Sissie Chang – Don’t Throw Away Your Daughters

Sissie Chang

Don’t Throw Away Your Daughters

My grandmother just celebrated her 98th birthday. She’s lived with my two aunts for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I don’t recall having any long, meaningful talks with my grandfather. One of the few things I do remember is a statement I overheard him telling my mother when I was a little girl: “Why are you spending so much money on her education? She’s only going to run off to get married when she turns eighteen.” I was told that sons were prized because they carry on the family name. Daughters… Well, they’re just “guests.” It’s how traditions are, and I understood not to ask certain questions.

 

 

My grandparents had three daughters, and like the most traditional Chinese families, they continued having children until sons were born. As my grandfather’s health declined, his second and third daughters—both retired, unwed, and living under the same roof—were his primary caregivers. These same two daughters continue to take care of my grandmother today.

Meanwhile, a few time zones away, I’m suddenly living back at home, taking care of my own mother as she undergoes cancer treatment. It’s funny, none of us have run off yet. We’re still here.

 

 

As the years passed, I watched the prized sons of the family become more and more distant, and I couldn’t help but start to question that notion about daughters being unimportant.  

I guess my grandfather was wrong. Don’t throw away your daughters.

 

 

Short Bio

Sissie Chang is a documentary photographer based out of Orange County, California. At one time, she was a firm believer that the most intriguing stories, and those with the best backdrops, required a passport. She eventually discovered that the most engaging human stories are actually the ones you see on a daily basis.

Her first self-published book, Don’t throw away your daughters, is slated for release Spring 2020.

 

Related Links

sissiechang.com

Published on March 7, 2020 by burn magazine. 0 Comments

Mafalda Rakoš – A Story to Tell

Mafalda Rakoš

A Story to Tell

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

“You don’t really fit in… You don’t fit into the group of normal people, because you’re anorexic. And you don’t fit with those affected by anorexia, because you’re a man.“ – Thomas, 21. Our process always starts with a conversation. What does it look like, your mental cage? What do you feel, see, think, hear, taste and smell? And where shall we go to take that picture of it? A Story to Tell resulted from many encounters with ten men affected by anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. Being well-aqcuainted with the topic myself, I was wondering: how is it to be affected as a male? The protagonists of this project, many of them trans*, gay, bisexual or otherwise associated with a genderdiverse community want to show: everyone can be affected.

 

Very often, it was shocking to listen. They told us about the shame, invisibility and unrecognition that they experience, not rarely resulting in serious self–harm and even suicide attempts. Their stories were more extreme, more violent and more painful than I would normally hear it from women. Yet, together with journalist Ruben de Theije, we kept drilling towards the true conflicts in the intersection of social expectations and big emotions; conflicts that lie at the heart of the stories they wanted to tell.

 

 

Short Bio

Mafalda Rakoš (*1994, AT) is a visual artist based between Austria and the Netherlands. Educated at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and Academy of Fina Arts in Vienna, she also holds a BA in Anthropology from Vienna University. Her projects often move along the intersection of art, documentary and journalism and attempt to dive deep into protagonist’s stories around safety, pain and trauma. Since 2013, she has been researching eating disorders through a collaborative and research-based practise rooted in documentary photography and cultural anthropology. The main platform of her work are books which gained attention in contests such as Kassel Dummy Award and the European Publishers Award for Photography; furthermore, it is regularly shown in international exhibitions and other contexts such as congresses for eating disorders (2016), or a hospital (2017). It was recognized by Awards such as c/o Berlin New Documentary Talent, the Steenbergen Stipendium and the Documentary Project Fund Emerging Vision Award.

 

Related Links

mafaldarakos.com

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on March 2, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Chris Donovan – The Cloud Factory

Chris Donovan

The Cloud Factory

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

As a child, I looked up at the billowing smoke stacks of the refinery and asked my father if they made all of the world’s clouds. “No,” he replied. “They make money.” I grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick – an industrial city on the east coast of Canada – bookended by Canada’s largest oil refinery and a pulp mill owned by the same billionaire family. Despite the enormous wealth controlled by the Irving family, we also have the highest rate of child poverty in Canada, at around 50%. This billionaire family also owns every newspaper in the province. The Cloud Factory project is my way of fighting against censorship and addressing the environmental and social implications of industrial classism on my community.

 

 

Jacques Poitras, author of Irving vs Irving, says of the Irving control of the media: “Newspapers are a historical record of our time. The concern with the Irving papers is not what is being written about, but what is being left out.” The goal of project is to fill in some of these blanks. For residents of the Bayside neighborhood, adjacent to the refinery, it feels like a lot is being left out. Resident Lisa Jacquart says her non-smoking neighbors are “dropping like flies” of lung cancer. With no studies on the air quality in this specific neighborhood, it’s impossible to hold the company accountable for these issues. Canada is now at a crossroads. A proposal to create the country’s longest-ever pipeline, which would transport oil to the refinery in Saint John, is currently on hold. As we get closer to electing a conservative Prime Minister in the Fall, that is expected to change. This is a complicated story of a town that relies on a damaging industry for survival. It must be approached with nuance and collaboration. As a Saint Johner, this is my story, and I hope you can help me tell it. Thank you for your consideration.

 

 

 

Short Bio

Chris Donovan (b. 1995) is a visual storyteller based in Toronto, Canada. Hailing from a small industrial city on Canada’s east coast, most of his work focuses on the interplay between industry and community. Chris’ work has been recognized by POYi, the Sony World Photo Awards, and the Canadian Pictures of the Year – including being named Photojournalist of the Year in 2017 and 2018. Hi clients include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s Magazine, Reuters and others.

 

Related Links

chrisdonovan.ca

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on February 25, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Ute Behrend – Bear Girls

Ute Behrend

Bear Girls

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

How do young girls become strong women? Adolescence is the theme of my new book. At the beginning I tell a story about a fictional “Indian tribe” that separates its pubescent girls and dresses them in bearskins. In this way they are protected from premature sexualisation. The result is a shelter that gives the girls the opportunity to develop freely and self-determinedly in this important phase of their lives. I call these girls “bear girls” and draw parallels in our society, where free spaces for adolescent girls become less and less. Many young women try to evade the stereotypes of sexualised identification that are shaped by society and the media. This is often evident in similar behaviour patterns, e.g. wearing very large sweaters that girls like to “borrow” from their father’s wardrobe.

 

 

 

In “Smart Girls, Gifted Women”, Barbara Kerr examined the similarities that later became strong women. She found that all girls had time for themselves, the ability to fall in love with an idea, and a “protective cover”. None was particularly popular and most remained relatively isolated in their age group. Interestingly, this rejection gave them a free space in which they could develop their uniqueness. Parallel to the portraits of the girls I take photographs with a focus on nature, wild animals and the concept of distance and closeness. I then work on combining these single images to final pairs. The references between the pictures are intended to stimulate the viewer to link the content of what he has seen. Out of one’s own memory and also out of cultural memory.

