www.grain.rs
GRAIN Digital
street and documentary photography magazine
NEW TALENTS
2018
Special Issue APRIL 2018.
Večita želja za pričom Već osamnaest godina živimo u 21. veku. Mnogo toga se već desilo, mnogo toga se promenilo. Fotografija možda najviše od svih medija. Sasvim sigurno izgubila je auru posebnosti, prostom činjenicom da je svuda oko nas, da je stvaramo i pokazujemo svi mi. Postala je važna kao i reč, iako ne tako precizna kao reč sama. S toga je često posmatramo u savezu s tekstom koji će objasniti, proširiti, promeniti, produbiti... smisao fotografije, ili još bolje, serije fotografija. U savremenoj praksi edukacije vizuelnih umetnosti, tekst, teorija, priča neodvojivi su deo praktičnog rada. To dokazuju i radovi učesnika trećeg po redu konkursa „Novi talenti“ na kom, većinski, učestvuju studenti fotografije, medija i umetnosti uopšte. Iako svaka od fotografskih serija predstavlja neki narativ, njihovo puno značenje, ili bolje reći usmerenje, očitava se tek spojem slike i teksta. I to odavno više nije novina. Ali način stvaranja priča jeste. One variraju od režirane situacije, menjanja same forme fotografije u 3D objekat, fikcije, kombinovanja arhivskog materijala i ličnog pa sve do „klasične“ reportaže. I od tog „klasičnog“ pristupa ostao je možda sam način rada: crno-bela fotografija, film, neposredan momenat... dok je kontinuitet fotografija značajno promenjen. Želja da se pričaju priče nije nimalo manje nego pre 20, 50 ili 100 godina. I želja da se gledaju, takođe. Nepresušna ljudska radoznalost i potreba za fikcijom i dalje nas goni da tražimo priče, da ih beležimo i podelimo. Ipak, njihovo linearno, da kažemo logično pripovedanje zamenio je intuitivni tok u kom se mešaju mesta, vreme, akteri, subjektivni doživljaj sa činjeničnim. Atmosfera dominira ne toliko zarad likovnosti (koja je neizbežna i dobrodošla), već zbog dramskog efekta koji nam pomaže da u klupku vizuelnih informacija ispletemo tu neku, sasvim običnu ili pak sasvim neobičnu priču. Možda je medij fotografije postao lakši i dostupniji nego ikad ali komunikacija između gledaoca i fotografske slike bila je i ostala polje saznanja u kom i stvaralac priče i njen gledalac ravnopravno učestvuju, utkajući u nju svoje iskustvo, senzibilitet, kulturu, verske i političke stavove ili prosto svoje godine. Ivana Tomanović
An ever-lasting desire for a story For 18 years, we have been living in 21st century. Many things have already happened, many things have changed. Photography, perhaps, more than any other media. It has certainly lost its aura of particularity by a mere fact that it is omnipresent, produced and shown by us all. It became important as a word as well, though not as precise as the word itself. Hence we frequently view it in alliance with a text that explains, expands, changes, deepens…..the meaning of a photograph, or even better, series of photographs. In contemporary practice of visual arts education, text, theory and narrative are inseparable parts of practical work. That was also proved by the work of participants in the third “New Talents” competition, most of whom are students of photography, media studies and arts, in general. Although each of the photo series represents a narrative, their full meaning, or rather their direction become discernible only by the combination of the image and text. And that is no longer a news, for quite some time now. However, the way the stories are created still is. They vary from a directed situation, changing of the very form of photography into a 3D object, to fiction, combination of the archival material and personal, and ultimately to “classic” reporting. And what has remained from that “classic” approach is, perhaps, only the very way of working: black-white photographs, film, immediate moment…..whilst the continuity of photography has changed significantly. Desire to tell stories has not diminshed compared to 20, 50 or 100 years ago. Neither has the desire to see those stories. Inexhaustable human curiousity and the need for fiction compel us to pursue stories, to record them and share them. Yet, their linear, so to say, logical narrative was replaced by the intuitive flow in which places, time, actors, and subjective impression are all intermingled with the factual one. A dominant atmosphere is not so much due to artistic component (which is inevitable and welcome), as it is due to dramatic effect that is helping us to – in a ball of visual information – knit an ordinary or, whatsmore, quite an extraordinary story. Perhaps the medium of photography has become more easy and accessible than ever before, yet the communication between viewers and photography was, and has remained, a field of knowledge in which a story-maker and its spectator participate equally, weaving into it their entire experience, sensibility, culture, religious and political attitudes, or simply their own age. Ivana Tomanović
BPM NEW TALENTS AWARDED AUTHORS
Adam Żądło POLAND
Adam Żądło, born 6th July 1993 in Poland; studied at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and specialised in animation and photography. Growing up in Pcim (mountain village), he is mixing his life experience from rural world with science and new technologies. At the BPM, Adam will present his series “Deserted village” - a story about animals that seem no longer to be natural in the nature itself, are becoming less and less common in the countryside and do not have their future in our cities. As Adam explained, "their fates show the transformation that takes place on our farm, in the whole village and in our minds".
