Archive for the 'photographic essays' Category

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Teresa Cos

I Was There – Observations on “The Society of The Spectacle”

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“I Was There” is the first chapter of a long term (lifetime) project which explores western society and its obsession with success. I started by depicting the worlds of art, fashion and culture, where anxiety and struggle for success, together with the desperate need for recognition and approval are ubiquitous; where people live with the constant fear of being considered losers. The images have been taken in 2010 at Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice Film Festival, Milan and London Fashion Weeks, Frieze Art Fair in London and Paris Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC).

I chose these events because they are globalised examples of a bubble (for instance the art industry) that is on the verge of explosion. As wrote Jean Baudrillard: When one looks at the emptiness of current art, the only question is how much such a machine can continue to function in the absence of any new energy, in an atmosphere of critical disillusionment and commercial frenzy, and with all the players totally indifferent? If it can continue, how long will this illusionism last? A hundred years, two hundred? This society is like a vessel whose edges move ever wider apart, and in which the water never comes to the boil.

If one substitutes current art with current society the equation doesn’t really change, does it? And who are these indifferent players, if not us? I want to keep on exploring and understanding photographically the Hyper reality created by consumerism, where people aspirations are dangerously confused with the models of living that the society of the spectacle is constantly selling us and where need has become desire and admiration envy.

To me, it is fundamentally important to understand these social dynamics because, by creating the idea that through a selfish individualism everybody can finally reach extreme forms of wealth and success, one drastically contributes to the social and economic disparities in this world.

Bio

I was born and grew up in a small town called Latisana, in the North East of Italy, a one hour drive from Venice, where I ended up living for six years as an architecture student. It is thanks to architecture that I discovered photography, because it taught me to look at the world through different eyes.

After graduating in 2008, I was in the Italian team of architects and urbanists in the international table of consultation wanted by the French government to produce ideas for the future of Paris. I lived for seven months in the suburbs of the French capital, producing my first important body of work, Banlieue 08/09, that allowed me to be accepted last year onto the Photojournalism & Documentary Photography MA program at London College of Communication, where I graduated with Distinction.

I live and work in London and I am also part of the photography collective Five Eleven Ninety Nine.

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Teresa Cos

Collective Five Eleven Ninety Nine

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Diarmait Grogan

New Way Home

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‘New Way Home’ incorporates autobiographical elements into a non-linear narrative on longing, loss, joy, intimacy and vulnerability. The result is a subjective reflection on the human condition. Disparate experiences coalesce in a body of work that is ultimately concerned less with an external reality than with highlighting ‘fragmentary moments of interior significance’.

As individuals we have this desire to relate everything to ourselves.  I’m always looking for new images to replace the ones I’ve already made, to express the same feelings more succinctly or more accurately. This is why there is a certain anxiety present in my work, alongside a sense of melancholy. Perhaps it’s about my own fear of disappearance. The camera is an extension of my longing, a yearning for associations, for meaning and for stability in the face of mortality. But the images are made with the understanding that any such stability is a phantasm. Any truths expressed in the work are always partial and contingent.

Authenticity is what I’m striving for. I only want to work in a territory that I’m intimately familiar with. The raw material of the work is natural, but as soon as an image is made it becomes a kind of fiction. I find that tension between truth and fiction, objectivity and subjectivity, to be endlessly fascinating.

Bio

Diarmait Grogan was born in Ireland in 1983. He studied photography in the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire, graduating with first class honors in 2008. His work has been exhibited internationally, including an exhibition as part of the ‘Exposure’ program of Format09 International Photography Festival in Derby, UK. He recently presented his first solo show in his home city of Dublin.

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ESSAY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT

G.M.B. Akash

The Bitterest Pill – A new danger for child sex workers in Bangladesh

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800 women and girls live and work inside the fortress-like brothel in Faridpur, central Bangladesh. Many of them are underage, and most receive no pay because they are chhukri – bonded workers. That girl as young as 12 should be condemned to a life of sex slavery is bad enough, but they also face a new horror, one that could snuff out any chance of a future they might have had.

The horror is a steroid called Oradexon, a drug identical to one used to fatten cattle for market. The girls are given Oradexon by their madams in order to make them look older and more attractive to prospective clients. One of its side effects is water retention, oedema, which can result in a ‘plump’ look that is considered attractive by some Bangladeshi men.

The drug is highly addictive and has severe long-term health implications, impairing the kidneys, increasing blood pressure and interfering with normal hormone production.

Nodi 15, is one of many girls who use the drug. She says she doesn’t have another name – ‘I’m just Nodi – it means River’ – and she has been in the brothel for two years. Many of the girls here have been sold by their stepmother or even their own mothers – and some are second-generation sex workers, born to a prostitute and an unknown client. ‘I started taking the cow drug a year ago, and I take two tablets a day,’ Nodi says. She thinks it makes her look healthier. ‘The customers like us to look healthy. I got a little plumper when I started taking the drug.’ The existence she describes is a miserable one. ‘How can I be happy here? God knows – there is no happiness here,’ she says.

