Neha Hirve

Full Shade / Half Sun

[ EPF 2017 – FUJIFILM / YOUNG TALENT AWARD RUNNER UP ]

 

Tamil Nadu, India. This land was a desert, once upon a time. The soil dried up and the water ran off until nothing would grow because the people had cut the trees to build their cities. Men and women journeyed here from the ends of the earth, people for whom ordinary life wasn’t enough anymore, and they planted acacia trees to shelter them from the burning sun, and built their lives together and found meaning in the world once again. The acacia covered half the soil from the sun and the thorniest plants began to grow in their shade.

 

 

Now, the jungle is a womb. The air in the tropics is like warm honey, viscous, sticky, filling the ears until the sounds of the outside world are far away. In the still light of the afternoons, hours pass like days and the trees stand sentinel.
Because every year, the summer comes, and with it, the distant memory of when there was nothing.

 

 

Blending the genres of documentary, the archive, and fine art, Full Shade / Half Sun is not so interested in journalistic fact, but attempts to bring up philosophical and existential questions of the ways in which we find meaning in the land we live on.

 

 

Short Bio

I am a long-term project photographer based in Stockholm, and interested in man’s relation to the natural environment, and the photographic archive. With a degree in filmmaking, the cinematic and the performative influence my photographic work. Recently I was the recipient of the Women Photograph Grant, have work in publications such as Tidningen ETC and National Geographic, and have participated in exhibitions in Sweden and New York.

 

Related Links

 

nehahirve.com

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The Emerging Photographer Fund is supported by generous donors to the Magnum Foundation

Magnum Foundation