On July 23, Italian photographer Alessio Mamo's series, Dreaming Food (a conceptual project about hunger issues in India), was showcased on The World Press Photo's Instagram page. It shows Indian children and adults standing in front of piles of food (turkey, fruits, drinks), on a table, with hands covering their eyes. Mamo's reasoning behind the series was that he wanted to address the problem of malnutrition in rural India, while juxtaposing it with the food waste in the West.

That gave way to criticism, likening the series to poverty porn, deeming it exploitative. Mamo later issued an apology, saying, "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."