Miljan Vuletić SERBIA
Miljan Vuletić, born in 1994 in Novi Sad, but currently based in Prague, where he is pursuing his MA in Photography and Time-Based Media at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyne University in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic. At the BPM, Miljan will present his series “Little Monuments”. Photographs used in this exhibition were taken from an album of an unknown Yugoslavian family. By taking a single specimen from within the social system, an ordinary family, the intention is to elevate its private dimension onto the status of public, in the form of a monument.
Nanna Heitmann GERMANY
Nanna Heitmann, born on 14 October 1994 in Ulm, Germany. She is studying photojournalism and documentary photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany. At the BPM, Nanna will present her series "Gone from the window - End of an era". As Nanna explained herself, "Nobody will mourn the over-exploitation of man and nature when the last colliery closes. The warmth of the miners, their traditions and the very special identity of this region are then forever out of the game. This will be missing".
1st PLACE
Adam Żądło Deserted village
“And yet this lack of cows, however rational it may be, gives one the feeling that the fields and meadows, deprived of their phlegmatic, bemusedly ruminating presence, are pitifully empty.” Stanislaw Lem’s THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS – a sci-fi novel from 1971 I grew up on a farm with these animals. Most of them are no longer alive and I wanted to tell their stories. Some of these animals I actually photographed in places where they stuck. The rest were reassembled from my old, family photograph album. „Deserted village” is a story about animals that are no longer at home in nature, and are becoming less and less common in the countryside and do not have their future in our cities. Their fates show the transformation that takes place on our farm, in the whole village and in our minds.
Broken Bridge – Betty the cow (03.2011 - 02.2017) She was born in our stable. At first every attempt to get her out turned into a panicky kicking and a forced march. She was afraid of leaves, wind, birds. Her first delivery was very hard. The vet said that she would not be able to have more calves. This meant that Betty will have less and less milk. After 2 years she developed udder infection and completely lost milk. Nothing can go to waste on a farm. Betty was killed for meat. The grandparents decided that she was their last cow.
A Tree Falls the Way It Leans – Merry the goat (02.2008 - 11.2014) Goats have a temper. Merry was a scamp. One tragic day she wrapped her chain around a tree and suffocated.
The Flood – Lolek the pig (06. 2017 - 12. 2017) Pigs learn fast. Lolek was a fondling. Every morning at the sight of a man entering the stable, he lay down on his back, began to choke and expected that his belly will be stroked with a broom. In the heat, he demanded to be poured with cold water. In 6 months Lolek had grown from 5 to 110 kg. He was killed in December, as meat for Christmas.
Early bird – Bono the cockerel (2014 - 06.2017) Bono was always the first animal that woke up on our farm. With sunrise the cockerel scrambled on the top of the barn to began a day with loud and hoarse „cock-a-doodle-doo”. One day his crowing was brutally ceased. A hawk struck from the sky, seized Bono and carried him into the dark forest.
