Ako Salemi

Ako Salemi is the 2016 Persephone Miel Fellow. He was born in 1981 in Bukan, Kurdistan, Iran. Since 2006 he has worked as a photojournalist for several Iranian newspapers. He documents stories on social issues in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He has had three solo exhibitions and he is one of the founding members of the Hikari Creative. A photograph by Salemi was among Time Magazine's 29 Best Images published on Instagram in 2014.

He received an honorable mention from Instagram-Getty Images in 2015. His photography has been published in Time's Lightbox, The New York Times, The Guardian, MSNBC Photography and Instagram Blog.