Marijn Fidder
| B. 1997
Marijn Fidder (b. 1997) is a Dutch documentary photographer who focuses on current affairs and contemporary social issues. She uses photography to speak on behalf of the voiceless, and to advocate for the rights of all who are vulnerable. Her work has appeared in National Geographic Netherlands, CNN Style, NRC Handelsblad, Het Financieele Dagblad, Evangelische Omroep, GUP New Talent and ZEIT Magazin, among others. Her work has received multiple awards, including from the Zilveren Camera, Global Peace Photo Award and a World Press Photo Award. Based in the Netherlands, Fidder has worked for many years in Uganda, researching disability rights in the country.
INTERVIEW
PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE
How was your passion for photography born?
Photography passion has coming with my first childhood memories, when I was twenty years old. As a child I drew and painted a lot, but was often unable to express my creativity the way I really wanted to. Even without knowing it, red, green and blue have always influenced the mood of my days. With photography I discovered a completely unique way of representing emotions through color.
What moves you most as a photographer?
Basically, I believe the world is still a place full of good people. For this reason, as a photographer, I am attracted by the determination of the human being, by the people who work every day to build something healthy and positive. My projects are mainly focused on this, on the values of hard work.
"The poetry of primary colors" was awarded at the IN COLORS PROJECT - React! Do you want to highlight something about the project it belongs to?
This photo is the cover of a long-term project, "Il Sudore della terra" [The sweat of the earth]. Bringing the lens closer to the people who live and deeply respect the land, I dive into the memory of my childhood weekends on my grandfather's small property.
Today, as in those intense moments of childhood, in the hardness of the fields I rediscover marked faces and small wrinkles, passion and sacrifices. The bitter cold, the burning sun, the humidity that clings to clothes and penetrates to the bone.
The sweat of the earth... A value that deserves respect, that sometimes disappoints, that gives tears of fatigue, but always restores the smile, that gives immense satisfaction.
The project revolves around the admiration for this metaphor, and the poetry of primary colors frames the portrait close to an urban texture always current and intense, sometimes rough, but for this reason even more authentic.
CREDENTIALS
Finalist Pictures of the Year International 'Daily Life Picture Story'
Nomination Zilveren Camera 'International Documentary Photography'
Third prize 2025 Best of Photojournalism 'Feature Story'
Winner World Press Photo 'Single Image, Africa'
Winner and Photographer of the Year - All About Photo Awards 2025
2024
First prize International Photography competition Florida Museum of Photographic Arts
Shortlist Global Peace Photo Award
First prize reFocus Awards 2024 'Underwater'
2021
First prize National Geographic Fotowedstrijd 'Human'
2020
First prize Wellcome Photography Prize 'Social Perspectives'
2019
First prize Hollandse Fotoprijs
First prize Zilveren Camera 'National Documentary Photography'
In Colors Project ED#3 JOY, Lumicroma, Portugal
International exhibition World Press Photo 2025
Exhibition at the Museum of Humanity in Zaandam, Netherlands
2024
Barcelona International Photography Festival on Human Rights and Global Justice
Related Exhibitions
IN COLORS PROJECT ED#1 REACT!
The broadness to which ... Ler Mais
The broadness to which the theme is open is represented in this set of 50 artworks by photographers from 22 nationalities. React! to what, from what perspective? The possibility of endless interpretations is mirrored in an exhibition in which the reaction is as much in the photographed "scene" itself as in the impression of the person who photographed it, and also, and always, in the eye of the person who appreciates the photograph. In this realm, there is the image of time and place, of many places and many qualities of time. There is the beauty of moments, spaces, cultures and traditions. There is a whole scale of emotions. There is the poetry of landscapes and the destruction wrought by war. There is fantasy in improbable scenarios. There are global concerns, personal instances. Sometimes the weight of existence; sometimes the lightness of laughter in the face of death. There remains, still, the certainty of a kaleidoscopic world, in permanent change, so that stories repeat themselves. Because man repeats himself. The continuity of life is also maintained. It is in the faces of many. It is in the colors. It is in the light of black and white. It is in the instinct. In the will. In what is lost, in what is conquered.
Curated by Sandra Maria Teixeira
IN COLORS PROJECT – a borderless initiative by Lumicroma – reclaims the relevance of photography as a sociocultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences reflecting on the current world and through photographic creation, it aims to annually trace the grand image of the time in which we live. Ler Menos
IN COLORS PROJECT ED#2 HOME
In 74 photographs, 32 authors from 14 nationalities give us the most poignant portrait of what we are, what we do and what we are failing at. Because HOME has smiles and exposed wounds. It shows a sense of belonging and an absurd lack of ground.
It is the human cloak of a thousand patches to which we all belong.
This is our Home. And we can't close our eyes.