Stairs Queen (02.2013 – 11.2016) Fable (03.2017 – estimated death: 10.2017) Blacky (02.2014 – ) Teddybeargirl (03.2015 – ) Crazygirl (03.2014 – ) Theo (03.2017 – estimated death: 10.2017) Blackhead (02.2017 – estimated death: 10.2017) There is not many other animals as productive as sheep. They give us wool, milk, meat. Their memoirs are usually short. The pool of names is repeated every 2 years in our case. We already had 2 Queens, 3 Theos, 4 Fables...
Tannery – Elvis the donkey (06.1999 – 01.2014) Elvis was a donkey of our neighbours. Like his owners, Elvis wasn’t young. When his host suddenly died, no one wanted to deal with him. It was impossible to work with this stubborn animal. Nobody wanted to buy him. Elvis lost his skin in a local tannery.
Stray Dog – Sonia the dog (05.2014 –) She has been with us for 3 years. She followed our mom. Little and hungry, she wandered along the road near our farm. She spent her entire life in a human home until one day someone threw her out. Sonia never goes too far away from our farm.
28 Horsepower – Russell the horse (05.2003 –) My grandfather always had a horse. When Sable died (03.1988 - 04.2007) the former duties disappeared and the whole rhythm of the day changed. Sable was replaced by Ursus – a tractor. Not only on our farm. So far I managed to find 4 draft horses in my entire village (5 000 population).
2ND PLACE
MILJAN VULETIć little monuments
The photographs used in this project came from an album of an unknown Yugoslavian family. By taking a single specimen from the social system, a civilian family, and with gestures of folding, piercing and overlapping it’s intended to elevate its private status to a public one, in the form of a monument. This kind of connection imposes a contrast between the singular nature of family photographs and the plurality of public, massive, collective signifiers of social values. Two ends find its parallel in the moment these photographs were made, when their recording and archiving was closer to a ceremony or a ritual; and the culture of monuments, very popular in the ex-Yugoslavia, by which collective tributes were given to people as an anonymous group. In that way these photo-objects function as miniature memorials to an unknown, universal citizen. By the thematic selection they glorify everyday events of his private history and the basic purpose of photography – recording the past, and in representation they critique the practice reserved for cases of great importance. Terms like past, history and memory are questioned through this work with juxtaposition of micro and macro narratives from one vanished social reality.
3RD PLACE
NANNA HEITMANn GONE FROM THE WINDOW - THE END OF AN ERA
It was coal mining, which enabled Germany‘s participation in the industrial revolution and after World War II contributed to the German „Wirtschaftswunder“ and the development of today‘s key industries. That‘s history. Prosper Haniel, the last remaining colliery closes in 2018. Once coal mining attracted countless people from all over Germany and migrant workers from Turkey, Greece and Poland with the hope of a better life. They worked hard in dust and dirt but after work they escaped in their own, lovingly self-created little luck: Swimming pools in the workers‘ housing estates, well-tended allotments and the small pigeon breeding in the attic are typical pastimes. In the guard of honour, the miner‘s club of the last colliery „Prosper Haniel“, the retired pit foremen gather and safeguard their memories and traditions. 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 dust leads to the malignant form of the silicosis. Fortunately, the once widespread miner‘s disease has become much rarer. But in former times you could see the old people 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. The energy transition and ecological restructuring have radically changed the region. Blue skies and landscapes, whose artificial origin on the foundations of the coal and steel industry is hardly recognizable, have brought new quality of life into the Ruhr area. Nobody will mourn the overexploitation of man and nature when the last colliery closes. The warmth of the miners, their traditions and the very special identity of this region are then forever out of the game. This will be missing.
