Istanbul-based young American photographer Kathryn Cook’s “Memory Denied: Turkey and the Armenian Genocide” project has been granted $25,000 as the winner of the 2008 Aftermath Project, reports PDNonline:

The Aftermath Project has announced a $25,000 grant for photographer Kathryn Cook to support her project “Memory Denied: Turkey and the Armenian Genocide.”

A one-time special award of $2,500 will go to Natela Grigalashvili of Tbilisi, Georgia, for her project “Refugees of Georgian Villages.”

Finalists for the 2008 Aftermath grants were Pep Bonet of Mallorca, Spain; Tinka Dietz of Hamburg, Germany; and Christine Fenzl of Berlin, Germany.

The Aftermath Project, which is supported largely by the Open Society Institute, sponsors projects that show the effects of war and conflict.

Judges for this year’s grants were photographer Jeff Jacobson, Fortune deputy picture editor Scott Thode and photographer and Aftermath Project founder Sara Terry.

Cook is an American photographer based in Istanbul who is represented by Agence Vu and Prospekt. Her project on Turkey examines the impact of the Armenian massacres of the early 20th century and the scars it left on the country’s national identity. Turkey still refuses to officially label it “genocide,” a word Cook uses in the title of the project. The Aftermath Project says her work “explores the many ways that the greater implications of memory and history continue to resonate at home and abroad.”

Cook has worked as an Associated Press photographer in Panama, freelanced for a variety of publications including Time and The New York Times, and was featured in PDN’s 30 this year.

Georgian photographer Grigalashvili was awarded a grant for a project on refugees who have fled conflicts in the Caucasus region and have settled in villages in the mountains of Georgia.

All five photographers recognized this year will have their work included in “War Is Only Half the Story, Volume 2,” to be published in Spring 2009 by Aperture, Mets and Schilt, and The Aftermath Project.