Author Archive for burn magazine

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Piotr Zbierski

Love Has To Be Reinvented

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When Venasque told me about diaries of Cocteau, I came across this fragment, which deeply affected me:

“And then I realized that the world of my dreams is equally full of memories as my real life, so it is the real being and also richer, deeper, full of episodes, and more precise in many details. It was difficult to properly locate memories in one or the other world. They were extraordinary, complicated, and have become my second life, twice bigger, and twice longer than my own”.

Why? Because you have this gun with cold water when I’m turning into someone unlike.

With or without is trivial difference. Is it not the way to communicate with friends?

We are still here.

I know your deepest secret fear. And you know my deepest secret fear: egoism.

Bio

Piotr Zbierski (b. 1987) studied photography at National Film School.

Author of three individual exhibitions (White Elephants, Here, Childhood Dreams), participant in collective exhibitions and publications including Photokina and Lab East. He presented his works in many countries like Poland, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia. As well as magazines (Shots Magazine, Ninja Mag, Archivo Zine, Die Nacht, Gup Magazine).

In 2012 he won the prestigious prize for young photographer Leica Oscar Barnack Newcomer Award and has been shortlisted in many other prizes (Les Nuits Photographiques 2012, Terry O’Neill Award) for his series “Pass By Me”. His works has been shown at festival in Arles 2012 and are in collection of Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. He lives and works in Lodz.

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Irina Werning

Back To The Future 2

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I love old photos. I know I’m a nosy photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for those old photos. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today…  a few years ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

Back to the Future won the Burn Emerging Photographer Fund  2011. The EPF grant allowed Irina Werning to extend and finish the project. For Back to the Future, she shot 250 pictures in 32 countries.

Bio

• Born in Buenos Aires

• BA Economics, Universidad de San Andres, Buenos Aires, 1997

• MA History, Universidad Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 1999

• MA Photographic Journalism, Westminster University, London, 2006

• Winner Ian Parry Scholarship 2006

• Gordon Foundation Grant 2006

• Selected for the Joop Swart Masterclass (World Press Photo Organization), 2007

• Flash Forward, The Magenta Foundation, Canada 2011

• Winner Fine Art Portraits, SONY World Photography Awards 2012

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Irina Werning

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Enri Canaj

Shadow In Greece

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The centre of Athens, as I first remember it, was full of life.

During the period before the Olympic Games, there was great development. New hotels appeared in order to host the visitors, shops, restaurants and cafes kept sprouting out, it was full of people everywhere. All this happened within a few years. It was as if the city put on new clothes. During the days of the Olympics, the city was clean and well-guarded. You would not see street- merchants, drug-addicts or immigrants, just tourists and people who came in order to have a good time. In my eyes, it looked like another place.

As time passed, the city started deteriorating and gradually recovered its previous character: the everyday life that we all knew, with the junkies, the street-merchants, the the immigrants and the prostitutes.

Time passes fast. The city is now fading. Some people abandon it due to the crisis. Many shops and hotels have shut down, the centre is now almost deserted. People fear they will get ripped-off, they hear that this happens all the time. They no longer feel like going out and wandering about like before. They even fear seeing all the poverty and destitution, they drug-users who will rip you off for their shot, the women prostituting themselves.

But for me, those people were always there. I found them all there when I first arrived as a 9-year old child. They were always there when I was growing up. They are somehow trapped in their lives, subsisting in terrible circumstances, in squalid houses with insufficient hygiene.

The immigrants live in small rooms that they rent, many of them together, without much hope. The women prostitute themselves even in the streets for 5€. You don’t want to run into them in the street. Yet, hanging around with them has been my daily routine. This way, it was easier to approach them. They are sensitive people with a lot of problems, with ruined families behind them. Sometimes they give the impression that no one has cared for them. As if they want someone to talk to, as if they want to get out of the misery they are in. For some of them I had the sense that they were almost looking for someone to open up to and take it all out. Like confessing. What made an impression on me was that they often opened up and talked as if they knew me. Sometimes they talked about difficult things, about what they were experiencing, as if they were talking about someone else. Almost as if they felt better this way.