 

 

 

 

Short Bio

Biografie 2019 Artist Book, Bear Girls, (artists‘ book) Publisher: BummBumm Books, Cologne, Germany 2015 Teaching assignment, Academy for Communication Design, Cologne, Germany 2011 The Last Year of Childhood (artists‘ book) Publisher: POWERSHOVEL.BOOKS, Tokio/New York 2009 The Door Behind the Wall | Project with handicapped and non-handicapped inhabitants of the Dr. Dormagen-Guffanti foundation, Cologne, Germany 2008 – 09 Teaching assignment, College of Higher Education Bielefeld, Germany 2008 Zimmerpflanzen (artists‘ book), publisher: Snoeck Verlag, Cologne, Germany 2007 Teaching assignment for Visual Communications Merz Akademie,Germany 2006 Mermaids, video Galerie 11, in the Gruner + Jahr publishing house, Hamburg, Germany 2005 Teaching assigment, College of Higher education Voralberg, Austria Märchen, Fairy Tales (artists‘ book) Publisher: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König, Cologne, Germany 2004 Observer and Indoor Plants (booklet) latent, aristotelean mimesis within the thriller genre | label: www.bold-dvd.de 2002 Art goes School | State Chancellery, Saarland, Germany 2001 kunstKöln special edition 1996 Girls, Some Boys and Other Cookies (artists‘ book) Publisher: Scalo Verlag, Zürich, Switzerland 1987-93 Academic studies: Photographic Design University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Dortmund, Germany 1985-87 Academic studies: Communication Design 1979-82 Apprenticeship as a carpenter

Related Links

utebehrend.de

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on February 18, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Alexander Bronfer – Floating

Alexander Bronfer

Floating

This project is about the tight bonds connecting us to The Dead Sea, in the face of ecological catastrophe threatening the future of this unique natural treasure.

 

 

People are always fascinated by the Dead Sea. This place was always a refuge for messiahs, zealots, martyrs, kings, and ascetics. People prayed, sinned, healed and kill each other on these yellowish shores. They built dams and plants, drilled wells, cut the sea from any source of freshwater and left it to die. And meanwhile, we continue praying, sinningand killing each other, moving our beach chairs and sunshades deeper and deeper, silently following the disappearing sea

 

 

Short Bio

Alexander Bronfer is an Israeli photographer. Born in Ukraine and studied in Saint Petersburg (Russia). His main interest is the connection between street and fine art photography. After arriving to Israel, Alexander lived in Kibutz in South Israel where he fell in love with the Dead Sea region.  He is a finalist of multiple international and Israeli photography festivals. Recently he spends a good amount of time on personal projects mainly in Israel and Eastern Europe. 

 

Related Links

bronfer.com

Published on February 11, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Anniina Joensalo – Tender

Anniina Joensalo

Tender

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

“Tender” is an exploration into the contradictions inherent in queer lives and loves. I want to explore all aspects of intimacy in a non-normative way and in non-normative settings. In this series I’ve captured the people around me, my friends, partners and lovers. I’m inspired by the space queer people take up everyday, and the work they undertake in love and friendship. I am compelled to get as close to people as possible. My objective was to portray power balances between subject and photographer, to show the juxtaposition of tenderness and violence. “Tender” aims to bring up questions of intimacy and consent within these queer relationships where individuals are often pushing the boundaries of love and sex in anarchic ways.

 

 

Queer people are often subject to violences in their early lives, forced to fight for an identity and to push against binaries. Often through these hardships they become more in touch with their narratives and their needs. Their paths are sometimes beautiful, sometimes sad. Usually consisting of polarizing extremities, from anxiety to pure bliss. What lies between these tensions is calmness; a moment of reaching peaceful intimacy with another after a long wait of uncertainty. These moments of tenderness are full of power, where queer expression is encouraged and accepted. These are portraits of queerness I want to showcase.

 

 

 

Short Bio

Careers like a photographer didn’t exist where I grew up. The world around me and the people in it were executing a perfect working class life of teachers, nurses, and factory workers. I was watching them in awe: they were on autopilot; blissfully unaware. Go to school, find a boy, get married, have a nice house and kids. This was the narrative I was given and it was supported by all the stories I was exposed to. In the abundance of visual storytelling my responsibility as an artist is to give emphasis to the meaningful ones. I should find and bring out the stories that wouldn’t be heard otherwise, to this audience that wouldn’t be exposed to them. My mission as a photographer is exploring stories in which the identities of different kinds of people are represented. My objective is to explore and portray a lifestyle outside of the patriarchal, capitalist and heteronormative structures of couples, romance and religious norms. I want our identity to be represented to the future queer generation growing up. I want our love stories. This “Queer Way of Living” is my own personal utopia that I chose to believe in.

 

Related Links

anniinajoensalo.com

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on January 28, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Jaakko Kahilaniemi – 100 Hectares of Understanding

Jaakko Kahilaniemi

100 Hectares of Understanding

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of forests for Finland, both historically and economically. 71,6 % of the total area of the country is covered by forests – that’s over 26 million hectares. I own 100 hectares. 100 Hectares of Understanding is my attempt to understand the forest area I inherited 1997. Throughout adulthood my relationship with the forest has been somewhat discordant and attitude towards my inheritance has been indifferent. Recent explorations in the forest, and in the world of forestry have managed to provoke my interest towards unfamiliar inherited property of mine. I study what nature has to offer to urbanized people and I will try to create new ways of thinking and ways to experience and feel the forest. I capture nature through my lens before applying the alchemical process that makes art out of the familiar. I arbitrarily mix various types of pictures with each other, and define them as part of a larger visual entity. I am working with the method of deconstruction, but rather than creating physical work out of the results of my private rituals in the forest, I unveil the result through the medium of photography. For the unknown to become familiar requires both physical and delicate acts: to nurture and to tame, to master and to yield. My photographs are testimonial, traces of my aspirations towards understanding and awareness. Photography, for me, is a gateway to the very core of my thoughts and imagination. II see similarities between my acts in the forest and walking artist Hamish Fultons walks, which he records with photographs and poems. Taking inspiration from Fluxus and the traditions of Arte Povera, I seek to encounter the forest with a playful and open approach. 100 Hectares of Understanding consists of the objects that I’ve found, the acts that I’ve photographed, the sculptures I’ve made and visual secrets that I have created.

 

 

Short Bio

Kahilaniemi was born in 1989 in Finland. He earned his BA in Photography from Turku Arts Academy (FI) in 2014 and his MA also in photography from Aalto University, the School of Arts, Design and Architecture (FI) in 2018. Kahilaniemi is a recipient of the ING Unseen Talent Award (NL, 2018) and the Backlight Price (FI, 2017). He got chosen as one of the eight finalists for the Tokyo International Photo Contest in 2019. Kahilaniemi was one of the selected Lens Culture Emerging Talents in 2017, and he also was one of the ten finalists in Hyéres Photo Festival and in Fotofestiwal Łódź in 2018. Kahilaniemi has exhibited at Denver Art Museum the US, Voies Off Arles, Benaki Museum Athens, Klompching Gallery NYC, Robert Capa Center in Hungary, FOTOFLUSS Wolkersdorf, Fotografisk Center Copenhagen, Tampere Art Museum, Organ Vida Festival Zagreb, , Unseen Amsterdam, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Northern Photography Center Oulu 33rd Festival de Photographie Hyères, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Kunsthalle Memmingen, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Potentiale Festival Austria, OFF_Festival, Photo Is:rael, the Latvian Museum of Photography, the Finnish Museum of Photography, Kunst Haus Wien and others. Kahilaniemi’s work has been featured in many publications, including Fisheye Magazine, Das Magazin, Eikon Magazine, Europe Now Journal, Fotografi Norway, GUP magazine, Greenpeace Magazine, Der Greif and HANT Magazine.

