A series of photographs that attempt to dramatise the issue of hunger in India has prompted a furious debate, amid accusations the images are “unethical, “staged” and “poverty porn”.

The pictures – by award-winning Italian photographer Alessio Mamo – attracted fierce controversy on social media after they were posted on Sunday on the Instagram account of World Press Photo, home to one of the world’s leading news photography prizes.

Mamo states clearly on the photo blog that he staged the images to make a point about poverty for his series Dreaming Food, where he photographed villagers in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh standing in front of a table laden with a fake meal.

But the association of the Instagram account with the World Press Photo award – which has stringent rules for its prize – has prompted outrage.

Mamo was invited to curate the WPP’s Instagram account for a week with other winners after taking second prize at this year’s awards in the people category for his photo of an 11-year-old victim of a missile explosion in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Introducing the conceptual project on the Instagram feed, Mamo said he had “brought … a table and some fake food and … told people to dream about some food that they would like to find on their table”.

Following two days of negative comment about the photo essay – which Mamo did in 2011 – it appeared to have been removed from his online portfolio.

Olivier Laurent, a former editor with the British Journal of Photography and Time who is now with the Washington Post, was particularly scathing in remarks on Twitter. “This was a very badly thought concept, one that follows the many ‘here’s all the food a kid eats in a week’ concept we see all the time. But this one turned exploitative. It rightly should be criticised! The work should never have been produced.

“World Press Photo should control what photographers post on their branded Instagram account. They don’t give photographers unlimited access to their Twitter, Facebook or even their website, they shouldn’t with Instagram. Control what your brand stands for everywhere.”

Mamo’s pictures have caused particular offence in India, where a number of media outlets have covered the row. “This is poor journalism and even poorer humanity,” Hari Adivarekar, a photojournalist, wrote in an online comment. “Too many have come and done this kind of shameful work in India and their rewards just open the door for many others to think it’s OK. It isn’t. It’s just inexcusable.”

The Observer and Guardian photographer Antonio Olmos was another who expressed his discomfort over the work on social media. Speaking to the Guardian, Olmos, himself a World Press Photo winner, was sympathetic towards Mamo, saying he believed he had made a mistake, but felt the showcasing of the work on the WPP Instagram account was as ill-judged as the project itself.

“The trouble with photojournalism is that we are expected to be journalists and artists at the same time and that is a fine line to traverse without getting it wrong.

“The problem first is that the photos appeared on the World Press Photo Instagram – an organisation that is supposed to promote journalism. The set clearly states it’s a conceptual project and this shouldn’t be on it.

“The second issue is that it shows plastic food set in front of what I am supposed to believe are hungry people. That is cruel and shallow and demeaning,” he said.

“There was a project a few years ago by Peter Menzel where the photographer went around the world photographing what people ate. It illustrated so well the gap in diets around the world, while at the same time giving people some dignity because it also showed the wide variety of cuisine and palates. And it was real food.”

Another of Mamo’s Dreaming Food photographs. Photograph: WPP/Instragram

Replying to a query from the Guardian, Mamo linked to a statement he had issued on the blogging site Medium, responding to the criticism.

“The only goal of the concept was to let western people think, in a provocative way, about the waste of food. Maybe it did not work at all, maybe I did it in the wrong way, but I worked honestly and respectfully with all the people involved.”

Describing his methodology he added: “Any time we went into villages we used to spend time meeting people, speaking with them and eating together. After I explained the idea of the project and found the volunteers we prepared our set.

“Most of the people enjoyed spontaneously to be part of this and photographed behind the table. The people I photographed were living in a village and they were not suffering from malnutrition any more. They were not hungry or sick, and they freely participated in the project.

“I’m a human being and I can make mistakes. I want to offer my deepest apologies to anyone who felt offended and hurt by this photos, and to the people I photographed … I’m always open to be criticised in my work, but I have never in my life felt hate like the comments directed at me in recent days.”

World Press Photo also put out a statement defending the use of the pictures on its official feed. “Photo contest winners and digital storytelling contest winners are given the opportunity to take over the World Press Photo Instagram account for a week to share work of their choosing,” the Amsterdam-based organisation said.



“We provide guidelines to the photographers undertaking a takeover. The guidelines present general issues for the photographers to consider; the guidelines are published below. Above all else, we ask photographers to be transparent about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.”

It added: “The photographers are responsible for selecting their work to show and writing their captions. They can present a portfolio of past work or a current project.”