My project, One Day in History, is portraying the youth to survive the massacre on a political
summer camp on the island of Utdøya in Norway, 22nd of July 2011. 69 young people were killed.
Around 500 children and youth survived. Many were badly wounded. They had seen friends,
brothers or sisters being shot and managed to escape the terrorists by swimming or hiding for
hours. I decided to travel around Norway to portray the survivors when they were back in
their home environments. The adolescence is a time of dreams, aspirations and fantasies. I wanted
to find out what happens to a teenager's life when everyday issues are replaced by the fear of
being shot, the loss of friends and siblings, nightmares and physical injuries. My project,
Brotherhood of Bears, is about my intimate relationship with the gay bear subculture,
whose members represent a mature and masculine homosexual embodiment. The bear brotherhood
is a strong bond of gay men who cast aside traditional gender conventions, challenge
heteronormative society and question hegemonic masculinity. For well over a decade, I have
been an insider within the bear subculture, yet I often view myself as an outsider because I
do not have a physical resemblance of a gay bear man. My role as a photographer embodies this
ambivalent stance, as my interest in documenting bears necessitates both access and attachment
from this community. This body of work has become an affirmation of my inclusion in the bear
subculture, substantiated by my interpreting, analyzing and understanding these men and their
sexual identities, which are much like my own. My project to conquer her land is about India's
first female soldiers of the border security armed force, who deployed an India-Pakistan
border of Punjab until the first line of control in Kashmir. I followed the women from different
parts of the country, cast background, from their last days at home to the barracks, through
training camps and to active duty, documenting the transformation from women to soldiers.
Stationed on a critical border, patrolling barren lands, they have come to terms with
new responsibilities. The transformation is intense. It is impossible to recreate or restore
what they have left behind. Indian women in the forces are battling a largely patriarchal
society too. The BSF is a military force, while some women join simply as a way to earn money,
others enlist to escape the constraints of family life. In to conquer her land, I have
tried to humanize these complex, yet intricate issues of poverty, conflict, psychological
warfare, youth, gender, love, patriotism and unfamiliar level of stress. An account of
how these women come face to face with the truth of conflict and the realities of living
the life of a young, good soldier.
My project Liquid Serpent is about the constant transformation of the Amazon rainforest. It's
an ongoing project that started in 2011 and so far I've made three different trips to
Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. The first trip was to the Napa region in Ecuador rainforest
and the work was mainly focused on environmental issues. I questioned the work of oil companies
and how they affected the life of people who live in the area. In the second trip I went
to the Benio region in Bolivia, where religious syncretism is happening since the end of 17th
century, when first Jesus arrived to that region. The third and last trip so far was
to the city of Iquitos, in the Peruvian rainforest. The key subject was the development of this
Amazonian city. Since it was declared as one of the seven natural wonders of the world
in 2011, global attention is newly aimed at the Amazon rainforest, revitalizing the discourse
about the practice employed in the area. The historic moment consolidates an extractive
model with a progressive acculturation of the indigenous communities that need for medicine,
machetes and batteries for their lanterns, generating processes of radical transformation
of their native culture. In this transformation of life's course, gradual but constant, the
Amazon also modifies that which draws close to her.
Lost is a long-term project about missing persons in Poland. This project brings images
of 16 rooms, 16 portraits and 16 letters to highlight the plight of those who are missed
and those who missed them. With the support of the Itaka Foundation, I was put in touch
with families who agreed to take part in this project. From May 5 to September 25, 2012,
I traveled 7,000 kilometers around the country to photograph the empty rooms of these missing
people. Each family also gave me a handwritten letter addressed to the missing loved one.
The project blast is a symbiosis of two interpretations, one strictly documentary and the other personal,
artist's voice. The first act is a series of empty spaces that I visited. Often, the rooms
of the missing lost ones are left untouched for several months, years or even decades.
The second act is a collection of portraits of the missing people, this time captured in
a very individual and subjective way. The 16 portraits are differentiated by the sharpness
of focus. Often, it's not possible to recall information or associations, which is testament
to the slow but inevitable process of forgetting.
My project Fashion Victims, Other People's Clothes deals with the working conditions
in India's textile industry. My mission for this work is to raise awareness of the miserable working
conditions in the world's largest democracy, with its widening gap between rich and poor
and its lacking social mobility. I want to connect these social grievances to our daily
consumption and thus draw the beholder's attention to our responsibility in a globalized world.
The principle still applies that clothes make the men, but men and women who make the clothes for
other people are often left behind. While India's growing middle class is chasing the latest trends,
the greedy tiger is chewing its working class for the benefit of the economic prosperity.
My project Wolfskinder explores the causes and effects of an institutionalized life on young
adults. In recent years, the German youth welfare service has been confronted with a growing number
of teenagers who cannot cope with life, mostly due to their biographical background and the pressure
of a modern-day society. Joys of career, tensions within the peer group, or lack of love and care
are just some factors. The results vary from antisocial behavior up to criminal offenses,
which often leads to attract the attention of the youth welfare office. Besides hinting at the
lack of care, the title Wolfskinder, German for Feral Children, alludes to the common practice
to send troubled teenagers to remote areas to get them away from a mostly urban background.
Through documents, letters and other fragments of their life, the viewer gets the opportunity
to catch a glimpse of the difficulties of teenage life within the institutions.