I would only shoot when I sensed that they were more comfortable, after some time had passed. Sometimes, unexpected things happened, and made me change the plan I had in mind. Other times, things just happened spontaneously, and I was just following along. The images I have selected are stronger for me, because I know the story behind them.

I have been working on this project since 2011. My work is still in progress. When others looks at those pictures I want them to feel respect and dignity for the subjects. Like I do.

Bio:

Enri Canaj was born in Tirana, Albania, in 1980. He spent his early childhood there and moved with his family to Greece in 1991, immediately after the opening of the borders. He is based in Athens and covers stories in Greece and the Balkans.

He studied photography at the Leica Academy in Athens. In 2007 he took part in a British Council project on migration, attending a year-long workshop with Magnum photographer Nikos Economopoulos.

Since 2008, he has been a freelance photographer for major publications such as Time Magazine Lightbox, Newsweek, Le monde Diplomatique (German edition),TO VIMA, TA NEA, Tachydromos and VIMAGAZINO. A sample of his work has been exhibited at the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece in Athens and Salonica, at the Bilgi Santral in Istanbul, the European Parliament in Brussels and the Athens Photo Festival.

He has been working in the Balkans, mainly Kosovo and Albania, as well as Greece, focusing on migration and the recent crisis.

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Enri Canaj

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Zaida González Ríos

Primera Comunión

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My intention is to critique the traditions and social references of Western culture, as well as use irony in questioning certain canons, such as the idealization of the body in advertising and media, the role of gender, and a consumer based existence due to globalization and individualism in an environment that is marked by an increase in the disposable.

I seek to show something different: that which is not well regarded or accepted, an escape from what we have been taught to “behold and admire.” This is manifested with ordinary models, average people who would not otherwise be photographed for an advertising campaign.

With the inclusion of dead and deformed babies in the photographs, I intend to rescue people that were abandoned without a proper farewell. I want to dignify them, transporting them into a picture, surrounded by objects and symbolism to leave them history so that they do not go unnoticed or ignored. I confront the viewer with the truth, one that weighs on the conscience of agricultural industries, since the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides every year cause children to be born with and die from physiological and physical deformities. This fact is hidden from society by companies that have economic power in our country.

With the lighting techniques used in the images (black and white pictures painted by hand) and small format, I intend to create a break between the form and substance, softening and dislodging the message.

Bio

1977, San Miguel, Santiago de Chile.

Photographer and veterinarian.

Zaida received her degree in commercial photograhy but has since dedicated herself exclusively to personal projects, exhibiting her work in various group and solo exhibitions in Chile.

Her work has been featured internationally in Colombia, Argentina, USA, Belgium, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela, Spain, France, Portugal and Mexico.

She currently teaches photography in the Escuela de Comunicaciones Alpes and works as a freelance veterinarian.

She has authored 3 books to date: “Las Novias de Antonio” (La Revista, 2009), ” Recuérdame al morir con mi último latido” (2010) and “Zaida Gonzalez De Guarda” (2013). Her last two books were published independently with the help of her brother, designer Marco Gonzalez.

She was the recipient of four photography scholarships from Fondart (2005, 2008, 2009 and 2011) and was a resident of fine art photography for Nelson Garrido in Valparaiso (2010).

In 2007 and 2011 she was nominated for the Altazor award for her work “Conservatorio Celestial” and “Recuérdame al morir con mi último latido,” respectively.

In 2012 she won the Rodrigo Rojas De Negri award and national recognition in emerging photography.

In 2013 she was awarded a grant from the DIRAC for a residency she completed with the NGO (Organización Nelson Garrido) in Caracas, Venezuela.

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Zaida González Ríos

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Matt Blum

The Nu Project

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Matt Blum started “The Nu Project” with the idea that women of all shapes and sizes deserve to be photographed beautifully as fine art nudes. His subjects were volunteers through word-of-mouth or Craigslist–they came with their stories, their successes and failures, their scars, their survival of abusive relationships, their tales of triumph over body image–and he photographed them. These days the collection continues to grow; over 150 women (some with their partners) have participated, most in their own homes.

What: Nude Fine Art Photography–we hope to make a book of the work we’ve done so far, crowd-funded through Kickstarter (here’s the link to our Kickstarter).

Who: Any woman over the age of 21. Matt Blum does the photography and post processing. Matt’s wife, Katy, does editing and art direction.

