Wacca, Kamiela and Lizanne stand against a graffiti-covered wall
Crossings: Laura Pannack’s award-winning images of South African youth – in pictures
The British visual artist and photographer Laura Pannack has been named the winner of the inaugural Tom Stoddart award for excellence 2025. A collaboration between Gost Books and the Ian Parry photojournalism grant, the award supports photographers engaged in long-form documentary work. South Africa has one of the world’s highest levels of social inequality and a rapidly growing youth population; Pannack’s project Crossings looks at the journey to and from school and its physical and psychological challenges for young people
Wacca and Kamiela and Lizanne. Photograph: Laura Pannack
Mon 2 Nov 2026 06.53 EST Last modified on Mon 2 Nov 2026 07.27 EST
The bus stop The bus stop outside the church is where young people gather each day after school. At times the area is brimming with more than 50 young people. Places where the boys in particular can walk are restricted. Gang culture sets invisible boundaries making it risky to venture on to the wrong side of the road Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Two students embrace on the way to school Crossings explores the complex environments students navigate; spaces where vulnerability, danger, friendship and freedom coexist. The resulting book is dynamic and playful, bringing together analogue photography and a range of processes to examine and explore the formative experience of adolescence, and the ways in which place, relationships and memory shape who we become Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Ethan at the bus stop In South Africa, a country with one of the world’s highest levels of social inequality and a rapidly growing youth population, the daily journey to and from school can carry significant physical and psychological challenges for many young people Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Drawings made into cyanotype Through workshops using lo-fi analogue photography, painting and creative writing, the project created an accessible space for young people to reflect on their experiences and their journeys through and with their communities each day. The images made in collaboration with the young people also form an important part of the book Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Drawings made into cyanotype In this workshop with Lauren Theunissen they explored the journey to and from school. Young people were given prompts and asked to draw their answers. For example: ‘What did you see on the way to school this morning?’ Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Moesheida Moesheida wears a nightgown outside the Project Hope church youth club Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
The girls who can’t walk to school Ronaldo (centre) has a tight family unit. The children live at two addresses for their safety. Their mother relocated them to their auntie’s house (her sister) for most of the school week due to fear of them living in her area in Mitchells Plain. The separation has been essential to keep the children safe. Ronaldo’s mother spends as much time as she can with them. Ronaldo transitioned at the age of 14. In 2024 Ronaldo and her friend Thabbs were walking to school at about 8am and shots were randomly fired. They ran but their friend walking with them was too slow and got caught in the crossfire. She bled out in the classroom and died Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Image by Thabbs For the workshops, children used donated 35mm cameras. Participants aged four to 19 were encouraged to takes photographs on the way to and from school. The groups involved in the work were Where Rainbows Meet, Project Hope and New World Foundation, Back to work, Triangle and Lavender Hill high school in Cape Town Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
35mm image made by a participant This group we worked with was Project Hope. The club runs programmes for young people at the local church in Manenberg, Cape Town. Based in the church grounds it offers a safer space for young people to gather and socialise after school and on weekends Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Shielding This image was made inside Lavender Hill high school. The sight of two girls shielding themselves from the sun sparked a number of thoughts that felt deeply relevant to the project. I was drawn to the idea of adolescence as a world of its own, often hidden from adult view, and to the different forms that shielding can take: from danger, threat, or simply from the things we are not yet ready to face. What felt particularly poignant to me was that, in this instance, they were shielding themselves from the sun — something that gives life, warmth and growth Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Wacca Wacca plays with water balloons as young people gather after school at Project Hope. Their play is imaginative and lighthearted, a brief escape from the dangers that surround them. Crossfire is the norm for these young people. The shootings are so frequent that life carries on around them — play continues, even when risk has become part of the every day Photograph: Laura Pannack/Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence/IPPG
Diego, Kieran and Abdullah ‘ Making our way home from school is a simple, nostalgic, universal activity. This daily commute has its own set of challenges in South Africa – a country with the greatest social divide. This daily ritual is a crossing, a tightrope walk through streets where invisible lines divide safety from danger, past from future, life from death. Through drawing, photography, collage, and cyanotypes. Cameras change hands, and perspectives shift; new truths are unveiled’ Laura Pannack Photograph: Laura Pannack