My mission for this work is to question the common practice of the youth welfare system in
Germany and abroad and try to initiate a shift towards a more holistic approach.
Instead of repeating one-dimensional headlines and common stereotypes,
I want to give the teenagers a voice that they otherwise don't have.
The project is all about the tidal flood that affected the Chitigong city and the coastal area
of Bangladesh, and this tidal flood is causing the gradually rising of sea levels.
I've been working on this project for the last couple of years, where my house is also affected
by this tidal flood and my area was inundating twice a day, most of the time, and it's still
happening, and the tidal flood is rising day by day, and the water is inundating all the
houses and shops and everywhere of the area, so it's affecting the people heavily, and maybe
those areas, or some low-lying areas, and the people of those areas,
staying from their roots in a couple of years to come.
This is the story of 14-year-old Soni Man, one of seven siblings born to her mother Wanda,
all living on welfare. The day I met her, she told me of her aspirations to become a judge.
Today, as she raises a child with her 13-year-old boyfriend, Aramis, those plans seem uncertain.
My project Caserio is a portrait of a family deeply submerged in the social cycles of poverty
that affect many living on the US territory. Just under half of the island's population
is on federal welfare, and my mission for this work is to add a human face to the
public housing communities known as Caserios, which is the Spanish word for hamlets.
These communities arrive with drug violence, lack access to quality education,
and face severe employment discrimination. Working on the first photojournalistic
documentation of Caserios, I hope to chip away at the physical and social walls placed around
these communities by a society seemingly eager to turn a blind eye.
My project trapped documents of life and conditions of prisoners with mental illness
in American prisons. I spent three months inside of a mental health unit at the Kentucky
State Reformatory. My intention wasn't necessarily to show how terrible prison life is at that institution,
but rather how ill-equipped prisons are for the mentally ill. Since the 1960s,
there's been a decrease in funding for mental health treatment in our communities,
and over time, prisons have become the default mental health hospitals. Now,
many people with mental illness find refuge in treatment for the first time in the prison system,
one that is not properly equipped for this population. Unfortunately,
because it is a prison, security is their main objective, and treatment becomes secondary.
Mental illness has become an increasingly important issue in the U.S.
due to recent mass shootings, prison incarceration rates, and the health care crisis in America.
My hope is that this project triggers a dialogue not about prison reform necessarily,
but about the mental health crisis in America.
This project that you're seeing now, A Woman's War, is a three-year-long journey about women who've
been actively involved in conflict all around the world. I've photographed it in five countries
since 2010, including Bangladesh, Bosnia, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam,
and it now includes the photographs and testimonies of over 100 women. The work seeks to provide a new,
more nuanced, more individual narrative on women in conflict, one that recognizes the range of
ways that women have been involved in war, including as soldiers or as spies, as peacekeepers,
organizers, or rape survivors. It looks to create a narrative that does not solely reduce women to
passive victims, but instead recognizes the multiplicity of roles that they have played,
and it's told through the words and through the faces of the women themselves.
My project Picture You Picture Me is a collaborative portrait project with my daughter,
Lisa. As my muse, her curiosity led her to stand on the other side of the camera,
and eventually led her to taking more and more control over me as a subject and of the images
taken. By directing each other through role play and instructions, we decide how the other stands,
which direction to face, and even facial expressions, creating a playful environment
where the camera becomes more than an artistic tool, but an instrument of amusement. The images
are almost secondary to the experience, a fortunate byproduct of the session shared.
My mission for this work is to explore themes such as creative collaboration,
child autonomy, trust, and the relationship between subject and photographer.
As a child with Down syndrome, visual communication has always been key to
Lisa's development. This is our family album, one where I can see Lisa grow as well as take
ownership of her life and the camera. The project will continue to evolve as Lisa's visual language
naturally develops, and will continue on until she either loses the desire to be the subject
or no longer wants me in the picture.
My project, Shane and Maggie, seeks to take a deeper, unflinching look at domestic abuse as a
process as opposed to a single incident. I'm examining how a pattern of abuse develops and
eventually crests, as well as its short and long-term effects on victims, their families,
and the abusers. Domestic violence is a largely invisible crime. We usually only hear it muffled
through walls, and we usually only see it manifested in the faded yellow and purple bruises
of a woman who walked into a wall or fell down the stairs. It's rarely limited to one event,
and it rarely stops. Maggie asked me to publish these photos to tell her story. She feels that
they could potentially help somebody escape the same situation she was in. She told me,
women need to understand that this can happen to them. I never thought it could happen to me,
but it could. Shane was like a fast car. When you're driving, you think I might get pulled over
and get a ticket, but you never think you're going to crash.
My project Goodbye My Chechnya is about young girls coming of age in the aftermath of war.
My mission for this piece was to reveal a more intimate perspective on the lives of young girls
who are growing up in a republic that's redefining itself as an Islamic state. For young girls in
Chechnya, the most innocent acts could mean breaking the rules. A couple holding hands in
public is punishable. Rumors of a girl having sex before marriage will often end in an honor
killing. The few girls who dare to rebel, whether by religion, music, or style of dress,
are often punished. The Chechen president himself has publicly stated that women are property of
their husbands and their main role is to bear children. This piece aims to document the resiliency
of ordinary girls in the aftermath of war.
Thank you.
