When Ismail Ferdous started his yearlong photographic project documenting the aftermath of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, he turned to Instagram as a way to draw people’s attention to an issue that, he said, concerned all of us. “I didn’t want the world to forget about Rana Plaza,” he told TIME in June.
Now, his work is gaining new attention after it was selected as one of the three recipients of the first Getty Images Instagram Grants, a series of cash prizes given to support stories from underrepresented communities using the photo-sharing app.
Photographers Adriana Zehbrauskas and Dmitry Markov join Ferdous in sharing the three $10,000 grants, which were awarded by a jury that included TIME’s Director of Photography Kira Pollack and photographers David Guttenfelder, Maggie Steber, Malin Fezehai and Ramin Talaie.
“I think the importance of this grant is massive for my project,” says Ferdous. “It took a lot of research and effort to start a project on Instagram with a totally new approach, utilizing photos, stories and audio.”
With the grant, Ferdous wants to expand the project both in its reach and focus, starting with the production of a book. “I also want to connect the dots between the [garment] producers and consumers,” he says. “For example, I recently interviewed and photographed fashion researchers, alternative fashion stores and fair trade organizations in Europe to make the project more dynamic.”
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