Artist: A. Okhi Irawan
Artist: Abby Robinson / USA
PROCEDURE
People would sit in the waiting room (which I have created to look like one in a medical office), often striking up conversations—a way both of integrating contemporary art into the everyday urban experience and challenging the role of art as an educational tool for cross-cultural dialog and community cultivation. Everyone would fill out a medical/photo history questionnaire and present it when they were called into the office. In New York, quite a few participants thought I was actually a doctor, a holdover from the old clinic where the piece was installed. The Shanghai space was significantly different, more an art gallery/storefront combination. And in China, people were more apt to bring in their pets.
They would make their body part selection. Reasons for their choices varied: they liked/disliked a particular spot; they wanted a representation of a place on their body they couldn’t easily see; a significant other or friends characterized them by a specific feature; a body part reminded them of a family member or sparked a vivid memory.
A digital photo was taken in the studio, immediately printed out in the office, and placed in a plastic badge attached to a lanyard. The image was then worn around the neck like a VIP pass by the photo donor, with the badges creating further conversation among visitors.
Artist: Alessia Scena / Russia
Art is a responsibility that we should all be aware of. Keeping our eyes open we can perceive that life is a constant becoming, intangible flow of events.
I see photography as a medium that can potentially stop this perceptive flow for a moment. And show us the pure and nude reality .
My photo story talks about the few last people who survived the l 2nd world war ,here, in my home town, l’Ossola, situated in the Alps, a land of farmers, partisans and smugglers, the first Italian Republic to be independent from fascism, unfortunately not many people in this area knows this. In the 50st, with the economic boom and the coming of the new era called “Benessere” ( wellness but i prefer to call it “good having”) a new spoiled generation literally erased what there was before :values, pride, solidarity with each other, respect for nature..
My photos are an image to these people who still live as if the clock has stopped back in the 40ies, working the land, living without wasting anything,.. and it s an invitation to my generation to learn from their strength and to readapt their lessons to our present world.
Artist: Alex Bocchetto & Valentina Abenavoli / United Kingdom
Two independent photographers from London.
Fallen Empire is a photobook that acts as a critical viewpoint of the changes the city is undergoing on the eve of the Olympics.
It is a photographic project born from the black heart of London, the heart that beats under the surface of ultra-productivity and modernity.
A story of opposites and complementary born from the critical need of showing the
difference between the postcard-image of itself that the Capital proposes
to the world and how it appears from the inside.
During 2011 we documented the redevelopments, the royal parks, the summer festivals, the public events, the back-alleys. We walked the streets of the city trying to understand with our own eyes the signs of the change it’s experiencing. Fallen Empire is the result of our research, it presents a counter-narration of pre-Olympic London through the subjective lens of analogue photography: it doesn’t aim for univocal answers but to open up a whole spectrum of possible personal thinking, inside a fragmented present of rapid change.
The photobook form is then used in a way functional to the content: the
story unwraps itself as a map, in a series of correspondences and
cross-references, its overall-effect greater than the sum of the parts,
shaping a psychogeography of London, where the city and its dwellers merge
Artist: Alexandra Demenkova / Russia
I started to do my first photographic projects in Russia, in Saint-Petersburg and in the region, near the town where I was born. It happened naturally because of the fact that I didn’t have an opportunity to travel at the time, and it turned out to be a great advantage – I knew about the places which remain non-existant for most people, thus, in a way, I photographed a parallel reality. This became a continuous quest for exploration – meeting people who live hidden and unnoticed by society.
This experience was eye-opening for me. It made me realise a lot of things, it made me think how fragile this world of relative stability created by our families is, how thin is the borderline between health, both mental and physical, and sickness; the normality of everyday life and misery; freedom and lifetime imprisonment. In the stories and in the lives of the people I saw hope and despair; all the possible emotions and situations that I heard or read of, now were not on the pages of the books, on a television screen, on a theatre stage, but here they were, in front of me, real, the first-hand experience of life, without any intermediaries.
Born in Kingisepp, Leningrad region, Russia, in 1980.
Graduated from the Herzen State Pedagogical University with a degree in Foreign Languages.
In 2000-2002 studied at the PhotoFaculty of the St.Petersburg House of Journalists in the group of Sergey Maximishin.
In 2005 participated in the masterclass organized by Objective Reality Foundation in Saint-Petersburg.
Alexandra focuses on social issues of everyday life, ranging from the homeless, migrant workers, lunatic asylums to ropewalkers, circus and street artists.
In 2007 joined Agency.Photographer.ru.
Alexandra received the Grand Prix of the Northern Palmyra, Saint-Petersburg, 2004.
She was a prizewinner of the Best Photo Correspondent of the Year (St.Petersburg, 2004-2006) including the Grand Prix in 2006; was commended at the Ian Parry Scholarship (2006); finalist of Descubrimientos, PhotoEspana, in 2007.
Alexandra took part in the 14th annual World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in 2007 and was an artist in residence in Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, in 2008-2009. In 2008 she was a participant of Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XXI in the USA and is currently one of the students of Reflexions Masterclass (2010-2011).
She had solo exhibitions and took part in group exhibitions and festivals in Russia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Finland, Poland, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Turkey, China and Bangladesh.
Leave A Comment