Related Links

www.jaakkokahilaniemi.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on January 22, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Luis Cobelo – Chas Chas

Luis Cobelo

Chas Chas

30 years ago, I came across a story in a comic book called “Parque Chas”, about a mysterious neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The comic reveals the adventures of a writer who was told that fantastic and extraordinary things happen there. A place where wonderful mystical people live.
 
 
 
The reason such unusual things can take place there is because the center of the neighborhood was architecturally constructed similar to a spiderweb or a labyrinth. That’s why they say (the ‘chas chasians’) that if you enter into that concentric form, you may never leave, and magical things can happen to you. Many say that this is the true reality. Essentially, in Parque Chas everything is possible.
 
 
 
All these years later, I decided to travel thousands of kilometers to see for myself. But what really led me there was to discover if there was truth in their claim: “Everything you ever lost in your life, exists in Parque Chas”. And yes, I found it.
 
The project “Chas Chas” is an intangible exploration of the intricate myths and amazing lives of this neighborhood.
 
 
 

Short Bio

 
Born in Venezuela, Luis Cobelo took his philosophical studies as a warm coat to Galicia, Spain, where his family’s roots grew. Working independently across borders, Luis develops documentary projects in America, Asia and Europe, and has been published in many magazines and newspapers. His Latino soul brings him back to South America very often, where he created his first book “Zurumbático” and “Chas Chas”,  (both self-published) to reveal the magical spirit of this part of the world.  “Zurumbático” book has fascinated people all over the world and the exhibition of this work has traveled across oceans: Italy, México, Miami, Madrid, Costa Rica, Portugal and Venezuela. Now, he’s presenting “Chas Chas” the second second part of a collection of fantasies, mysteries and magical stories of the Latin American continent. 
 

Related Links

luiscobelo.com

Published on January 13, 2020 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Ana Zibelnik – We are the ones turning

Ana Zibelnik

We are the ones turning

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

The series is a reflection on something we all grapple with: dying. To make sense of what is constantly there – somewhere, sometimes latent, sometimes not so much – to better understand and bear the “possibility of impossibility” we tend to listen to those more experienced, similarly or more troubled than us. We read books and watch films and lend an ear to the occasional wise man speaking. My own idea of how we encounter the constant presence of death is greatly indebted to some of those who examined the infinitely compelling and defining nature of mortality in detail and put it down in ink. One of those who mark the conceptual backbone of my series is Martin Heidegger, who accurately noted that the paramount difference between man and everything else that lives, lies not in the ratio, but in mortality: “mortals are those who experience death as death”. In this sense, human beings are identified by the great absence. Not necessarily by fear of it or permanent anticipation, but by mere awareness of the fact – an awareness we are born with and is reinforced and revisited simply by living. My series is an exploration into the subtle encounters with death during lifetime. I wish to construe a vast and and intense fictional narrative that zooms in on what it means to be running out of time.

 

 

Short Bio

Ana Zibelnik (b. 1995) is a photographer currently living and working in Leiden, Netherlands. After graduating summa cum laude from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana with the thesis “Moment and Duration,” she decided to further pursue her studies in film and photographic theory at Leiden University. During the period between 2015 and 2018 she was part of the If Slovenia Were project, an intense mentorship programme led by a renowned French-Slovenian photographer Klavdij Sluban. In May 2018, she was selected as an emerging artist to participate in the second cycle of PARALLEL – European Photo Based Platform (founded by Procur.arte). The project she created in the scope of the programme (We are the ones turning, 2019) won the Verzasca Nera award. She has been dealing extensively with the topic of death and time consciousness in photography, often incorporating literary works into her practice. Following her thesis project, she self-published a book “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity…” where her photographs are presented in dialogue with the lines of Vladimir Nabokov. Aside from the artistic work, she has been exploring and documenting Blue zones (longevity hotspots) in a long-term collaboration with the writer and philosopher Jaka Gerčar.

 

Related Links

anazibelnik.format.com

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on December 29, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Mariia Ermolenko- Flow

Mariia Ermolenko

Flow

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

In my project I research time. Man is in perpetual search. In Japanese philosophy, there is the concept of “Fueki Riuko”. This is about form of the eternal and continuous, which are associated with the current and instant. These pictures were taken in different places that I visited. During travels, I take a very clear view of what is happening. And I do not want this to end. Life is fragile, and our stay in it is fleeting as a journey. My series is about the impression, about the moment, about life and death. Often, when my eyes are closed, memories pop up in my head. A person becomes a memoryless person. Memories are like a mosaic that constitutes man. As long as I remember, I am who I am. I’m afraid of losing memories. To forget is to die.

 

 

 

Short Bio

Mariia was born in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1995. She studied at the restoration of painting. She studied painting with masters from the Academy of Arts. Now studying at the Academy of Documentary Photography. Mariia is interested in exploring the themes of memory, time, the boundaries between sleep and reality, the themes of myths, as well as themes of ecology and the state of the environment. Lives and works in St. Petersburg.

 

Related Links

mariiaermolenko.com

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on December 19, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Sathish Kumar – Town Boy

Sathish Kumar

Town Boy

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

These are images from as early as my teens to this day. The essence of every new experience as I was growing up was recorded with my camera – roaming around the neighborhood, meeting old friends, most times making new ones. At some point, I had to move to a large city for work. As the life in a large city got suffocating, I began to seek relief by going back to my town or by going on treks, to take a deep breath, to be back to the demands of the city. Town Boy is an observation of this gradual transformation into who I am today. These string of images are about my coming of age, my movement from a small town to a cosmopolitan city, to somehow fit into this contemporary world. (ongoing work)

 

 

 

Short Bio

Sathish Kumar, born in 1986 in Kanchipuram, India. A large part of my school vacations was spent at my uncle’s photo studio which became an inspiration for me to pursue photography. I got a point and shoot film camera from my uncle as a gift which I always carried around to school picnics, cricket grounds shooting my friends and everything around. With photography, I want to record my everyday existence, of all encounters and journeys to create an expression of myself, of my life, of the world around. Currently, I am working as a freelance photographer and as an artist pursuing personal works from Chennai, India.

Related Links

sathishphoto.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on December 18, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Lavinia Parlamenti & Manfredi Pantanella – An Atlas of Countries that Don’t Exist

Lavinia Parlamenti & Manfredi Pantanella

An Atlas of Countries that Don’t Exist

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

Political charts of the world are very fluid realities. Countries are created and countries die. In today’s world, globalization hasn’t killed the concept of Nation-State, but has certainly tore down its importance. A world once defined by borders and supervised by the static power of national governments, has been replaced by a more dynamic kind of transnational reality, in which the power is no longer connected to a single State, but takes the form of NGOs, banks and societies who rule by collecting global data. In this ever-changing scenario, little attention is paid to the fact that the map of the world is still hiding today a huge number of unrecognized States.

 

 

Our “Atlas of Countries that Don’t Exist” is an imaginary journey in real territories that uses documentary photography to show the paradox of those portions of the world that self-declared their independence but – for different reasons – haven’t been recognized by the UN. By documenting and conceptualizing some aspects of the reality of these places,our work in progress aims at stimulating a reflection on the subject of personal and national identity, at a time in which this seems to us more than necessary. The physical place where one is born, where one is guarded after death, the family; these are elements defining our personal identity. On the other hand, the culture of a place (arts, monuments, traditions, food), its history and politics, the fauna and the flora, make up the identity of a “Nation”. That’s why we are dealing with tracing these elements in the 12 territories we have chosen to portray: Transnistria, North Cyprus, Catalunya, Republic of Artsakh, Isle of Man, Iraqi Kurdistan, Greenland, Somaliland, Sahrawi, Lakota, Taiwan and Ryukyu. Having already visited the first 3 territories, the Burn Emerging Fund would allow to carry on our research including the maximum variety of global situations into the Atlas, which we hope will take the form of a book and an interactive exhibition.