BPM NEW TALENTS 2018. PARTICIPANTS
JoĹĄt Franko Pedro Moreno Emily Garthwaite Dominik Wojciechowski George Selley Natalia Poniatowska Julia Gat
JOST FRANKO SHEPERDS For more than 500 years, a shepherd community has existed on the “Velika Planina” [literally: big pasture] in Slovenia. Today, this tradition is disappearing. The settlement is located only an hour’s drive from the country’s capital city, Ljubljana, but represents another world. On the Velika Planina, 1,600 meters [about 5,200 feet] above sea level, life begins at dawn and finishes at sundown. During the summer months, around 20 families move to the mountains to avoid buying fodder for their cattle in the valley. This way of life has remained more or less the same for the last few hundred years. Now, it seems that it will most likely disappear within a generation, as modernization hits even the most remote parts of Slovenia. In my four years of documenting the community, three families have stopped goading the cattle to the mountains, and they no longer live there during the season. Indeed, in the current economic reality, most shepherds cannot survive solely on farming. Thus, they have taken on other jobs in the valley on weekdays. This means that the settlement is increasingly occupied by older members of the families and their grandchildren, who spend their summer vacations helping them. These pressures mean that this unique culture (and community) is literally disappearing in front of our eyes.
PEDRO MORENO VENEZUELA In May 2016, a group of residents at the IAHULA (main hospital in MÊrida, Venezuela) went on a hunger strike. The fundamental reason: The total decay of the public healthcare system as well as its infrastructure. It had made it impossible for doctors, nurses and general workers to give the necessary service to patients. These residents underwent a hunger strike because they didn't have the essential equipment to deal with the most trivial injuries or diseases. Residents didn’t even have access to basic 0.9% saline solution to cleanse wounds, or even access to a decent provision of sterile gloves to treat a patient. Hence a patient’s relative would have to go to a pharmacy tour all across town just searching for gloves. Since the IAHULA is a public institution, all of these items and medicines have to be provided by the government, considering the fact that almost every public institution is under the administration of the Venezuelan central government. This situation led these residents to such a radical protest. About a week later, after reaching an agreement with the central government, the hunger strike was lifted. A few months later, I headed to the hospital, only to find a health centre in great downfall, a war-torn infrastructure with no actual war. The place itself had become a threat to both workers and patients. This urged me to document the environment these doctors were working in. After spending some months of research and getting to know the residents in the trauma unit, they struck me as true heroes in the midst of all this chaos, and this is how I try to portray them. Not glorifying them, rather featuring them as determined professionals looking to overcome such conditions and still trying to give treatment to a patient. By taking this approach, I create a character audiences can connect with, and by putting themselves in their shoes; I believe people can imagine how would it be to work in such a hostile environment.
Emily Garthwaite Iraq: The Road to Arbaeen Iraq: The Road to Arbaeen follows the journey of the world's largest annual pilgrimage to Karbala, Iraq. The pilgrimage marks the end of a 40-day mourning period following Ashura, the religious ritual that commemorates the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein. Arbaeen is the largest number of people fed for free and largest group of volunteers serving a single event in the world. Millions of pilgrims walk to Iman Hussein's shrine, some walking over 425 miles from Basra. It has been a target for numerous terrorist attacks and remains set against the tense backdrop of the Iraqi geopolitical scene. It has been banned many times, including by Saddam Hussein. Surprisingly, Arbaeen remains almost unknown to the world, and there continues to be widespread criticism of the media blackout surrounding it. Arbaeen offers a truly positive narrative of resilience and faith and one I was proud to witness.
Dominik Wojciechowski Svijet Titular Svijet (World) is an illustrated journal popular in former Yugoslavia, which continued during the breakup of the socialistic federation and after many editorial peripetaias it ended only in 2017. Throughout all the years after 1991 the lifestyle-oriented magazine was an object of memory of irretrievably lost history. It appealed to a stream of perceptions about ”good, old times” contrasted against the rough present and insecure future. From the stream of perceptions there originates another Balkan phenomenon which is yugonostalgia – longing for the past Yugoslavia, socialism, and Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the embodiment of southern Slavs unity myth. My series of photography concerns phenomenon of yugonostalgia and the end of „Yugoslavian Svijet” – the common socialist homeland from before the Balkan warfare. It is a visual story about identity disorientation of natives from countries developed after the breakup of the communist federation. It is a record of the situation in which people born and raised in the country of Tito nowadays have emotional problems with perceiving themselves through the clear ethnical prism. A Serb from Serbia, who regards themself as a Serb from Yugoslavia (it concerns also Croatians or the other post-Yugoslav nations), experiences divided loyalties. But not only does Yugonostalgia appeal to the past. It is also strongly connected to the present when national revival policy is so unsuccessful that it is common to restore old myths and put them on a pedestal in order to shift attention away from the uncertain here and now.
