Rajoyana Chowdhury (Bangladesh): Hazard

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Tea gardens of Sylhet, Bangladesh – A plantation where mass human labor is used in manufacturing tea for different international and local brands. An industry where the workers work from 7 to 5 every day with just one little break of 30 mins during their all day long work hours where they get paid as little as USD 0.88 (BDT 69) at the end of the day. The wages are their only earnings to feed their families whereas this tea is being exported worldwide to relieve the stress of the mass depicting the manufacturing plantation as an industry where human slavery prevails. Continue reading Rajoyana Chowdhury: Hazard →

Nanna Heitmann (Germany): Gone from the window

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Coal mining enabled Germany‘s participation in the industrial revolution and contributed to the German “Wirtschaftswunder after World War II; resulting in the development of today‘s key industries. That is all history. Prosper Haniel, the last remaining colliery, closed in 2018.

Coal mining had once attracted countless people from all over Germany, as well as migrant workers from Turkey, Greece and Poland, all with the hope of a better life.

The elderly men are marked by decades of hard work. Broken knees, herniated discs and black lung are the typical symptoms. In the worst case, the inhaled coal dustpan lead to the malignant form of the silicosis.

Fortunately, the once widespread miner‘s disease has become much rarer. But this doesn’t erase the memories seeing elderly individuals, sitting by the open window, gasping for breath. If the cancer killed one of them, he was gone from the window – that‘s where the German phrase comes from.

Nobody will mourn the overexploitation of man and nature when the last colliery closes. But the warmth of the miners, their traditions and the very special identity of this region: this will be missed.

The families – the homes – first of all the intimacy need to be documented more. Pictures like metaphors – Freedom, Clean Air/ Space in contradiction to the claustrophobic feeling inside the mine, as softness/ gentleness in contradiction to the hardness in the mine.

• Nanna Heitmann’s Website

Lilit Matevosyan (Russia): I had left my home early in the morning

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For several years my study has been the history of my family: from generations that lived in the XIX century to our time. By making this project, I began to realize how a small story of one family, could be the history of millions of others. My stories will be divided into heads of key events of the family history. They had began with the territories of Turkey, where my ancestors lived and fled before the genocide and had continued on the lands of Georgia and Armenia. Personal stories are intertwined with events occurring on the territory of the post-Soviet space. One of the key chapter will be the earthquake in Armenia in 1988. My family was at the epicenter of events and witnessed the last of this tragedy. Next will be a difficult time for perestroika and our moving to Sakhalin Island, Russia – this is the era of the ‘90s. It is important for me to render again in these places, to return and to experience these events anew. This project will have completely different visual forms: from black and white photography, working with the archive, working with color and collage.

From young age I was deeply interested in the history of my family. Living with my father, I heard stories about the place of my birth, relatives and names. They seemed to be a source of answers to my questions about family life. Anyway all that I had in the past determines what I have now. I felt that I had to find out everything, but in this case I must see it by myself.

In search of clues and answers on my 25th birthday, I went to Tbilisi – to the house where I was born. Then my adventure of the past began. Only being there I could feel the world that existed before me. The charm of something very familiar and native accompanied me after every walk around the city. The absence of external borders between people – is what I encountered in my trips through Georgia. The revelation that the family can be outside the family, behind the every house’s door.

• Lilit Matevosyan’s Website

Hilde Pank (Germany): HAUS+HÄNDE

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This is an extract from my Photobook Haus + Hände (house + hands) which is my Master thesis. I portrayed the house of my grandparents, in which our family has lived since 1890. Back then my great-great-great-grandfather bought the house to build his photo-studio. I combined photographs from our family photo archive and my own pictures of the house and its surroundings, as well as portraits from my grandmother, my mother and myself. The house was always given to a daughter. I was pregnant with my daughter while making the series. That is why I decided to focus on the women of my family. In this extract I concentrate especially on my grandmother Ingrid, who lives in the house with her husband. She will probably be the last owner of the house, because nobody wants to move back there.

In my series I try to show the almost never changing atmosphere of the house and the village. Generations have lived there – World War I and World War II changed their lives. Then the village in the middle of Germany became a village at the border and a central train station to the West. To visit my family in their village, people needed special permission because of the border. After 1989 the village once again was part of central Germany. Nowadays my grandparents are connected to people from the former West living in a neighbor village. These days they are singing together in the same choir.

• Hilde Pank’s Website

Citlali Fabián (Mexico): Ben’n Yalhalhj / Soy de Yalálag / I’m from Yalalag

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There is always a need to feel that you belong to somewhere or a desire to feel that you are part of something bigger than your self. (At least I always had that feeling, because that is the way that my parents taught me to see the world.) I’m Citlali, a yalaltec woman born and raised outside Yalalag but always in touch with my zapotec culture.

Since I began photographing I have documented yalaltec culture. I’ve collected vernacular photos of my family in an attempt to connect and better understand our identity and worldview. I’m trying to weave a net in order to talk about my ancestral zapotec history – from our family perspective. I truly think there is no lineal story, but it is really important to be able to see all angles to appreciate different points of view. In order to appreciate cultures from a meaningful place, especially native cultures, we need to have the chance to talk about ourselves and been seen from our own human stories.

The present selection of images are part of my project called Ben’n Yalhalhj which means from Zapotec Language “I’m from Yalalag”. It is a universe of images collected and sometimes intervened over the last 8 years.

• Citlali Fabián’s Website