Nathalie Bertrams is an award-winning photographer and journalist who covers underreported environmental and social issues across Europe and Africa. She publishes in international media including The Washington Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NRC Handelsblad, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and BBC News. She is a 2021 and 2018 National Geographic Explorer, and has received multiple reporting grants.
Study
1996 – 02 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany
1997 – 98 San Francisco Art Institute, USA
1988 – 93 Akademie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht, Netherlands
Grants/ Awards
2021 National Geographic Explorer
Fonds BJP – Reporting grant
2020 IJ4EU – Investigative journalism grant
Renovabis/ Hoffnung für Osteuropa – Research Prize Eastern Europe
Fonds BJP – Reporting grant
2019 Reporters in the Field – Fellowship, Robert Bosch Foundation
Earth Journalism Network – Reporting grant
Kolga Tbilisi Photo Awards– Shortlist
Fonds BJP – Reporting grant
Free Press Unlimited – grant
2018 National Geographic Explorer
European Journalism Center – Global Health Journalism grant
Free Press Unlimited – Reporting Grant
Hostwriter Story Prize – winner
2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting – Grant
Hostwriter Story Prize, 2nd place
Stiftung Kunstfonds – Project grant
2016 Hostwriter Prize – Finalist
Martin Lagois Photo Prize – Finalist
Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards – Finalist
Kolga Tbilisi Photo Awards– Shortlist
2015 Lorenzo Natali Media Prize – EU prize for journalism
Travel Photography Award – winner
Felix Schoeller Photo Awards – Shortlist & Nominee
Humanity Photo Awards, Beijing – Performance Award
Athens Photo Festival, Greece – Shortlist
2013 Joan Wakelin Bursary, Royal Photographic Society, London – Finalist
2011 World Photography Awards – Commended Photographer
Exhibitions
2021 Menschenrechte – Kloster Schiffenberg, Gießen, Germany
The Renaissance Of Humility – Sankt Paulus, Brussels, Belgium
2020 Parcours d’Artistes – St-Gilles/ Brussels, Belgium
2019 Ostrale Biennale – Historische Tabakfabrik, Dresden
Kolga Tbilisi Photo Awards – Tbilisi, Georgia
Migrants: A Journey – Gallery West, London
2018 found a mentalism II, Saint James Cavalier, Malta
2017 What does peace look like? – UNESCO headquarters, Paris
Wasser – Kunstverein Bad Nauheim
Ostrale Biennale – Dresden
[Passant souviens-toi, dit Sœurette] – Médiathèque des Diasporas, Cotonou, Benin
Kontinuum – Betonbox, Düsseldorf,
Kontinuum II – Alfred Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel
2016 Auf der Flucht – St.Egidien, Nürnberg
Realpraesenz – Betonbox, Düsseldorf
Kuala Lumpur Photo Awards – Whitebox Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
Migrants – Gallery on the Corner, London
Kolga Tbilisi Photo Awards – Tbilisi, Georgia
Klassentreffen – Schloss Reuschenberg, Neuss
Clearing – Alfred Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel
2015 Lichtung – Betonbox, Düsseldorf
Felix Schoeller Photo Awards – Cultural History Museum, Osnabrück
Bombensicher – Betonbox, Düsseldorf
2014 Kinolog: fremdartig – Schikaneder Cinema, Vienna
Kunstpunkte – Betonbox, Düsseldorf
2013 Ostrale‘013 – Dresden
Endstation Frohe Zukunft – Galerie Nachtspeicher23, Hamburg
Reactivation – Betonbox, Düsseldorf
2012 Deus Ex Machina – Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, USA
Kunstpunkte, Betonbox, Düsseldorf
Cliffhanger – Galerie Minken & Palme, Berlin
2011 Ostrale‘011 – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Dresden
Climate Change in Africa – Heinrich Boell Foundation, Cancún, Mexico
2010 Copart – Cape Town, South Africa
Ostrale‘010 – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Dresden
Evolution – bauraum, Köln
2009 Positionen09 – Seewerk, Moers
Luftraum.Interferenz – FiftyFifty Galerie, Düsseldorf
2008 Collage – SOS-Art, Paris
D21:Salon – D21 Kunstraum, Leipzig
2007 Straßenleben – FiftyFifty Galerie, Düsseldorf
Nacht der Museen – FiftyFifty Galerie, Düsseldorf
2005 In Bewegung – Kunsthalle Gießen
Into the Unknown – FiftyFifty Galerie, Düsseldorf
2003 Körperhaus, zeitraum_ex!t Büro für Kunst, Mannheim
2001 Wellness, PLUS, Düsseldorf
Transit (II), Atelier am Eck, Düsseldorf
Transit, Warehouse #20, Art Port Nagoya, Japan
Ausfahrt, Kunstverein Oberhausen
2000 Het menselijk lichaam, Bonnefanten-Museum, Maastricht