George Selley Vault 7 These photographs “stage” the steps of a top-secret CIA document given to covert agents arriving in Frankfurt - where the CIA’s Centre for Cyber Intelligence Europe branch is based. The document was released by wikileaks in April 2017 as part of Vault 7 - the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the CIA. The leak comprised of 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Centre for Cyber Intelligence. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. But these documents also reveal something else, something perhaps even more interesting than the cyber capabilities of the CIA – they provide a telling insight into the culture among the agency, of the normality and ordinariness of the people that work and operate there. They reveal an almost absurd level of banality, a culture so far flung from our Hollywood influenced; idealised perceptions of what it is to be a “spy”. I decided to travel to Frankfurt and follow the guidelines, as if I was a covert agent myself. Through my photographs, I aim to present and play on the absurdity that the documents reveal; to challenge our conceptions of contemporary espionage - evoking systems of power through the representation of the banal and blending narratives of fact and fiction. The captions are unedited excerpts from the released document, “directing” each individual photograph.
Natalia Poniatowska Celebration Celebration is a project that came to live naturally or even surprisingly during my third-year of study at the Glasgow School of Art when I have been working a lot as an event photographer to support my art career. As I have been busy with events, I had no time to make a project for a group exhibition. Instead, I thought I would search through my hard drive and commercial shots and try to find at least one good picture I could print for the show. When searching for that one photograph I’ve noticed something quite interesting. I was capturing the moments that were not really about celebrating the events themselves. The function room corners, where no one is dancing became almost like an empty theater sets and the feeling that if I would just slightly move my camera I would capture a big group of people dancing or eating, was something that fascinates me about photography. The ability to present the situation within one frame, with no sound, with no description about what’s happening next to it. Just one frame, for the viewer’s imagination, to make a story of the moment. I’ve been noticing that while taking pictures of kids during the big events, like the photographs of a girl lying down next to the buffet – taken on her parent's wedding renewal. But these photographs were not showing kids having fun or dancing, but escaping into their own fantasy, careless, doing whatever they want to do.
Julia Gat Unschooling Unschooling is a personal long-term project documenting the alternative education method I experienced while growing up. Unschooling embraces the individual’s initiative regarding their education and advocates learner-chosen activities. In comparison with the fixated structures of traditional education, unschoolers believe the more personal the learning process is, the more meaningful, coherent and useful it is to the child. Growing up unschooled with 4 younger siblings allowed me to pursue my passion for photography as young as 13 years old, documenting our daily life, and within the unschoolers community in both France and Israel. This year, with the professional guidance of SOFIA (Society of Females in Art) Mentorship Program 2017-2018, I aim to expand and deepen my exploration through documenting yearly gatherings of homeschool families happening around the world. The last meeting I documented was in Israel in September 2017 and my next one is in Greece in April 2018. With this project, I hope to contribute to the discussion about the power of art as a catalyst for positive change. Through engagement in active observation on the unschooling community, I choose to focus on what one would like to see in the world, rather than what needs to change. Through my personal perspective, I seek to support this ongoing revolution and to give outsiders a glimpse into the uninhibited and exciting world of unschooling. Within the Forecast Forum, I’d like to present the project as an exhibition, accompanied by filmed interviews of unschoolers and education researchers, while for the Forecast Festival, it will take the form of a book comprised of photographs, texts and interviews. An additional option would be organising a conference on alternative education models.
IMPRESSUM: Digital Grain, digital magazine showcasing street and documentary photography. Special Issue, April 2018. Editor: Igor ÄŒoko Publisher: GRAIN, Husinskih rudara3/11 11060 Belgrade, SERBIA www.grain.rs www.issuu.com/digitalgrain https://www.facebook.com/grainphotomagazine/ Instagram: @grain_magazine E mail: magazin.grain@gmail.com Copyright: Using photographs from Grain magazine is not allowed without autors permission. Photographs are protected and alowed to use just for Grain magazine purpose.
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