What: Nude photography in the homes of the participants.

When: Ongoing since 2006.

Where: Minneapolis-based, but whenever we travel we try to set up shoots. In Novemeber we went to Brazil with the purpose of photographing for the Nu Project. It was two weeks and full of amazing participation by the women of Brazil. This fall we’ll head to Spain and Portugal for a couple of weeks to do some project shoots there.

Why: Because before this project it seemed like everyone who was photographing women in the nude was using either beautiful models and doing it beautifully or using non-model women and making them look extremely average. Matt figured there was a way to treat non-models like models and photograph them beautifully. We continue it because it is fun work and the response from the women who participate is overwhelmingly positive. As an added bonus, we hear from people (especially women) that it is changing the way they see themselves.

Bio

Matt Blum (born 1982) is a photographer based in Minneapolis, MN, USA. Matt is a self-taught photographer and entrepreneur. He and his wife, Katy, own and operate a photography studio where they specialize in lifestyle images and luxury domestic and international weddings.

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The Nu Project

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Jagath Dheerasekara

Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud

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In 2005, in the wake of a defeated nuclear waste dump plan in South Australia, the Australian government named three Department of Defence areas in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia as potential sites for the first purpose built national nuclear waste storage facility.

There was no consultation with the Traditional Owners of the land or the NT Government. Then Minister for Education, Science and Training Dr. Brendan Nelson remarked, “Why on earth can’t people in the middle of nowhere have low-level and intermediate-level waste?” while his successor Minister Julie Bishop later described proposed sites as “far from any form of civilization”.

In 2007, the Northern Land Council contentiously nominated Muckaty (Manuwangku), 120km north of Tennant Creek, as another site to be assessed for nuclear waste storage. The compensation funding received if this site were selected would likely be tied to essential services and infrastructure such as education, housing and roads.

With the change of federal government, the Department of Defence sites were taken off the list leaving Muckaty as the only site under assessment. Called Manuwangku by Warlmanpa and Warumungu Traditional Owners, this place is far from the ‘middle of nowhere’. They maintain a deep spiritual and cultural connection to the area. Supported by people across the NT and Australia, the community has engaged in protests and launched legal action in the Federal Court to defend their right to live in a clean and safe environment, free of hazardous waste.

At present, the majority of Australia’s long-lived intermediate radioactive waste (the highest level produced in Australia) is stored at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor complex near Sydney. If the proposed storage plan goes ahead, 3,820 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste growing at the rate of 35 cubic metres per annum and 435 cubic metres of long-lived intermediate level radioactive waste growing at the rate of 3,5 cubic metres per annum will be transported from Lucas Heights to the site nominated in Manuwangku.

The pursuit of Manuwangku as a potential nuclear waste storage site contravenes many articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UN-DRIP), which requires “States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.” Aboriginal communities around Manuwangku have been opposed to the nomination of their country as a site for radioactive waste since its initial proposal.

Time and again, the traditional land, the way of life and culture of the Aboriginal communities have come under immense pressure. In this backdrop the activities of daily life of the Aboriginal owners of this land is a powerful reminder of their continuing coexistential relationship with the land. Bush trips for bush tucker gathering, kangaroo and wild turkey hunting, cooking in ovens dug into earth, the need to sleep outside under the stars. Their connection to land both physically and spiritually is undeniable.

Painting bush tucker, when the very land it grows on is to go under a nuclear waste dump, is for me, a poignant protest of ‘middle of nowhere’. Then there were the more overt expressions of protest. Aboriginal colours decorating homes or cars, stickers reading ‘no to nuclear waste dump’ or a young rapper singing ‘don’t waste the Territory, this land means a lot to me.’

It was a privilege to have the opportunity to live among the community and to be welcomed in to their public and private spaces and to be told of the more recent social history of the community.

The photographic narrative ‘Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud’ is a portrayal of this community’s resilience in the face of an overwhelming conflict, and an attempt to capture the determination of a people bound together through a common struggle, to keep their traditional land free and safe.

Photographer Jagath Dheerasekara received the Amnesty International Human Rights Innovation Fund grant in 2010 to begin the work. “Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud” is a collaborative effort of Jagath Dheerasekara, Manuwangku Aboriginal elders and community, Amnesty International and Beyond Nuclear Initiative.