In a conservative country prostitution is will of fate. No one knows the Story of those faceless girls who may be sold by their boyfriend, husband or parents. No basic right, having no admiration for own self & torture of uncertainty made them unvoiced. Whenever I met those young girls I tried to be one of them. They have no dreams; they only live in reality which is killing them ever.

Bio

My journey to the world of photography began long ago. For years I have been travelling widely, covering various social issues faced by the lesser known people, particularly in my country Bangladesh.

My work has been featured in many major international publications including: National Geographic, Vogue, Time, Sunday Times, Newsweek, Geo, Stern, Der Spiegel, The Fader, Brand Ein, The Guardian, Marie Claire, Colors, The Economist, The New Internationalist, Kontinente, Amnesty Journal, Courier International, PDN, Die Zeit, Days Japan, Hello, and Sunday Telegraph of London.

In 2002 I became the first Bangladeshi to be selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in the Netherlands. In 2004 I have received the Young Reporters Award from the Scope Photo Festival in Paris, again being the first Bangladeshi to receive the honor. In 2006 I was awarded World Press Photo award and released my first book First Light.

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G.M.B. Akash

A photojournalist’s blog

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Tamas Dezso

Here, Anywhere

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The map of Hungary is speckled with capsules of time. During the political transformation twenty years ago, as the country experienced change, some places were simply forgotten… Streets, blocks of flats, vacant sites and whole districts became little self-defined enclosures, in which today a certain out-dated, awkward, longed-to-be-forgotten Eastern European feeling still lingers. These places seem to be at one with other parts of the city, but their co-existence in time is only apparent; Each place fades in accordance with its own specific chronology, determined by its past. That what remains is then silently reconquered by nature, or enveloped by the lifestyles of the generations of tomorrow. Of the original inhabitants, who’ve never fully integrated with society, soon only traces will remain, until they, too, will inevitably disappear over the course of time.

I do not observe these mini-universes in the hope of recording them in their entirety, but I rather try to capture the essence of these worlds by elevating certain chosen details of this disappearing existence. The series, begun in 2009, examines the typically transitional period and symbolic locations of post-communist space which, due to disinterest or thoughtlessness, is slowly vanishing, and fading into images. But for the time being, they are still around. Here.

Here, anywhere.

Bio

Tamas Dezso is a documentary fine art photographer working on long-term projects focusing on the margins of society in Hungary, Romania and in other parts of Eastern Europe. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, TIME, GEO, Le Monde Magazine, Ojo de Pez, Polka Magazine and many others.

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Jason Florio

“The Long Fight for Kawtoolie – A Quiet Determination in the Jungles of Burma”

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Sixty two years ago in Karen State, Burma, the Karen people were forced into a David and Goliath conflict against the powerful authoritarian Burmese military regime who have tried to push the Karen people off the map through a brutal and systematic policy of murder, rape, forced labor and the complete destruction of their villages. Six decades on, and now considered the world’s longest current running conflict, the Karen people continue to be brutalized in an ongoing pursuit to cleanse them from their homeland they call Kawtoolie.

Working on assignment in Karen State in 2010 I was enamored by the calm resilience of the Karen people, both volunteer soldiers and civilians who all seem to possess a quiet determination backed up by their motto ‘never surrender’. Moved by the stoic and yet serene nature of Karen and horrified with their stories of the human rights violations against them, I decided to return in February 2011, self-funded, to bring the face of the Karen people, and their highly under-reported struggle to survive against the brutal Burmese junta to a greater audience in the hope of affecting some positive change.

Bio

Jason Florio is a NYC based photographer who seeks to create a conduit between cultures and societies by stripping down the seeming boundaries of language, religion and ideologies and to help show the commonalities that we share.

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Jason Florio

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Francesca Mancini

Asylum, seeking Refuge.

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This is the story of a young man aged twenty, this is the story of a man aged thirty, this is the story of a boy. This is the story of someone who, out of necessity or choice, is compelled to fight a system and to pay the consequences: forced escape.
He leaves everything behind. Family, home, girlfriend or often a wife and children, sometimes a good job and a bit of money. He has to say goodbye to the sweetness and the colours of his homeland for ever.
He leaves everything, otherwise they will kill him.
He’s an Iraqi, Eritrean, Nigerian. A Somali, Afghan or Kurd.
They have told him that he believes in the wrong god.
That land, where his people have always lived, does not belong to him.
They have ordered him to kill for a cause, whatever it might be.
So he escapes.
Convinced that his life is worth more. Knowing that he is young, that he can, and wants, to do anything: any kind of work, even the most humble, to have another chance, a new future, no matter where. He comes to Italy to forget.
The one thing, the only thing he’s looking for is a new system. To try and simply be what he is: a young man of twenty, a man of thirty, a boy.

