Growing up in Banda Aceh How GenZ Adapts to Sharia
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PrizeCurator Selection
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PhotographerNicola Longobardi, Thailand
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Date of PhotographFebruary 2025
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CategoryAsia
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StudioMiddle East Images
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Website
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Instagram
Banda Aceh is the capital of Indonesia's only province governed by Sharia law since 2005. For Gen Z, who have never known life without it, the Islamic penal code is simply the world they were born into.
Girls sit apart from boys in school. Curfews govern social life. Cinemas are banned. Punk rock is forbidden. Yet young people navigate it with quiet normalcy, finding ambition, identity, and connection in the margins. Some plan to leave. Some choose to stay. All of them are negotiating what it means to be young under a law written before they were born.
Nicola Longobardi is an Italian documentary photographer and photojournalist based in Bangkok, Thailand and represented by Middle East Images. He has lived and worked in Asia since 2000, documenting social and political change, historical events, and people's everyday lives across the region.
His work has taken him from Myanmar and the Philippines to China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, with a particular interest in the human stories behind larger events. His photographs have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Nikkei Asian Review, and Courrier International.
Awards 2020 — SOPA Award for Editorial Excellence, Excellence in Magazine Design, Nikkei Asian Review, featuring photographs from Be Water.
2020 — Asian Media Awards, Bronze, Best in Magazine Design, Nikkei Asian Review, featuring photographs from Be Water.
2019 — ND Awards, Third Place, Editorial Documentary category, Prisoners of Heroin.
2019 — Focus on the Story International Photo Contest, Honourable Mention, Prisoners of Heroin.
2018 — Premio Voglino, Finalist, Prisoners of Heroin.
