King's College London

As waves of protest swept across Hong Kong, my neighbourhood became one of the battlegrounds between young protesters and riot police. Tear gas engulfed the streets. Rubber bullet cartridges scattered across the pavements. A scenery I had never imagined erupted before my eyes.

Not only in Hong Kong, young people in cities across the globe - from Jakarta to Tehran and Moscow, New Delhi to Portland, Oregon and Bangkok, etc. - also rose in protest for different causes. They are, I would say, of a generation that refuses to accept the established world as it is and dares to challenge it.

Jury's verdict:

The global significance of the Hong Kong protest movement cannot be overstated as it fuels criticism against China at a time of souring Sino-US relations and informs debates about the resilience of authoritarianism. But the photo captures the local perspective of these important events. As a neighbourhood becomes the stage of violent clashes, people manifest their solidarity by forming first aid groups, keeping each other safe and holding hands.

Who could have guessed it: on an early-autumn afternoon a KCL webinar would have smuggled via portable WIFI connection a history of South Asian politics into an attic of a sleepy Italian town. A re-found hometown, “zabardasti se”, that academic globetrotting had turned into “just a quick pitstop” for more than a decade… Now unexpectedly hosting papers, lists, ideas, PhD plans brought back from London. London! London: just a time-zone (far-)away. Long-term migrant students and scholars are a diaspora of their own travelling highly complex coordinates of belonging. Home/Abroad. Local/Global. This (post-Brexit) pandemic further complicates the question: where is home?

Jury's verdict:

Italy. Or was/is it London/South Asia? Home is where the destination time zone is’ -is a witty deliberation on the collapse of all our worlds inside our homes during the pandemic, and yet we can remain connected to all corners of the world and to our work all day long, surrounded as we are with reminders of our pre-pandemic life.

Rooting but growing

Jury's verdict:

Uncertainties, as we are all living during the pandemic, are not a reason for forgetting to look at the beauty of nature around. Especially when nature is reminding us the need of look at our roots. An aesthetic eye to the nature calls for our deep roots of humanity.

Jury's honorable mention