Slovenian photographer Jošt Franko has won The Aftermath Project, a prestigious US grant supporting post-conflict storytelling in photography, for a project documenting a community and landscape deeply marred and marginalised by the war in the former Yugoslavia.

By winning the US$25,000 prize, the young Slovenian photographer and visual artist joins acclaimed authors such as Jim Goldberg, Stanley Greene, Nina Berman, Jessica Hines and Kathryn Cook.

His interdisciplinary project Nicht Fallen chronicles and depicts the lives of people who, three decades after the end of the conflict, remain in refugee settlements in Balkan countries along with traces of the war.

Franko mostly relies on photography to tell their stories, but the project, which he has worked on since 2017, also includes participants recounting their experiences, turning words into visuals, the public broadcaster RTV Slovenija has reported.

The Aftermath Project organisation aims to shed light on and raise awareness about conflict aftermath issues and to fill in the gap that is created after media stop paying attention to conflicts or their long-lasting impact. The annual grant competition is open to all working conflict photographers around the world.

Franko completed his master's degree at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has exhibited in Slovenia and abroad, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography, the New York Photo Festival, the Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts in Slovenia and the Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten in Klagenfurt.

He is a multiple finalist for the prestigious Lange-Taylor Prize from Duke University and a multiple recipient of a Pulitzer Grant. His photo essays appear regularly in publications and newspapers, including Time, The New Yorker, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Newsweek, The New York Times, La Repubblica and The Washington Post.