the IWMF.
More recently, she has turned her focus to the protests in her native Hong Kong, while working on a project about youth in the Middle East region, and to documenting the aftermath of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Her work often explores those most affected by conflict and the consequences of war. Nicole has documented the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022 for publications including Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, and the aftermath of devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in 2023.
Her work has been exhibited at various festivals worldwide and has received multiple awards for her work including an honorable mention for the IWMF 2017 Anja Niedringhaus Awards, the 2018 Online News Association’s James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting, among others. She is the 2020 recipient of the Visa Pour l’Image French Ministry of Culture’s Production Grant, and is part of VII Foundation’s Imagine: Reflections on Peace exhibition and book. Nicole served on the board of the Frontline Freelance Register (2015), advocating for the safety of freelance journalists around the world. She is based in Istanbul, Turkey.
