Chloe Dewe Mathews (UK): Caspian

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Languishing quietly between two great continents, the Caspian is the world’s largest inland sea. In 2010 I travelled to its edge, to the point where Asia dissolves into Europe. For centuries, surrounding powers have laid claim to the region; first the Ottomans, the Persians, the Mongols and most recently Soviet Russia. These Empires have ebbed and flowed, each one leaving its mark on this enigmatic landscape.

In the 10th Century, oil was discovered on the Caspian coast near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and has been exploited ever since. The boom of the late 90’s brought the current wave of prosperity to the area. However, Caspian crude oil is not only used conventionally as fuel: since long before mechanized extraction it has provided a curious health treatment. Continue reading Chloe Dewe Mathews: Caspian →

Anne Golaz (Finland): Hunting Games

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My approach to the “hunting games” began with a strong aesthetic fascination. Initially, I am not coming from the world of hunting and I am not part of the initiated people. But I wondered what could really signify this practice nowadays and further than the stereotypes? How to represent hunting in a modern society, where it is a very deeply contradicted subject? How to stage this universe without creating an expected and sterile polemic? The ambiguous admiration, with its repulsive part, that I felt for hunting was the main motor of my work. I choose to react as free as possible, mixing a documentary approach with suggested and sometimes ironical pictures. But especially creating some staged and theatrical photographs, with a dramatic and imposing atmosphere. Continue reading Anne Golaz: Hunting Games →

Katie Orlinsky (USA): Innocence Assassinated: Living in Mexico’s Drug War

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In 2006, newly elected Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels. His intension was to take a stand against the violence, corruption and drug trafficking that had been increasing since 2000. Seven decades of one-party rule in Mexico ended and shifted the balance of power amongst drug cartels and corrupt officials. But Calderon’s war on drug cartels has only made the situation worse. Mexico’s drug war is more than an armed conflict. It is a humanitarian crisis that has changed the lives of countless innocent people. The total drug war death toll has now reached over 30,000 people, and behind every murdered victim there is a family left to live with the consequences. Continue reading Katie Orlinsky: Innocence Assassinated →

Gauri Gill (India): Balika Mela, Lunkaransar, 2003/2010

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I have photographed in rural Rajasthan for twelve years now, in villages, homes and families that treated me as their own. Although I chose to work independently, over the years I developed a relationship with various NGOs (non governmental organisations), including Urmul Setu Sansthan, in Lunkaransar. They have a bare bones campus in what used to be a one-camel town, albeit one with a busy National Highway running through it: simple, white blocks laid out in sandy soil, one of them a guest house that I knew I could stay in whenever I passed through, and where I was asked to pay whatever I could afford at the particular time. The stark setting placed into relief the various individuals inhabiting the campus, drawn there either by a greater motivation or personal circumstance. We were all fugitives from the world at large, for varying lengths of time, along with our dreams and accompanying disenchantments; ideas, plans and schemes were constantly afoot. The overarching utopian idea at Urmul remained Gram Sewa, or ‘in the service of the village’. Continue reading Gauri Gill: Balika Mela, Lunkaransar, 2003/2010 →

Zhe Chen (China): Bees
Inge Morath Award Recipient, 2011

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They left their lives in the very wounds they had created for themselves.
– Virgil (Roman poet, 70BC – 19BC)

To jeopardize existence for existence itself: ‘Bees’ records a marginalized group of people in China, who, faced with chaos, violence, alienation and irredeemable loss in life, feel propelled to leave physical traces and markings on their bodies, in order to preserve and corroborate a pure and sensitive mind from within.

In 2010, having ‘The Bearable’ (a photo series documenting my own self-inflictions over the past 4 years) as my passport, I had the opportunity to develop a close relationship with some of these obstinate souls – the bees. During the process of exchanging secrets with them, I crossed paths with certain possibilities that were formerly untouched but towards which I had struggled greatly in my personal life. I’m struck by the unyielding actions and reactions that the bees carry on with while encountering sudden and acute emotional fluxes, and moved by the recurrent effort they make to recover themselves afterwards. No matter how different our lives seem to be, we undoubtedly share common psychological experiences. Continue reading Zhe Chen: Bees →