 

 

Short Bio

Lavinia Parlamenti and Manfredi Pantanella met each other in Tahrir Square at the end of 2011, during the second wave of the so called Egyptian Revolution. Their collective research mainly focuses on geopolitical paradoxes and aims to combine documentary photography with the dimension of surreal and fantastic. Meeting point of their different personalities is, with no doubts, a common ironical approach to life (therefore to photography) and the great value that they give to imagination inside reality. Their first collective project, “Roundabout#Cyprus” (2012), has been transformed into a book and self-published in 2013. In the last years, Lavinia and Manfredi also realized several editorial works in Italy, Europe and the Middle East, collaborating with newspapers and magazines as LaRepubblica, Le Monde, The New York Times, Time, Internazionale, IoDonna, Vanity Fair, Panenka football magazine.

Related Links

www.laviniaparlamenti.com

www.manfredipantanella.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on December 2, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Daniel Kovalovszky – An Infernal Play

Daniel Kovalovszky

An Infernal Play

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

In 1945 Mátyás Rákosi, the leader of the Hungarian Communist Party, following the Soviet example, introduced a new Stalinist dictatorship in which human rights were severely violated.  As a result of show trials, several hundred thousands of political convicts were sent to forced labor camps, were imprisoned and hundreds were executed based on fictional charges. In most cases the charges consisted in supplying data to western powers and secretly organizing a revolt against the people’s power. Having found the memoirs of the political prisoner a very dreadful and unknown world opened up for me. I decided to start a visual collection to shed light on a segment of what was happening during these obscure years that is unknown to many but still significant: the world of prisons in Hungary between 1945 and 1963.

 

 

This world is disappearing unnoticed, and with the last old surviving witnesses and scenes. There is a time pressure for my work as there are fewer and fewer former prisoners who are still alive, and the places themselves also continuously disappear or change their function. The scenes will be holding the remembrance of the physical and mental suffering of thousands for a long time. This is the time to record what happened in the past for the next generations, because it will not be possible to do this in 3-4 years.

 

 

My work (2016-2019) is about the old survivors who spent long years in the ‘darkest’ prisons and labor camps of the dictatorship I documented. They live privately, hidden from publicity, carrying this heavy historical burden for which they no time left in their lives to process and they still haven’t received proper moral or financial compensation for their sufferings. I made long interviews with the old political prisoners which have significantly changed my personal approach to the 20th century history of Hungary. I hope my work will also become historically meaningful at one point and can show something to the future generations.

 

 

Short Bio

Daniel lives and works in Hungary. After graduating from high school, he studied portrait photography and photojournalism in Budapest and has been working as a photographer since 2001. Between 2001 and 2010, he made several documentary photography essays, mostly about aging in Hungary. Over the last few years, he has become deeply interested in landscape and portrait photography, working on long-term and conceptual projects. His works have been exhibited in several galleries and museums in Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom.

Related Links

www.kovalovszky.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

 

Published on November 25, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Ingmar Björn Nolting – Somaliland

Ingmar Björn Nolting

Somaliland

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

The Horn of Africa is regarded as one of the continent’s most war-torn regions. Somalia in particular crashed into an ever deeper chaos of civil war and terror after the disempowerment of the Somali dictator Siad Barre in 1991. There is still no end in sight. Despite all resistance, however, an island of peaceful coexistence emerged in the north of the country. Somaliland. The borders of Somaliland go back to the area of the former British protectorate, which united with Italian-Somaliland to Somalia in 1960. Under the dictatorship of Barre, who seized power through a putsch in 1969, the inhabitants of the north felt increasingly deprived. The resulting fights of the guerilla group “Somaliland National Movement” against the Barre regime culminated in the overthrow of the Barre regime, the adoption of a declaration of independence and the founding of the Republic of Somaliland on 18 May 1991.

 

Zuhaib (16) and Zakiriye (16) pose on the training grounds of the New Somaliland Circus in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Since there is no circus culture in Somaliland, the shows of the young artists attract a lot of attention, especially in rural areas. The circus group performs in all regions of the country and uses the audience’s attention to educate about HIV, malaria, female genital mutilation and the risks of migration to Europe. Every year, young men die on the way, in the Mediterranean or are kidnapped in Libya. The circus thus becomes a tool of education and gives the young artists self-esteem and a mission.
A street scene in Boorama, Somaliland.
Ahmed (29) poses in the living room of his house in Hargeisa, Somaliland. He grew up in America and decided to return to the country of his parents two years ago in order to learn Somali and contribute to the development of the country. He met his wife in Hargeisa, married her and they had a child. Today he can no longer imagine moving back to America. Ahmed volunteers as a teacher in the “Family, career and community leaders of Somaliland” (FCCLS) project. FCCLS has made it its mission to educate young men and women beyond regular, often inadequate schooling to become responsible leaders who will later change and develop the country.
Nomads at an oasis near Biyo-Guure southeast of the port city of Berbera. Muna (11) and Mohamed (12), left in the picture, lead the 50 goats of their family every day to this small creed. In the aridity of the last years the creek dried up, 50 of their goats died. Approximately half of the inhabitants of Somaliland live as nomads outside the towns and villages, the livestock is their most important living basis. The continuing droughts of recent years have killed about 70 percent of Somaliland’s livestock and forced tens of thousands of families to flee to the cities’ IDP camps. Climate change has led to temperature changes in the Indian Ocean, pushing the wind and humid air that usually brings rain away from the mainland. The effects of climate change are increasingly affecting the entire Horn of Africa, leading to water scarcity, starvation and flight.
Moneychangers are preparing their stand in downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland for the day. The currency of Somaliland, the Somaliland Shilling, is not internationally recognized and cannot be changed or traded outside the country. During the noon prayer the moneychangers leave their stand to pray in a nearby mosque, leaving the money unattended. Due to the social control by the clan system, the country is largely safe. Thieves are usually quickly identified and arrested by the police, who have a strong presence in the city.
A street scene in “Istanbul” IDP camp on the outskirts of Hargeisa, Somaliland. More than 560 families live here, more than 200 of them used to live as nomads in the rural areas until the droughts of recent years destroyed their livelihoods. The IDP camps around Hargeisa are mainly supplied by international NGOs, but there are often shortages, too little access to water and food.
Ahmed (29) prays at the Dahabshiil Mosque in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Islam is the main religion of the country and determines the daily life of the population. After the end of the guerrilla war against the troops of the Somali dictator Siad Barre and the subsequent declaration of independence of Somaliland, large parts of the population filled the accrued political and social vacuum with religion and found hope in Islam.
Mohamed Arab Geele (52) posing for a portrait in the Veteran Association in Hargeisa, Somaliland. At the age of 18 he joined the guerilla group “Somaliland National Movement” (SNM) and fought against the troops of Siad Barre. The inhabitants of the north felt strongly disadvantaged under his dictatorship, in the north there was too little water, little food and no university. More and more inhabitants of the villages occupied by the SNM joined the SNM. In 1988, after a three-month fight for Hargeisa, Mohamed was injured by a bomb splinter in his knee. Barre’s troops bombed Hargeisa with fighter jets starting from the airport on the outskirts of Hargeisa. Since the clan elders proclaimed Somaliland’s independence in 1991, Mohamed has been hoping for international recognition.
A landscape near Laaleys, Somaliland. Due to the droughts, the soil hardens and the water can not be absorb by the soil when it rains. The water masses flow through the city and block roads.
Abdizamad (19) poses together with his mother Qali Rooble (50) in their room in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Abdizamad began his journey to Europe in July 2017 without telling his mother. He paid smugglers who gave him instructions by telephone, guided him through Ethiopia to Sudan and from there to Libya. In Libya, he was kidnapped, beaten and held in a house with other refugees. The traffickers demanded a ransom of 5500 dollars from his family. 15 of his family members joined forces and bought him free after five months. Abdizamad got on a boat that was supposed to take him across the Mediterranean to Europe after all. After two days at sea, the refugees were taken on board of an NGO ship and brought back to Libya. There he was detained for three months and then returned to Hargeisa. His family raised 2,000 dollars and he opened a small shop. Many of the young people in Somaliland do not see any perspective in their homeland. Unemployment, poverty and the hope for a better life drive them into the arms of the traffickers on their way to Europe.
During Ramadan, young men sit on the banks of the Gulf of Aden in Berbera, Somaliland, waiting for breaking the fast at sunset. Somaliland’s largest source of income comes from the port of Berbera. Somaliland mainly exports livestock to the Arab Gulf states.

