Documentary Projects Shortlist

Caroline Gutman first heard about unmarked African-American burial sites in South Carolina while photographing the legacy of indigo and its ties to chattel slavery. A historian told her the location of a potter’s field in the middle of Charleston that held the remains of more than 26,000 people, most of whom were Black. Gutman knew the site and had previously visited a community centre that now sits on the land. There were also baseball diamonds, parking lots, a playground and a college football stadium named after a Confederate officer, but there was no memorial acknowledging the remains that existed underground. Across the country, African-American burial grounds have been paved over with parking lots, performance halls and highways. Some have a marker, while others have been erased or forgotten, but community-led efforts are changing this. This long-term project looks at unmarked Black burial grounds and community-led preservation efforts and DNA testing to find living descendants of those buried.

Caroline Gutman is an American photographer based in Washington, D.C. Her work focuses on political movements, social justice, and the creative economy. Caroline’s photography appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, ProPublica, and The Guardian, and her work has been exhibited internationally. Previously, Caroline was a Fulbright Fellow in China where she documented Miao indigenous women artisans and their textile traditions.