Young photographers in Moscow and Manila behind this year's Nobel Peace Prize exhibition

On 11. December, the day after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the Peace Prize laureates, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, come to the Nobel Peace Center to open the exhibition about themselves. They get to see how photographers Hannah Reyes Morales and Nanna Heitmann depict the laureates’ work for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia. Morales and Heitmann are this year's Nobel Peace Prize photographers and have taken pictures in Manila and Moscow this autumn for this year's Nobel Peace Prize exhibition.

"We are very happy to have worked with two such talented, young documentary photographers, who are also from the Nobel Peace Prize laureates’ home countries. They are therefore very experienced in working under trying conditions for freedom of the press and expression," says Nobel Peace Center Director of Exhibitions, Nina Frang Høyum.

War on drugs and the role of internet

Hannah Reyes Morales is from the Philippines and is based in Manila, where she has documented Rodrigo Duterte's violent war on drugs. She has received numerous awards and has been published in major international magazines such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and National Geographic. For the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition, she has created a documentary photo series that depicts how social media permeates everyday life in the Philippines, where the population is online for an average of ten hours per day.

“This commission has been one of the most challenging I have ever worked on,” says Morales.

“This work is personal: like many of us at home, watching the consistent assault on truth has been deeply disturbing. I’ve been able to take a closer look at the chaos that is rooted online, and in the dark, I was reminded constantly that on the other side of the screen are people.”

Journalists as foreign agents

Nanna Heitmann is a German-Russian photographer based in Moscow. She is associated with Magnum Photos and has had assignments for the New York Times, TIME Magazine, National Geographic, and Le Monde. This autumn, she photographed Dmitry Muratov in the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta and met young, independent journalists who are trying to do their jobs under increasingly difficult circumstances.

“This year has been tough", Heitmann says. "Every week the headlines line up about how the few remaining free media and human rights organizations are declared foreign agents or even banned altogether.

This uncertainty and the pressure can be felt among the people I met. I hope that the Nobel Peace Prize will at least enable Novaya Gazeta to continue do their important work".