Photographers Category : Professional

Stolen Spring

Russia occupied and destroyed the Kyiv region. Now people are restoring their lives, looking to the future.

The photographs are in a historical dialogue with images by Polish photographer Niesch, who captured how the photographer used a decorative backdrop to mask the ruins of Warsaw during World War II 1945.

I live in Bucha and work in Irpin. After the Russian occupation, these cities were destroyed. The military landscape has become my reality and routine. Every day I see people who are restoring their cities, their personal lives from the ruins and looking into the future.

The heroes of my photographs are women who became victims of Russian aggression.

The occupation continued in the spring, people who survived this tragic period did not notice how spring passed, how chestnuts and lilies of the valley bloomed, birds flew in. They were deprived not only of their homes, loved ones, work, health, but also part of their lives. IDPs from Donbass and Crimea have a second tragic spring. A stolen spring is a stolen life. Each story is a personal tragedy, but it is also a life-affirming story of a survivor, a hope that Ukraine will rise from the ruins.

Thanks to small personal stories I tell about a huge catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine. However, it is also a life-affirming story of a survivor, the hope that Ukraine will rise from the ruins. My film actualizes the theme of the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian artist, documentary photographer Alena Grom was born in Donetsk. In January 2014, she was forced to leave her home and hometown due to the military events in the Donbass. In such conditions, photography became a salvation for Thunder and a way to escape the traumatic reality. Since 2017 lives in Bucha.

As a result of the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, Grom and her family became refugees for the second time, but returned after the de-occupation of Buchi.Alena works at the intersection of social reporting and conceptual photography. He has been working on his topics in the military and de-occupied zone since 2017.

However, her photographs are not an illustration of regret or grief, but a statement of life. Life, in spite of everything, is one of the main themes of the artist.

Alena tells about the war through a subjective experience associated with cultural memory, through a creative reassessment of her own life as a documentary evidence of events. Grom creates an archive of photographs and videos documenting Russia’s war in Ukraine. In this way, she wants to preserve the photographic heritage and the memory of the war for future generations. Grom sincerely believes that art is a force that can encourage people to participate in public dialogue.

Through her photographs, Mrs. Grom is trying to convey to the world community the complexity of military everyday life, the tragedy of war and faith in peace.

 

Chirping of Crickets

 » When I was 8 years old, Aarón a classmate from elementary school hid his scars under his sweater while he wrote in the class, he had suffered abuse from his father. After that, he eventually stopped going to school. The event stayed with me like an echo a long time. Now as a mother, that moment started in me a profound concern for children who experience the physical and psychological abuse of their (relatives) covered by the impossibility of the child not being able to communicate it, and which in many cases escalates to repeated torture and death of the infant. Filicide -the intentional death of an infant- has been an atrocious practice that has existed since the beginning of humanity and currently, unfortunately, there is not a country in the world where frequent cases do not occur. 

Even more so when violence is normalized under the false “family environments”, and they are only visible when it is too late. In the last 5 years, its impact on society has generated citizen initiatives to modify laws for the protection of children, such as the Lucio Law (Argentina). That is why this project tries to be a call and support to make visible this problem that remains hidden and ignored, either due to social shame or because it shows a dark side of the family concept. I’m interested in building a layered narrative based on portraits of victims on bioplastic, which materializes the vulnerability of the image between the documents and objects associated with the cases. This visual archive is built from real cases collected by working in collaboration with LAE in Mexico, a civil organization in charge of child survivors of family violence, group I have been working in recent years to expand my initial project. « 

2021-in process

Photographer and Architect, she has participated in different exhibitions such as the XIX Photography Biennale of Mexico, XIII Puebla Biennial in Mexico, the New York Latin American Art Triennial 2022 among others. She obtained an honorable mention at the BARCO Biennial of Contemporary Art in Mexico. In 2022 she was commissioned by the Supreme Court of Justice Institute and Centro de la Imagen Museum for the exhibition and book “Fuera de Foco: Fotografía y Derechos Humanos”. In 2019 obtained the Red FotoMéxico Award by Los Pinos Cultural Center and Centro de la Imagen. Her projects have been supported by different institutions and cultural programs. She is the coordinator of Catako Espacio de creación in Michoacán, Mexico.

