Max Hirzel
After graduating in photography from IED (Istituto Europeo di Design), Milan, Max Hirzel became a freelance photojournalist and author based in Italy. He completed reports on various countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America, in addition to Europe and Italy. A member of the French agency Haytham Pictures from 2015 to 2022, Hirzel has had his works published in magazines such as 6Mois, Polka, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC online, Il Venerdì di Repubblica, Internazionale, and Sportweek, among others.
Hirzel’s long-term work “Migrant Bodies” was published and exhibited in several countries and awarded the ANI-PixTrakk Visa Award in 2018. This work was published as a book in 2021 (Emuse Editions). For many years Hirzel has been concerned with migration, searching for angles and narrative languages that are capable of proposing alternative perspectives and bridging the gap between reality and perception in the collective imagination.
Featured Work: “Bearing Witness to the EU’s Migration Policies at Sea as Deaths Soar,” reporting for the New Humanitarian (2023); Human Lines storytelling (2019–22)
Upcoming Projects: “Saving” Long-Term Reporting (work in progress); “The Big Trick”—Investigative Reporting (work in progress)