Bio

Francesca Mancini made her debut as a professional photographer when she was 24, shooting her first international reportages on war refugees in the Balkans and southern Italy, and in Kosovo immediately after the war, and on the effects of pollution on the environment in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
After studying photography for three years in Rome, she worked for the Italian press and published her photos in leading daily newspapers.
From 2007 to 2008 she worked as a freelance between Kosovo and Serbia, documenting the social and political changes in the region and the difficulties linked to Kosovo’s independence.
In 2009 she started a project on political asylum seekers in Italy, which was published in the book Rifugiati by Christopher Hein.
Mancini’s photos have been published in Le Monde Magazine, The Independent, Newsweek Japan, Epsilon, Internazionale, L’Espresso, Panorama.
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Prospekt

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Baptiste Giroudon

Working with Democracy

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This project is a photographic research of the concept of Democracy. As a photo reporter I try to work on contemporary issues implying a wider angle rather than just the next morning front page. As an artist I work with the single image process, which comes from a personal wish to show the world with a sharp and thoughtful point of view.

In every story I work on, I find myself facing a different situation that almost constantly brings up democracy. This isn’t advocacy for, or a critic of democracy, but the intention is to show where and how in different aspects of our globalized world, this concept can be understood, reclaimed and put forward. I have chosen democracy as a common factor not only to describe a blurry concept, but also to raise a question that everyone shares: what has democracy become today?

Art and photojournalism exist in what Susan Sontag has termed ‘febrile rivalry’ and my intentions equal those of a tightrope walker trying to express himself without falling to one side or another. My approach stands in the news media and I look for raw material in countries that make the headlines. The thread of the project is Lincoln’s famous quote: “the power to the people, by the people, for the people”, elections, demonstrations, public maters and revolutions are examples for me to draw sketches of pictorial symbols of Democracy.

I am aware of the effectiveness of both my experience and my naivety, I use them both as much as I can into the research, the act of photographing, the editing, and are my only weapons I can use to fight.

Bio

With my father’s old camera I left to Argentina when I was 17 years old. This is where I started photojournalism. In 2001 the country fell into a terrible economic crash. I understood that today Photojournalism should avoid the cynical perception; it should be used as a positive tool, not to mention the need to find new ways of assimilating and representing the real. After my first exhibition of the Argentina’s pictures, I worked on a long term project that focused on the backstage of the politic, fashion and cinema industries. It was exhibited as a personal show in Paris (AAA gallery) and Brussels (Jonas Gallery). After a few collective exhibition on my new project “Working with Democracy”, I just finished a story in Egypt: Life after the revolution. Today I keep working for magazines, newspaper and personal projects.

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Baptiste Giroudon

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Gustavo Jononovich

YUMA

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I traveled to Cuba because my girlfriend decided to do an internship in a hospital in La Havana, she’s a Doctor. Until then, I had always made photographs guided by a specific theme, trying to tell something about other people’s misfortunes. I decided to experience photography in a different way this time. I wasn’t interested in telling or describing anything about the well-known political and historical characteristics of the Cuban system. I didn’t want to need to look for ‘useful situations’. I tried to forget that I was there.

Liberating myself of having to tell something about Cuba allowed me to connect in a more authentic way with the place. Photographing using only my instinct allowed me to discover what I was feeling. My method was to walk the same streets over and over again, in silence, just focusing in contemplating. I sometimes felt attracted to the expression of the shapes and textures and to the simple beauty of nature. Other times I felt I was just photographing my own sense of calmness or the mystery that Cuba inspired me. Yuma is the way Cubans call foreigners, I was the Yuma.

Bio

Gustavo Jononovich was born in Buenos Aires in 1979. In 2008 he began as a freelance photographer, after two years of training covering local news as a contract photographer for an Argentine based newspaper.

His first long-term book project RICHLAND, currently in progress, is about the over-exploitation of the natural resources in Latin America and the resulting long-term negative effects, both human and environmental. His approach to photography led him far away from covering breaking news, being more interested in providing an in-depth analysis on the stories.
His work has been published in Newsweek Japan, PDFX12, the Black Snapper, Global Post, Bite! and Lunatic Magazine, among others.

AWARDS:
- POYi Latin America 2011 – Migration and Human Trafficking Stories – 2nd prize
- ICP Infinity Award in Photojournalism 2010 – Nominee
- Encuentro Internacional de Foto y Periodismo ‘Ciudad de Gij’n’ 2010 – Finalist
- Environmental Photographer of The Year 2009 – Climate Change – 2nd prize

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Gustavo Jononovich