Compilation, PLUS, Düsseldorf
Wasser/L’Eau, Musée de St. Paul de Vence
1999 PLUS, PLUS, Düsseldorf
1998 Het Groene Boek, De Bank, Enschede
Group exhibition, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
Rood El-Farag Cultural Institute Cairo, Egypt
1997 10 x 10, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1996 Spektakel 96: Photographie, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1994 Symposium, Thun, Switzerland
Galerie Loehrl, Mönchengladbach
1993 Die Anderen Zehn, NeuerAachenerKunstverein, Aachen
Galerie Tracé, Maastricht
Media (Selection)
Al Jazeera, BBC News, Courrier international, Dagbladet Information, De Groene Amsterdammer, Der Standard, Huffington Post, Internazionale, Irish Times, Lettre International, Mail & Guardian, MO*, Mongabay, New Internationalist, NRC Handelsblad, PRI/The World, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sunday Times, Tages-Anzeiger, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Voice of America, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Magazine
Clients (Selection)
Greenpeace, Oxfam, GAGE/ODI, World Future Council, Fairtrade, GIZ, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Heinrich Böll Foundation, African Renewable Energy Alliance, Welthungerhilfe, Goethe Institute Ethiopia, Volkswagen, UNOPS
Publications (Selection)
2021
Arte, Re: Schneeglöckchen aus Georgien (Fernsehreportage)
De Groene Amsterdammer, Witte Bloemen van de Zwarte Zee
Süddeutsche Zeitung, EU-Gelder für das rumänische Donaudelta eingefroren
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Im Sumpf
De Groene Amsterdammer, De Georgische oppositie kampeert voor het parlement
NRC Handelsblad, 1,1 miljard aan EU-geld niet besteed aan Donaudelta
NRC Handelsblad, EU-investering moest de Roemeense natuur beschermen, maar …
Info Sud-Est, Where did the EU’s billion euros for the Danube Delta actually go?
G4Media, Unde a ajuns miliardul de euro de la UE pentru Delta Dunării
2020
OZY, Crime, Corona, Copper and Trouble in Zambia
Mongabay, With a drastic decline in tropical fruit, Gabon’s mega-gardeners go hungry
Sunday Times, The gangsters who made a president
The Guardian – Wildlife forensics: how a giant pangolin named Ghost could save…
Washington Post Magazine – Through the Eyes of Women
Mail & Guardian – The story of SA’s biggest power plant, and its little town
Coal Town – The quest for South Africa’s first post-Apartheid city
Süddeutsche Zeitung – Phantom in Not
Tagesanzeiger – Das geheime Leben des Pangolin
Mongabay – They survived centuries of elephant onslaught. Now climate change…
BBC – ‘After the coral ban, I lost everything’
Tages-Anzeiger, Das Leiden der Zierfische
De Groene Amsterdammer – Vissen op Nemo’s
MO*, Hoe aquaria wereldwijd het koraalrif bedreigen
Süddeutsche Zeitung – Ausverkauf am Riff
2019
De Groene Amsterdammer – De nasmaak van de dood
Al Jazeera – On the streets of DR Congo’s Goma, rap gives youth a voice
Tages-Anzeiger – Händewaschen und Fiebermessen
Süddeutsche Zeitung – Das Virus und der Krieg
De Groene Amsterdammer – Oorlog en Ebola vormen in Noord-Kivu een dodelijke mix
2018
Al Jazeera – ‘They believed I was cursed with blindness because God was angry’
Internazionale – Il gusto amaro della vaniglia
Courrier international – Enquête. Plongée dans le trafic de vanille à Madagascar
De Groene Amsterdammer – Vanillekoorts
The Guardian – Madagascan gold: meet the vanilla hustlers
Mail & Guardian – Fear sours the sweet scent of Madagascar’s success
New Internationalist – Revealing Malawi’s untold health and environmental crisis
2017
The Guardian – Illegal logging in Malawi: can clean cooking stoves save its forests?
Süddeutsche Zeitung – Offenes Feuer, zerstörte Gesundheit
Süddeutsche Zeitung – In der Giftküche von Malawi
MO* – Mondiaal Nieuws – Vrouwen roken zich dood, in de keuken
Mail & Guardian – Moz digs garimpeiros out of trouble
Books
2018 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting: Toxic Planet
2017 Bertrams/Gazit: Outcast – Refugees in an Israeli detention camp
2016 International Journal of Media and Information Policy (MIPJ): Indigenous Edition
2013 Bertrams: Madagascar. Travel photography
2012 Bertrams/Neuberger: Forests for People – Rwanda’s Prized Forest Policy
Bertrams: Crossing Borders – Vom Atlas zur Goldküste
Bertrams: Crossing Borders – Vom Kap bis Kairo