Framing history

For seven decades, World Press Photo has been a benchmark for powerful storytelling through photography. Now, on its 70th anniversary, a landmark exhibition turns the lens inward asking not just what the pictures say about the world, but what they say about the way we choose to see it

- Peter Dench

A woman's face streaked with tears sat in the rubble of an earthquake. An exhausted soldier resting in a bunker. A plume of black smoke rising from a skyline, its ominous curl as recognisable as the sound of an air-raid siren.

We have all seen images like these in newspapers, on websites, flickering across TV screens. Many of them have been World Press Photo winners, elevated for their emotional immediacy, technical skill and storytelling power. They have lodged themselves in our collective visual memory, shaping not just how we remember events but how we picture the world itself.

A familiar frame, new question

But what happens when you revisit these images and thousands like them with a more critical eye? What patterns emerge? And what do they say about the narratives that have dominated global photojournalism for the past seven decades?

That's the premise behind What Have We Done? Unpacking Seven Decades of World Press Photo, the flagship exhibition marking the organisation’s 70th anniversary. Curated by artist and photographer Cristina de Middel, it’s both a celebration and a reckoning.

Local contest to global benchmark

Founded in Amsterdam in 1955 by a small group of Dutch photographers, World Press Photo was originally a way to showcase work from beyond the Netherlands. Its first exhibition featured 42 photographers from 11 countries. Seven decades on, it has grown into one of the most prestigious competitions in photojournalism and documentary photography, with annual and thematic exhibitions reaching millions of people in more than 80 locations worldwide.