 

During my work in Somaliland, I have focused on issues of migration, climate change and aspects of democracy and state-building to create a portrait of the often overlooked region, which has been seeking international recognition for 28 years and where nothing seems more important than the young peace. The project is ongoing.

 

 

Asiya kayd Zandan (56) poses on the grounds of the IDP camp of “Norwegian Refugee Council” in Burao, Somaliland. Asiya belongs to the minority group “Gabooye”, which is a kind of work caste. People who are attributed to the minority often work in manual, lower professions and are affected by discrimination. Asiya is divorced from her husband, who now lives in Mogadishu and does not support her.
Hassan (23), Abdiadiqadir (20) and Mohamed (19) pose on the campus of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment of Amoud University in Boorama, Somaliland. The university was the first in the country and opened in 1998. Before independence, there was no university in northern Somalia. The university writes about its faculty in brochures: „At the moment, Agriculture in our country is subsistence agriculture (the production of enough food to meet just the needs of the farmer/agriculturalist and his/her family). Amoud university with the establishment of the faculty of agriculture wants to transform the current agricultural system into that of industrial agriculture, (often referred to as factory farming) long prevalent in “developed” nations and increasingly so elsewhere, which consists of obtaining financial income from the cultivation of land to yield produce, the commercial raising of animals (animal husbandry), or both.“
The military parade to celebrate the 28th year of Independence on 18 May 2019 in Hargeisa, Somaliland. On 18 May the city is in a state of emergency. All shops are closed and the people meet to celebrate together. Although the independence is not internationally recognized, the majority of the inhabitants support the separation from Somalia and are proud of their still young nation.
In this building in Burao, Somaliland, the clan elders met on 18 May 1991 to declare Somalilands independence from Somalia. Today this historic place is lying in ruins.
Viewers at a football match at the Djigdjiga Yar Stadium in Hargeisa, Somaliland.
Hinda Abdi Moamoud (23) poses on the site of the “Family, Career and Community leaders of Somaliland” (FCCLS) project. FFCCLS has made it its mission to educate young men and women beyond regular, often inadequate schooling to become responsible leaders who will later change and develop the country. Hindi wants to become a journalist and help improve the role of women in Somaliland.
A young man crosses the dried-up riverbed that divides the Somali capital Hargeisa into North and South.

 

Short Bio

Ingmar Björn Nolting (1995) lives and works as a freelance documentary photographer in Leipzig, Germany. After finishing his A-levels, he volunteered to help the homeless and blind. Since then, Ingmar’s photographic work has focused on social documentary issues, in which he sets his sights on people and their habitats, which have disappeared from the public eye. With a slo­wer approach to his work process, he tries to understand how his protagonists think, feel and interact with each other, to absorb and understand what makes their lives. Ingmar is a founding member of „DOCKS Collective“ for humanistic photography. – Shortlist, Athens Photo Festival 2019 – Honorable Mention, New Generation Priza at Phmuseum Grant 2019 – Honorable Mention, PDNedu 2019, Portraiture – Winner, Emerge Visual Journalism Grant 2018 – Finalist, Vonovia Award of Photography 2018, Newcomer Award – Finalist of the LuganoPhotoDays Emerging Award, 2018 – Selected for Canon Masterclass, Visa pour l’image, Perpignan 2018 – Winner of Vonovia Award of Photography 2017, Newcomer Award – Shortlisted for Felix Schoeller Photo Award 2017, Best Emerging Photographer – Finalist for Kolga Award 2017, Newcomer Award – Nominated for Kolga Award 2017, Best Documentary – Awardee, German Youth Photography Award 2016 – Scholarship, granted by the German Ministry for Education and Research – Participant NikonNOOR Workshop, C/O Berlin

 

Related Links

www.ingmarnolting.de

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on November 18, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Turjoy Chowdhury – Genocide ’71- A Memory Map

Turjoy Chowdhury

Genocide ’71- A Memory Map

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

Though still unrecognised internationally as genocide, many researchers have studied and different studies have mentioned different numbers of people killed in 1971 by the Pakistani Military with their collaborators. The government of Bangladesh puts the number at 3 million. 200,000 to 400,000 women were raped. It’s the price Bangladesh had to pay for its independence. The massacre and the subsequent war that ended with the birth of an independent Bangladesh, started with ‘Operation Search Light’ on 25th March, continued for 9 months. An estimated 7000 people died only on the first night. 10 million people fled and took refuge in India. Hindus, students, Awami League sympathisers, intellectuals and influential leaders were targeted and killed. Countless people were inhumanly tortured to extract information about freedom fighters. Hindu settlements were destroyed. The Pakistani Army and their supporters systematically abducted, killed and dumped bodies in different killing sites.

 

