Rebecca Conway is the winner of the Rebecca Vassie Memorial Award 2025. She is a self-taught British photojournalist and documentary photographer covering South and Southeast Asia, where she has lived since 2008, focusing on stories around conflict, environment and minority communities; she’s particularly interested in the impact living amid conflict has on mental health, and elsewhere how remote and minority communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change. 

She works for a range of global clients including Getty Images, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Between 2015-2019, I documented civilian trauma in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley, one of the most militarised regions on the planet and where almost half the population suffers some form of trauma or depression; this project now underpins wider work exploring the long-term psychological impact of civil conflict in South Asia.

There is always imagery showing the immediate impact of violence on communities, and it’s vital, I believe to show this impact – but it’s equally important to document the aftermath, and the longer-term effects conflict-induced depression and PTSD has on communities as they attempt to rebuild.

My work in Kashmir focused on those civilians caught in a decades-old conflict, the impact on mental health and how families and communities coped, or tried to find moments of normalcy.

There’s often stigma around discussing depression, particularly in more conservative areas, and a lack of mental health services means people are often left to try to heal alone, relying on faith, or spiritual healers. This work across South Asia attempts to show how and why communities who have lived through, or continue to live through, conflict, experience high levels of trauma and PTSD, and how people come together or try to heal.

I’m also trying to add historical and geographical context to the situation of those who have lived through some of the region’s conflicts, which often remain underreported and less photographed, despite their severity and long-term repercussions.

I’m very excited to be able to continue to focus on the project, which I’m hoping to publish as a book; the support of the grant will mean I’m able to spend more time documenting communities still coping with the impact of some of South Asia’s cross-border and civil conflicts into 2026.

I’m hoping this work will be published as book when I’ve finished making the final stages of this project; I’m also hoping to find ways to bring the project to newspapers, magazines and photojournalism festivals and exhibitions internationally and in the UK; it’s important to me that the work finds as wide an audience as possible, particularly given the subject matter.

To find out more about Rebecca’s work, visit her website here. 

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