We came from different worlds | Interview with Zuza Krajewska
'There’s a characteristic sense of self-consciousness when we look at things that are outside of our idealized world of perfection as it has been formulated by the media, where there’s little room for people’s true stories, their bodies, emotions, where showing your true self is often considered a sign of weakness. I like to make the viewer feeling a bit uncomfortable and observing their reaction.'
Emerging Talent | Petar Petrov
'I feel very attracted to the idea of memories. My own, other people’s, places that have that 'look' when you feel certain electricity in the air and you know that significant events have taken place there. Even if they are not historically significant, most certainly they are personally significant to someone.'
Listen to the Space | Interview with Alena Zhandarova
'I wouldn’t want my photos to be read superficially, so that the mind would cling to a familiar link and say ‘Okay, now everything is clear.’ I don’t want everything to be clear, I don’t want it to be understandable, because you can understand something only with your mind, and I want the viewer to turn it off and feel.'
Video Installation 'Moscow-NYC' by Naum Medovoy as Part of Skip Intro
We're excited to announce our screening of the video installation 'Moscow - NYC' by artist and filmmaker Naum Medovoy
(b. 1937, Odessa), which was presented as part of his exhibition 'The Last March' last year at the Moscow MOMA.
Naum Medovoy (b. 1937, Odessa) is an artist and documentary filmmaker. He’s perhaps best known for his 1973 film 'The Missing' ('The Last March'), which combines World War II archival photographs and film from the Central Documentary Archive, located near Moscow, with his own 35mm footage to reveal the fate of Soviet soldiers in World War II, captured as prisoners of war. Soviet surrender codes at the time stipulated it was better to die than be held in enemy captivity, thus large swaths of servicemen in camps were deemed missing in action and left to die. When they did return to the USSR, they were considered traitors and sent to Gulag work camps. These men are considered something of a lost generation.
SKIP INTRO - Images preserve traces
The form of a photograph, analog or digital, contains traces of its existence from the moment of its creation. Through these five positions SKIP INTRO attempts to explore different ways in which the multidimensionality of real life experience is being mirrored through the physical form of an image.
The form of a photograph, analog or digital, contains traces of its existence from the moment of its creation. Through the following five positions SKIP INTRO attempts to explore different ways in which the multidimensionality of real life experience is being mirrored through the physical form of an image. How does the photographer’s context become tangible through the choice of a photographic technique? What does an image tell the viewer about the context it was created in or the identity of its photographer? Images preserve traces – residual impressions caused by the presence of an object.
Pershe Veresnya by Gorsad Kiev
Gorsad Kiev are three photographers devoted to exploring the raw identity of today’s Ukrainian youth. 'Pershe Veresnya', 1st of September in Ukrainian, is about the day we go to school. In these analog portraits we see kids, characters from the suburbs of Kiev, often appearing inside undefined interiors and illuminated by a flash. Although unpolitical, these explorations speak subtly of the context they were created in, a European country that has been torn by conflict for years. Gorsad’s is a creative power, which aims at destroying moral untruths through their straight forward explorations of the uninhibited youth of their city. “We are not adults, but not children anymore.”
Gorsad Kiev are three photographers devoted to exploring the raw identity of today’s Ukrainian youth.
Cicha Woda by Piotr Pietrus
Piotr Pietrus is a Polish-born photographer who has lived in many different countries and is now based in Berlin. Guided by a search for ephemeral flashes in our fast-paced life he’s collecting images, that once combined, create their own narrative; a visual atlas of some sort of magic that is quietly moving just below the surface.
Guided by a search for ephemeral flashes in our fast-paced life Piotr Pietrus is collecting images, that once combined, create their own narrative; a visual atlas of some sort of magic that is quietly moving just below the surface.
NA4JOPM8 by Igor Chekachkov
For Igor Chekachkov ‘NA4JOPM8’ is an attempt to accept the destruction of his ten-year archive, both personal and professional, which happened when his hard disk with 250 000 images on it had a malfunction. When it was repaired, all images appeared mixed together, which resulted in new images, all marked by digital artefacts. Unexpectedly, this loss allowed the Kharkiv born photographer to realize the artistic task he had set himself for several years - to associate in a single photographic work the intimate with the public. "During the events of the Maidan I had strong feelings. I wanted to make such a work, where there is not only Maidan or AntiMaidan, but a coherent representation of what it is to be a part if it."
When his hard drive broke down, Igor Chekachkov lost ten years of work, including reportage, artistic and personal photography.
I Give You My Face Portrait by Tihomir Stoyanov | Imaginary Archive
'I Give You My Face Portrait' project takes us back to a forgotten tradition of giving each other photos with messages. In today’s digital world, these precious memories that people used to keep in their wallets prove unnecessary. This project includes 24 portraits which Tihomir Stoyanov selected among hundreds of similar photos found at the flea market. These photos were taken in the period between 1930 and 1991.
I Give You My Face Portrait Project takes us back to a forgotten tradition of giving each other photos with messages.
YatFTIL by Svitlana Levchenko
'In my childhood, I often heard you are not beautiful, you are pretty’ says Odessa-born Svitlana Levchenko and continues ‘I grew up with this knowledge and it became an indisputable axiom.’
In most cultures today, women are defined by their external beauty and the perception of female identity is being continuously distorted by a complex set of traditions, expectations, stereotypes and taboos. As women, we perceive how we’re being perceived and subconsciously impose outside limitations on our bodies and inner selves. In her recent work YatFTIL (You Are The Fear That I Lost) Odesssa-born Svitlana Levchenko looks deeper into these self-imposed prisons we create for ourselves through a series of visual metaphors and self-portraits.