Bio

Jagath Dheerasekara is an Amnesty International Human Rights Innovation Fund Grant recipient.

He is a human rights activist and his second spell of photography began in the mid 90s with his return to Sri Lanka with the regime change.

During university life, Jagath was a key member of Students for Human Rights which resulted in his detention and torture in 1989.  He was also a key activist in Mothers’ Front.  This activism finally led to his exile in France as a political refugee and he moved to Australia with his family in 2008.

He chiefly works on Aboriginal, gender, social and environment themes in the framework of vulnerability and conflict. Jagath has presented his work in a number of solo exhibitions, selected group exhibitions and photo festivals. They are also featured in the Indigenous Australians permanent exhibition/installation at the Australian Museum and in several private collections.

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Jagath Dheerasekara was a student in the Sydney 2012 workshop. 

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Sean Schimdt

An American Matter

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These photographs are part of a on-going project titled ‘An American Matter’.

It is a personal project which explores the contemporary American landscape as I encounter it in my life. I am an American born salesman living under the pressures of upward mobility; loans, credit, and, to borrow a phrase, “the terror of knowing what this world is about.”

I am a proud American, and passionate about my life; the intention of this project is to photograph my country as beautiful, troubled, and enigmatic. ‘An American Matter’ is a project to confront a personal tension I feel in our uncertain times; to make the best of situations not fully understood. It considers animate and inanimate objects with equal care, voicing both the bold and soft-spoken landscapes of my life.

Bio

My name is Sean Schmidt and I live and work in the suburbs of Chicago, IL.

I am a self-taught photographer passionate about middle America and the working class. I admire responsibility, determination, and discipline. My creative influences include Bob Dylan, David James Duncan, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

My current projects include ‘An American Matter’ and a volunteer project for DuPage County volunteer board titled ‘The Faces of Volunteerism’.

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Myrto Papadopoulos

The Attendants

At the beginning my natural necessity was to enter the world of the sex industry and talk to the women that are involved in it. It has taken me a really long time and effort to reach out to some of these women, to gain their trust and get finally the access today to document their lives. Also my intensive research (i.e. approaching NGO’s, doctors and expertise from the ministry of foreign affairs) has helped me to understand more the issues and the difference between prostitution and trafficking. Throughout the year I will be working voluntarily with the ”Salvation Army”, in Greece, in order to provide support to these women. I will also be teaching photography lessons in one of the new “safe houses” that will be opening in Athens, within the next year.

YOUR SUPPORT:

Your support will enable me not only to continue this project but mostly it will help me gain more insight into the understanding of how and why prostitution is constantly evolving. My deep personal interest in these women, make me want to record their struggle but also their strive in search of a better life. It is also one of my fondest heart’s desires, to be able to share with these women my experiences through photography, because I believe photography can be an effective tool of building self-esteem.

The financial support will provide me the time and tools that I need to be able to accomplish and document this very difficult topic.

You can support the project on Emphas.is.

Bio

Myrto Papadopoulos (b. 1978, Athens) finished her studies in 2003 after completing a five-year Fine Arts degree in painting and photography. In 2006, she applied for a photojournalism degree at the ICP (International Centre of Photography) in NYC where she was granted a scholarship. In 2007 she participated at the Eddie Adams workshop in NYC.

She has won various awards and nominations and has taken part in several exhibitions including the Mois Off de la Photo 08 in Paris, the PHOTOQUAI 2em Biennal du Monde 09 at the Museé Quai Branly in Paris the New York Photo Festival 09, the Biennale of young artists of Europe XIV bjcem 09, the LOOK3 Between Festival 2010, the DUMBO Arts Festival 2011 in Brooklyn NY, the Athens Photo Festival 2011, 2012 and more. Today she works as a freelance photographer and filmmaker and is represented by Redux pictures in NY.

Her clients include TIME Magazine, Le Monde, GEO, Corriere della sera, EL Mundo, La Stampa, Neue Zuger Zeitung, Vision Magazine, DAS Magazine, Diario magazine, National Geographic Magazine (Greece), K magazine (Kathimerini), among others.

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Myrto Papadopoulos

The New Plastic Road