Curated by Sandra Maria Teixeira
IN COLORS PROJECT – a borderless initiative by Lumicroma – reclaims the relevance of photography as a sociocultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences reflecting on the current world and through photographic creation, it aims to annually trace the grand image of the time in which we live. Ler Menos
AUSCHWITZ: TRACE(S) OF A LEGACY
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilanc ... Ler Mais
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilance and encourages the commitment of future generations, so that, through these, the voices of the survivors, which will soon no longer be heard, can echoe.
We know the history, we have seen the films and we have read the books. We have always been told that Auschwitz is the true symbol of Holocaust, since more than one million jews were murdered there. A factory of killing people! Gypsies, ho-mossexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and political dissidents also suffered in this dark place.
We have read about the hideous experiments carried out by Mengele in Auschwitz. We have seen photographies of the survivors, of the corpses, of the crematoriums, of the abandoned personal belongings. We started our journey to Poland with the thought that we would be prepared to face the interpretative centre of the Holocaust and, through it, find the answer to our restlessness: how could this have been humanly possible?
During the journey, we revisited those with whom we had previously shared the feeling of the concentration camp. All the pages, testimonies and faces remained well alive in our memories.
We have arrived, the presence in Auschwitz overwhelms us!
No memory, read, studied, seen or heard can be compared to standing right there. In the deafening silence of that place, which carries within itself the imense loss of human sense, the question of Theodor Adorno gains strenght: How can poetry be possible after Auschwitz Ler Menos
COURA'S PARADISE
Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget th ... Ler Mais
Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget that breathtaking human wall and the generous way they are received. It captures the sweetness, the serenity, the deepest peace, the shared love, the respect, the amazement, the unique energy of the Taboão river, contrasted with the exaltation, the apotheosis, the celebration and the joy, that sacred emotion that Almada Negreiros once said was "the most serious thing in life".
Year after year, we need the Paredes de Coura Festival to recharge the batteries of passion, to dispel the mediocrity of the grayest days, to cure the diseases of the sadness that makes us pale and to chase away the city carrion that burrows into our bones. To fill ourselves with beauty, euphoria and the deepest peace, in divine communion with nature. On pilgrimage, in a perpetual return to magic.
Curated by Sandra Maria Teixeira
IN COLORS PROJECT ED#3 JOY
Photography, as a device for representation and mediation, emerges as a territory for ideological, aesthetic, and poetic experimentation. The selected images map out visual strate- gies through which different cultures are encoded, ritualized, and transmitted. Encompassing a range of representational expressions – from collective celebration to intimate contemplation – each author presents a singular visual lexicon, revealing joy as a socio-anthropological and aesthetic praxis, while envisioning the creation of possible futures.
The curatorial approach is structured around the hypothesis that the photographic image constitutes a device for reconfiguring sensibility, for analyzing and interpreting reality, transfigured and appropriated into autonomous and individual realities, prompting us to question the conditions of possibility for pleasure, encounter, and transformation in contemporary societies.
Curated by Aníbal Lemos and Sandra Maria Teixeira
IN COLORS PROJECT – a borderless initiative by Lumicroma – reclaims the relevance of photography as a sociocultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences reflecting on the current world and through photographic creation, it aims to annually trace the grand image of the time in which we live. Ler Menos
IN COLORS PROJECT ED#4 SKIN
This colective exhibition brings together 50 artworks selected by an independent jury following the international open call for photography, IN COLORS PROJECT, centred on the theme SKIN.
Ski
...
Ler Mais
This colective exhibition brings together 50 artworks selected by an independent jury following the international open call for photography, IN COLORS PROJECT, centred on the theme SKIN.
Skin is surface and territory – the first sculptural gesture of life. It is where light lingers, the world is imprinted, and desire manifests; where time, belonging, and fragility take form. Sensitive and permeable, it constitutes a place of intimacy and of social, cultural, and affective inscription.
In this fourth edition of IN COLORS PROJECT, skin expands beyond its anatomical condition, asserting itself as matter, memory, and language. The selected works extend it into fabric, water, earth, stone, smoke, shadow, reflection, and trace. SKIN is, therefore, an invitation to wonder and fearlessness: photography affirming the freedom to touch the body and to recognize, in its extensions and metamorphoses, a presence that is simultaneously poetic and political. Each work constitutes a second skin: a surface where thought takes form, provocation becomes gesture, and beauty turns into experience.
The curatorial framework is built on the hypothesis that the photographic image constitutes a device for reconfiguring the sensible – analyzing and interpreting the real, transfigured and appropriated into autonomous, individual realities. It invites us to consider skin as a frontier, a surface of inscription, and a place of relation, where intimacy, identity, and freedom are negotiated in contemporary societies.
Curated by Sandra Maria Teixeira
IN COLORS PROJECT – a borderless initiative by Lumicroma – reclaims the relevance of photography as a sociocultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences reflecting on the current world and through photographic creation, it aims to annually trace the grand image of the time in which we live.