Bengali victims were hog-tied and thrown into the Rupsha river from the Custom Ghat jetty by Pakistani soldiers and Bihari collaborators stationed at the nearby Khulna Circuit House, as reported by survivor and eyewitness Shakti Pada Sen.
The Khulna Railway Station was the only way to go to North Bengal for thousands of people from Khulna, Faridpur and Barisal. Pakistani soldiers lay waiting for passengers, robbed them of valuables, cut their stomachs open and dumped them into the river from the attached steamer jetty. On 5th April 1971, Bihari collaborators killed railway station guard Bari and 5 others. Workers of the railway station and the steamer jetty were killed as well and skeletons were later found at an abandoned storage behind the railway station. Women were raped at the storage house, which was used as a torture cell as well.
Resident Bengalis of Khulna Rail Colony were killed by Pakistani soldiers and non-Bengali collaborators and their bodies buried here and there. The Railway Colony served as a killing field and mass grave. Khulna Station Road was a popular place for people to buy kerosene from – during an air-raid in December, passerby and kerosene buyers took shelter in the railway colony. Soon after, Pakistanis captured and killed them, dumping their bodies. One melted body was later identified to be that of detective Abul Kashem of Khulna Police Station.
The Hayne Railway School, adjacent to the Khulna Railway Station, was used as a torture cell and a killing field, with classrooms in the old building used in the torturing and killing of Bengali victims passing through the railway station. The pond inside the school premises were used to dispose of the bodies.
Charer Haat has a jetty on the Bhairab river that was an important part of commerce and transport for the area. After 26th March, there was a drastic drop in the number of people traversing the waters around Charer Haat – till 8th May, when a launch carrying hundreds of passengers set off for Khulna from Narail. On board was Muslim League General Secretary Advocate Md Ayub Hossa and his family. When the launch neared the Charer Haat jetty, two gunboats took up position under Pakistani naval commander Gulzar’s command, and forced the passengers to disembark and line up. Under the pretense of checking for arms, the people on the jetty were robbed of their valuables – Ayub Hossain tried to convince the soldiers to not fire on innocent civilians, but the Pakistani soldiers shot and killed every single person. A further five launches were stopped in a similar fashion, and nearly 600 people were killed. Eyewitness Masud somehow managed to escape and inform his relative Jalal Akbar, who was in the Navy at the time – Jalal took locals and dug a mass grave for the people killed at the Charer Haat jetty. The Charer Haat story was published on The Daily Bangla on 17th February 1972.
Forest Ghat was a jetty next to Rupsha river. People usually never moved around the area at night, only a few people used it during the day – during the liberation war use of this jetty was stopped out of fear of the Pakistanis and their local collaborators. As a result this jetty was always under control of the Pakistanis. Everyday, around 20 people were beheaded, gutted and thrown into the river. Near the jetty was a ration store maintained by the local police – around 30 policemen and their office help were stationed here. Kamrul Haque Chowdhury, then an employee of the office, said that the Pakistanis would frequently force the people stationed there to collaborate in killing their victims – they would grasp the arms of the victims tightly while the Pakistani soldiers bayonetted them, kicking them into the river after they were done. Abdur Rob and Shahadat, employees of the police ration store, recounted details of the killings when they returned to office – during the day, at least 6-7 people were killed, the numbers going up many-fold during the night. The horrific killings rendered the wooden jetty slick and slippery because of the blood of victims – eyewitnesses report countless sandals and shoes scattered about the jetty, with countless bodies floating in the river like weeds. The blood-curdling sound of the people being killed and the dying screams of the Pakistanis’ victims were heard by Judge Khondoker Nessarul Haque, resident of a nearby bungalow. Upon requesting the commanding officer to not kill people near the courthouse, Judge Nessarul Haqye was threatened and his request denied – he fell seriously sick and died of a heart attack on 30th May. The next day, his employee Syed Kaiser Ali died in a similar fashion – peon Abdur Rouf died of a heart attack as well a few days after that.
Maqsudur Rahman is an eyewitness and a survivor of Forest Ghat mass killing.
Adjacent to the courthouse near Forrest Ghat was Khulna Circuit House, commonly referred to as “Helipad”. In 1971, this served as an interrogation cell for the Pakistani military – people were brought from all over the place and held at Khulna Circuit House to be tortured, raped and killed. In the name of interrogation, the Pakistanis dealt out inhumane torture, with a pre-determined verdict as justice – death. Victims sentenced to death would be carried out to Forrest Ghat, where they would be killed. The Pakistani soldiers used to tie up and hang people from the helipad as well. Abdus Salam Sardar, then employee of Rupali Bank, had this to say – “You just needed to look towards the helipad to see the signs of torture. One day I saw a child of no more than 12 or 13, hung upside-down from the helipad, being beaten. His body was covered with blood and he was either dead or unconscious. Countless people were tortured in similar fashion, with new torture techniques implemented frequently.”

 

These killing sites, mass graves and torture cells are scattered all over the country. Unfortunately, very few obvious visual evidence of this horrors have been documented, as foreign journalists were forced to leave the country and most of the prominent local journalists were killed or were forced to go in hiding. After independence, only some of the major mass graves were protected and declared as part of national heritage and other places have changed drastically. This project reveals those horrific stories by exploring these mass graves, killing fields and torture cells through visuals, captured of their present condition with the goal of finding traces of the past in a conceptual manner and mapping the genocide. Portraits and testimonies of eyewitness and survivors, archival letters, documents, articles, family and other artefacts or objects connected directly or indirectly to the genocide is also included as authentic evidence.

 