 

Missing Member

WHAT DOES MIGRATION MEAN FOR THOSE WHO STAY BEHIND? 

Louise Amelie’s documentary photo series is an artistic exploration of the global phenomenon of migration and its many facets, which are often ignored in European migration politics. Migration has always been an integral part of human experience and will continue to be. Yet in public discourse it is presented as an aberration, while the existence of nation-state borders is hardly ever questioned. On the globe, Kyrgyzstan nestles inconspicuously next to Kazakhstan and China, but on the ground the vastness and heights of the mountains seem endless. In contrast to the natural beauty, prefabricated housing estates spring up in the capital, Bishkek. Here lives a young population that, despite all the adversities of post-Soviet reality, faces the world with great confidence. In a collection of portraying photographs that foreground the individual stories, the series is an expression of solidarity and empathy, and shows that migration can mean both an opportunity as well as the painful loss of a beloved Missing Member.

 

 

Louise Amelie’s photographic work seamlessly intertwines with her directorial expertise, allowing her to craft compelling visual narratives that resonate deeply with audiences. As both a photographer and director, she has collaborated with a diverse range of clients.

In addition to her achievements, Louise Amelie has authored two other photobooks:

OFF WORLDS – A captivating exploration of the outskirts of American society, shedding light on geographical separation and systemic isolation. 

SOLE HARLEM – A comprehensive photo series capturing the essence of New York’s Harlem district and celebrating its vibrant diversity. 

Throughout her career, Louise Amelie has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to capturing the human experience through her lens. Her thought-provoking works shed light on pressing social issues

 

Imilia

The Bolivian ‘polleras’, bulky skirts commonly associated with the indigenous women from the highlands, were for decades a symbol of uniqueness but also an object of discrimination. Now, a new generation of women skateboarders in Cochabamba, the country’s third-largest city, wears them as a piece of resistance. The voluminous attire has its origins in the Spanish conquest, in the 16th century. It was imposed on the native population, but through centuries the garment became part of the local identity. Since it symbolizes authenticity and stigmatization, dusting off the polleras that once belonged to aunts and grandmothers seemed the obvious choice for Dani Santiváñez, 26, a young Bolivian skater who wanted to reclaim her roots. She and two friends created in 2019 the female collective “ImillaSkate” “as a cry for inclusion”. ‘Imilla’ means ‘young girl’ in Aymara and Quechua, the two most widely spoken languages in Bolivia, a country where more than half of the population has indigenous roots. “We are no different, we all are indigenous descendants”, says Santiváñez referring to the nine women who are currently part of the group. They don’t wear the polleras on a day-to-day basis, but only for skating. Knee-length and paired with sneakers, as it happened in the past, the polleras adapted again and became a symbol. The imillas, who practice to compete in local tournaments, use this presence and their skateboards as a natural vehicle to empower women and push their message of inclusion and acceptance of diversity.

 

Luisa Dörr is a Brazilian photographer whose work is mainly focused on the feminine human landscape. Through the quietness of her storytelling, she uses the portrait as a vehicle to tell narratives, and explore the complexity of human nature and femininity.

Dörr’s photographs have been published in TIME magazine, National Geographic, The New York Times, PDN, GEO, Wired, among many others. She’s had exhibitions in Brazil, United States, Spain, France, Portugal, England and Russia. In 2015, Dörr was selected for LensCulture Emerging Talent. In 2018, she won POYi Documentary Project of the Year, ‘FIRSTS’ for TIME Magazine and Magenta Flash Forward Award with Maysa’s story. In 2019, she won 3rd prize with Falleras for the portrait stories category of the World Press Photo Award.

Based in Bahia, Brazil, Dörr is currently working on long term projects related to racial rights and the role of women in the agrobusiness. Parallel to these projects, she photographs for assignments worldwide