Munshi Siddiqur Rahman was an influential person with political affiliations with the Awami League party, and as such, his family home – widely known to locals as “Munshibari” – was a place of interest in the Goalkhali region. Located east of the Jessore-Khulna highway and next to the railway, Munshibari was one of the most important incidents of mass killings in Khulna. Munshi Siddiqur led the Bengalis in the region through the communal violence that broke out during March 27 – the Biharis in the region, led by Motiullah, wanted to punish Siddiqur for his role in organising the Bengalis in the region. Motiullah thus devised a plan – since Siddiqur was the only politically involved Bengali who did not flee after Khulna fell in the hands of the Pakistanis, Motiullah approached him on the morning of 6th April with a proposal of keeping the peace in the locality. Accompanying Motiullah was Mohammad Ali, Farid Miah, Musgunni Ghulam. In the meeting, both parties agreed to keep the peace and Siddiqur was put in charge of distributing and storing wheat as relief for the affected people of the area. Siddiqur then met with locals loyal to him on the 7th of April in order to devise a distribution plan. Around 3 PM, alerted by the sound of approaching soldiers, Siddiqur took some people and escaped out of the back of the house. Under command of Major Babar, the Pakistani soldiers surrounded the house with their vehicles – sitting in those vehicles were Motiullah, Ezaz, Tofayel and Harun. Upon entering the house and being unable to find Siddiqur, the Pakistanis started killing the people they found inside – they bayonetted Christian caretaker Shontu in a balcony and bound everyone else. The 12 people who were found inside were marched to the pond beside the house and killed by firing. The Munshibari family graveyard lists all the casualties of 7th April.
Letter signed by Sheikh Mujib sent to Ataur Rahman, father of Munshibari victim Habibur Rahman, acknowledging the contributions of the victim towards the liberation of Bangladesh and his loss of life. The only document acknowledging the Munshibari killing, the letter, issued on 6th April 1972, also contains proof of financial compensation provided to the victim’s family, amounting to 2000 Taka.
The Khulna Newsprint Mill was established by the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation in 1959 on 53 acres of land in Khalishpur and was the first newsprint mill in what is now Bangladesh. The mill served as a killing field for the Pakistani military junta. 28th March onwards, most of the workers and their families living in the mill colony left the area, but were urged to come back and continue working through radio broadcasts that assured workers that the mill was safe and secure. The radio broadcasts were part of a trap set by the Pakistanis to try to lure as many people to the mill as possible – soldiers lying in wait picked off the returning workers one by one and killed them, some of the bodies were dumped in an identified mass grave at the mill colony and in the nearby Bhairab river. Soldiers from the adjacent Titumir Naval Base were involved in the killing – the isolated mill later served as an extended base of operations for the Pakistanis. Eyewitness account by Abdul Malek Sardar.
Established on 55 acres of land in Khalishpur, Khulna, in 1954, the Platinum Jubilee Jute Mill was the scene of a horrific ritual perpetrated by the Pakistani military and their local collaborators in 1971. Similar to the trap set by the Pakistanis at Khulna Newsprint Mill, workers were lured back to the area by radio broadcasts asking people to return to their posts – once caught, the Bengali workers were forced to sit in front of the boiler as they were tied and bagged by their captors. With the fire of the boiler burning in front of their eyes their last sight, the workers were shoved into the same pit they themselves had once fed with coal – feet first, with the rest of their bodies following suit. The Pakistani soldiers made sure the deaths of those 56 workers, some named Harun, Hemayet and Aziz among others, were slow and painful – their screams reverberating around the factory. The gruesome story of what happened at the Platinum Jubilee mill was published in The Daily Bangla newspaper on 17th February, 1972.
The Pakistani military turned the Crescent Jute Mills into a killing field like they did with other factories in Khulna. People brought in trucks to the jute storage facility in trucks were led, blindfolded and hands tied, to the jute cutting machines inside. They were beheaded at these machines, some impaled on spikes used to tear jute apart. The body of the Central Excise Inspector was cut into pieces and hung visibly. The Customs Officers Quarters were turned into torture cells, the drains beside the building used to take the blood away to the Bhairab river, in which most of the bodies were dumped. Later on, after the war, skeletons were discovered in the mill area. Ferdousi Priyobashini witnessed the massacre of Bengalis at the hands of the Pakistanis and their collaborators, and compared the beheading of workers with the jute cutting machines to death by guillotine.
The Peoples Jute Mill was a killing field operated by the Pakistani military where factory workers were lured back in a similar fashion to other instances. They were tied, bagged in jute, and tortured to death. Abdul Khalek Hawlader bore witness to the atrocities at the Peoples Jute Mill.
The photograph is of a recent grave in the local graveyard, in a place that is suspected to be the old mass grave. 300 Biharis lived in Deara village and was a prominent spot for anti-Bengali collaborators. A Rajakar camp was established here in August 1971 with Shawkat as the commander. Around the end of August, the Rajakars and the Biharis, commanded by Shawkat, perpetrated vicious attacks against the people of the village. Houses were looted, people killed and the village was set on fire. After the killings, the surviving locals buried the bodies scattered around the place in a mass grave.
Chuknagar is located west of Dumuria upazila – adjacent to Khulna, Shatkhira and Jessore, with highways from all three regions meeting at Chuknagar. Chuknagar bazaar was a common transit point for people going to India – the adjacent Bhadra and Ghangrail rivers, now dried up, were commonly used waterways as well. Between 19th May night and 20th May morning, around a hundred thousand religious minorities gathered at Chuknagar as a result of vicious attacks by the Pakistanis on 19th May at the nearby Botiyaghata locale. On 20th May two trucks arrived down the highway from Shatkhira and the mass killings at Chuknagar started around 10-11 AM.
Chuknagar is located west of Dumuria upazila – adjacent to Khulna, Shatkhira and Jessore, with highways from all three regions meeting at Chuknagar. Chuknagar bazaar was a common transit point for people going to India – the adjacent Bhadra and Ghangrail rivers, now dried up, were commonly used waterways as well. Between 19th May night and 20th May morning, around a hundred thousand religious minorities gathered at Chuknagar as a result of vicious attacks by the Pakistanis on 19th May at the nearby Botiyaghata locale. On 20th May two trucks arrived down the highway from Shatkhira and the mass killings at Chuknagar started around 10-11 AM. One of the two trucks entered the village beyond the bazaar, and the first shot was fired upon farmer Chikon Morol, who was working the field. Chikon’s nephew, Md Noor Ali Morol witnessed the incident from their home adjacent to the field.
Sundari was a three month old infant found by Ershad Ali Morol between the dead bodies in the Chuknagar killing field, crying and trying to suckle on her dead mother’s breast. She is the only person to have survived in the Pakistani’s line of fire, later adopted and raised by a local Hindu couple.
People killed at the bazaar and inside Chuknagar village were dumped in the now dried up Bhadra river, along with the people killed on the shores of the Bhadra.

 

 

Short Bio

Turjoy Chowdhury is an independent Documentary Photojournalist and Multimedia Artist from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He works internationally mostly on humanitarian issues and crisis. He did his graduation in Architecture. His work has been exhibited globally and published in National Geographic, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, BBC, CNN, MSN, Al Jazeera, WNN, Feature Shoot, Life Force Magazine, Zone Zero, Foto8, Feature Shoot, Ethic Magazine, Aksgar magazine, Foto Evidience, Fotovisura, ND Magazine, Private Magazine, Dodho Magazine, CFYE Magazine, Fotoritim Magazine, F- stop Magazine, The Alternative, etc. He also got several awards and honors : UNICEF photo of the Year 2018 (2nd Prize), Joop Swart Masterclass nomination 2018; IPA (Invisible Photographer Asia) award finalist, 2018; NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) Award 2018; LensCulture Emerging Talent Award 2017; Picture of the Year International 2016; Mro Foundation Grant Finalist 2016; Photography Grant Finalist 2016; Ian Parry Scholarship 2016; Lucie Foundation Scholarship 2015; Eye Time photo competition winner 2015; Future Voices Jury Award 2014; Jessica Lum Award 2014; Photocrati Fund Finalist 2014; Photophilanthropy Activist award 2014; Carnegie Council’s International Student Photo Contest 2013.

Related Links

www.turjoychowdhury.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on November 8, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Giovanni Cocco – Plantarium

Giovanni Coco

Plantarium

The Garbatella and its flora are a well-kept Roman secret. It is an exotic and unique neighbourhood – founded in February 1920, so next to its centenary – known for its architecture based on lots, a particular kind of public housing with buildings designed according to “Barocchetto romano” style and to English Garden City Movement model.

 

 

The neighbourhood is an un-imitated little urban island, with the highest ratio, in Italy of those years, between built-up surface and “private” green spaces, that are, for generations, social sites and still live on only thanks to the care of its residents.

Hence the choice to photograph plants, because they represent a kind of aesthetic, behavioral, architectural and vegetational exoticism of the entire physical place.

 

 

With this series I want to offer a glimpse of this treasure unveiling the neighbourhood’s flora and vegetations – its enthralling green spaces. Trying to preserve its mystery while giving movement to still life.

 

 

Short Bio

Born in Sulmona, Italy, 1973.

I started to take pictures because my father was an amateur photographer. His photos surrounded me since I was a kid – they were everywhere, on the tables, in the closets, in the bookcases. He used to bring me in his dark room and he encouraged me to use it and his cameras. It was inevitable to approach photography so I started taking pictures very soon. It was like a game, for years, but in 2004, when I started to confront myself with a story which involves me in an emotional way, the Monia’s project, I realized that the camera was a powerful medium to observe and get in touch with the world and a tool to communicate my own view of the world around me in the most immediate way.

Related Links

giovannicocco.it

 

Published on November 4, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Lyu Geer – The Mountain of Qiang

Lyu Geer

The Mountain of Qiang

[ FUJIFILM/YOUNG TALENT AWARD 2019 FINALIST ] 

“The Mountain of Qiang” is a plan based on Lyu Geer’s hometown, Wenchuan, Qiang ethnic minority. The construction after the 2008 earthquake has accelerated the process of modernization in the mountains, and the regional communication became more intense and the boundary became blurred. He went through a similar field work to the local area in the early days in a process of “re-familiarity”, the anxiety about identity gradually amplified. So he took this question to the behavior of “Finding the sea up the mountain”(Chapter 2). During the Triassic period, the Wenchuan area was in the coastal environment, he asked if the Qiang people had memories of Wenchuan and the sea. He also went up the mountain to find traces left by the sea. On the way, he met snowmen with arms open, painted white stones, fake horses, pandas……These scenes have a subtle connection with the first chapter, “The mountain of Qiang”. “Finding the sea up the mountain”, this pointless behavior seems to be like climbing trees to catch fish. Beginning to turn to more poetic, the search for geographical and identity images. After that, he collected sand from the mountains, sprinkled on film in dark room. Getting the original image of “Star sea” (Chapter 3). And referring to large number of images of the stars, he painted a color that looks as real as possible for “Star sea”. He also seems to find the answer.

 

 

 

Short Bio

Lyu Geer, b.1995, Sichuan,China, graduated from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in digital media art at BUPT. His works focus on the exploration of boundaries, identity and history. He has been awarded the Sony Young Photographer Program Award, New Talent Award, The Young Photographer Growth Plan of China Photographers Association, China Photography Annual List. On the shortlist of the Lucie Foundation Emerging Artist scholarship, Magnum Foundation’s Abigail Cohen documentary photography.His Self-published “The mountain of Qiang” awarded the Best Chinese Photography Books in 2018.

 

Related Links

lyugeer.com

 

—–

 

The Fujifilm/Young Talent Award is supported by Fujifilm

 

FujiFilm_Basic-Black

Published on October 28, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Janne Korkko – The Song of the Riverside

Janne Korkko

The Song of the Riverside

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

We need to understand where we are and how we got here. Once we are clear on these issues we can move forward…. (Thomas Berry) Rivers have river rights as well as humans have human rights. People, communities, environments, and nature have deep interrelated connection. A connection that is more complex than an ownership of land, a fishing permit, a cottage on the riverside, or a beautiful sundown on the opposite shore of the river. The name of the river in these photos is Iijoki. The name comes from an ancient word of Sami (’iddja’, ’ijje’), which means ’night’. So, the name of this river is Night. Night- River flows through Yli-Ii, the riverside village, which belongs now to bigger city of Oulu. It means that there are no public services any more. The village is disappearing. Night-River is full of songs of memories, and its riverbanks are full of people with these memories. Some of them are sacred, silenced, or even untold. Usually it seems that nobody wants to remember the song of the unforgotten village – and the blocked river. But some of the songs are still alive, or they are waking up through the people, who are starting to re-member the song of the wild, free-flowing river.

 

You need a light to walk along the unknown path to your dream.
A man has heard the river singing a sad song.
A surge tank for the thousands smells, and a listening dog – it’s that time of the year.
This landscape gives you a permission to be who you really are. But it’s only the landscape, not the people.
The last wild ones – a ringer man and a young Ural owl.
The deserted gazebo of the secret kisses.
The last will.
Looking for habitants of the wilderness.
This is the back part of my next Metamorphosis – ready to flow with the river. Its teardrops have covered my back.
Ludicrous droll family, who does whatever it will.
Stolen dreams.
There’s a dark land in the North, where people can create their own light – when it’s the darkest time of the year.

 

The landscape of the village, and the diversity and ecology of native nature, changed totally during the 1960s, when the river was dammed – and there were built many hydroelectric power-plants in it. The damming of the river was one of the biggest eco catastrophes in the area of North Finland. But it was also catastrophic for the whole society of the village and its families in many – maybe still unidentified and unconscious – ways. Nowadays the eco catastrophes is still going strong – in clearcutting and swamp ditching. But the second longest river in Finland – with its 150 rapids – is still alive under all the constructions, destructions of riverbeds, and hydroelectric dams. It lives also in peoples’ minds and bodies, in their eyes and destinies.

 

What more should I need? Everything is here, near. Simple life – fresh bread and catch of the upcoming summer makes you happy.
One light in the dark is the light of the belief system. But a Spirit of Riverside does not know any systems, because it’s the system itself. Natural system.
One of the Riverside Factories of Today. Unnatural System.
Why did you have to go? Where did you go? I do not recognize your shape any more, it has disappeared into the shadows. I still miss you.
I used to know this wilderness, this riverside, and all the birds and fish of it. I used to know all the paths. Now I am just standing here and looking at the devastated landscape. They have blocked the flow of water, logged the growth of trees. What can I do?
The Fall.
Please, forgive me, what I have done. Forgive all my sins, A Holy Spirit of the Swamp.
You do not want to know anything of my life under the red lights. Anyway, this is not Pigalle, or Reeperbahn. This is the red life of the livestock.
Looking for a luckier dawn.
The Earth gives you what you want, but it also leaves you addicted to it.
At some night, in some of my dreams, I am still traveling through the riverside. It can’t get me from its grip, It has decided to take me home. I am almost there. When I will raise my eyes to look the whole view, I may see where I am, who I am.
Once upon a time there was a huge, long river, which was full of big salmons, who swam up the river every summer. When people blocked the river, and the salmons could not gain, and they changed themselves to rainbows. Sometimes, somewhere, in the riverside of some wild little river, which still exists, you could trap a fish called rainbow trout. She will tell you the ancient love story of the big wild rivers and salmons.

 

Short Bio

Photography means more to me than just doing it: it is as important as breathing and living. I switched in documentary shooting seven years ago. Image has always been an important form of narrative but I wanted it to show the touch of life and humanity that define my ideas. Socially important and difficult topics that are approachable make me work. I feel I have a mission. I’ve been professionally acclaimed for my work. For example my photo was chosen in The European photography 100 book in 2016. I am proud and humbled as well as grateful. Things that have touched me, touched them, too. That is the stories, the interaction with people that developed to the eye to see. I have received more than one project to photograph the New York Times, LES JOURS Magazine, Suomen Kuvalehti, Kaleva.

Related Links

www.jannekorkko.com

 

—–

 

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

Magnum Foundation

Published on October 22, 2019 by burn magazine. comments closed.

Robin Friend – Bastard Countryside

Robin Friend

Bastard Countryside

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

“At the bottom of the hill where we used to live, a creek had been realigned to prevent it from flooding. Huge concrete banks on either side created a narrow canal that stretched as far as could see. With the creek on our right and the city behind us, we set off on our bikes – until eventually the sewers, motorways, backyards and industrial sites gave way to the flora and fauna of the Victorian bush.” (Me, aged 9). To this day, I’m still drawn to places where the natural and human worlds clash, interact and splat into each other. However, the innocent excitement I once felt for these sites has given way to unease. Made all over the UK, these pictures possess a magical sadness and inhabit what Victor Hugo described as “that kind of bastard countryside, somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures…the end of the beaten track, the beginning of the passions, the end of the murmur of things divine, the beginning of the noise of humankind”. Hugo also described how observing a city’s edge “is to observe an amphibian”; thinking of the Paris periphery as a living, breathing creature pushing out and changing everything in its wake, blurring the city/countryside divide. Fast forward two hundred years and Hugo’s amphibian has grown tentacles on steroids and is not just devouring everything in its path, but shitting and puking incessantly as well.

 

 

The “Bastard Countryside” is no longer found in the fringe areas, it’s everywhere you look. My Bastard Countryside is the struggle between humanity and nature, two contrasting forces fighting for control. But there’s also a part of it that resides someplace else; in a fictive realm that gestures towards some unknown, a less certain landscape. With a feeling of things left behind and what is still to come, these pictures tap into our cultural anxiety of what the future holds and how we are leaving this planet broken for generations to come.