Discover upcoming photography talent during Take Off #4
Photograph © Rick van de Klooster from his series: A Conversation between the Mountain and the River
Would you like to see new work of upcoming talent? Put this event in your agenda! On June 9 2022 at 1:00 PM CET (UTC+1) the 4th edition of the FOTODOK Take Off will take place: an online event in which recently graduated international photographers pitch their projects in no more than 3 minutes per person. The participating photographers were selected in 2021 via talent program Blurring the Lines.
Join the event via this Zoom Link.
Blurring the Lines is an international program for recently graduated photographers, founded by Klaus Früchtnis and Steve Bisson. FOTODOK is an important partner within Blurring the Lines. Each year Lisanne van Happen, head of talent development takes part in the jury, is involved as a Boardmember of the organization and we support and produce different parts of the Blurring the Lines program such as Take Off. For Blurring the Lines 2021, 50 artists were selected who graduated from 38 different art academies worldwide. These upcoming artists now have the opportunity to participate in this FOTODOK Take Off #4. And you have the opportunity to meet them and get to know their work.
FOTODOK Take Off is an online event with the goal to connect emerging artists, to an interesting group of international experts such as curators, producers, graphic designers, publishers, editors, gallery owners etc. During the FOTODOK Take Off, each photographer is given a maximum of 3 minutes to pitch their project. This can be their graduation project or a new project they are working on. The number of participants will determine how long this event will last. Via the FOTODOK website experts can get in contact if they have additional questions, comments or would like to talk more. We will share information of all participating artists below. If you would like direct contact information such as an email address or phone number please send an email to lisanne@fotodok.org.
Would you like to join the Take Off #4? Send an RSVP to lisanne@fotodok.org with your name and, if relevant for the photographers, your profession. You will receive the Zoom link after your registration.
Participating photographers
Raúl Armando Jiménez Jiménez
Project title: COME EAT MY BODY
Project description: I fear of disappearing: becoming a casualty by an emptying force growing inside me and everyone else. There is an influence, an unknown entity that replaces my tissues with undeterminable materials, desperation and pain. It relegates the ill and the fragile to a vanishing situation, turning them into socially acceptable, invisible people. These images are born from the simplest universal fear: When does the flesh that holds us, will corrupt and transform, beyond our will? I make these photographs because they’re me, I refuse to become invisible.
Located: Mexico
Website: www.laong.org/raul-jimenez/
Rick van der Klooster
Project title: A Conversation between the Mountain and the River
Project description: A long term photographic project taking places in the western Alps of Austria. Dealing with the loss of a loved one and finding this back in the landscape that reminds me most of her. It shows how nature can give you back something that you’ve lost in a way. Preserving the landscape also means it can carry on something or someone you’ve lost.
Located: Netherlands
Website: www.rickvanderklooster.com
Austin Cullen
Project title: A Natural History (Built to be Seen)
Project description: A Natural History (Built to be Seen) is a series of photographic observations of the spectacular and absurd ways the western natural world is presented in museums. As someone who grew up visiting natural history museums, I’ve always been fascinated by the extravagant ways museums framed the American landscape. Dramatic dioramas, interactive virtual experiences, and miniaturized landscapes all act as windows into the natural world. While this framing acts as a guide for reading and understanding nature, the same frame can be analyzed to understand the complex and ever-changing relationship between people and land.
Located: United States
Website: www.austincullen.com
Suzannah Gabriel
Project title: Black Hurts
Project description: Black Hurts is an investigation into the double consciousness and liminality experienced by black British young adults in London. The subjects were found on Instagram, interviewed via Zoom and then photographed. The styling, words that were hand embroidered onto the prints were all informed by the interviews. The final outcome was a PDF book (looking to print and publish) and a selection of A3 prints.
Located: UK
Website: www.suzannahgabriel.com
Insta: Instagram.com/suzzyparlaa
Alexander Komenda
Project title: Jove’s Palace
Project description: Jove’s Palace examines the relationship between the day-to-day and the fortuitous nature of the Cold War. The uranium extracted from Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, was reportedly utilized for the creation of the first atomic bomb for the Soviet nuclear program. Its inaugural manifestation recalls Homer’s Iliad ‘two urns’ in Jove’s palace containing good and evil gifts; a duality equally contingent to atomic energy as to Pandora’s box. The Soviet Union is not singled out as the villain, rather exemplifying its imperial manifestations and exploitative institutional mechanisms that exist as a ubiquitous pattern that remain widespread in our contemporary world.
Located: Finland
Website: www.alexanderkomenda.com/jove-s-palace
Pavo Marinovic
Project title: Marble Ass
Project description: “Marble Ass” contributes to photographic research on how masculinities are constructed in post-conflict societies and addresses the existing archetype in the former Yugoslavia, nowadays the Balkans. The installation reveals not only the role of a territory in political transition but also its history, heritage and inter-generational transmission. The fragmentation of the image allows forms to be remodelled and exposes how humans are shaped by their cultural environment. At the same time the collages create a space of redefined narratives.
Located: France
Website: https://pavomarinovic.com/personal/marble-ass
Irina Dmitrovskaya
Project title: Don’t look at pink
Project description: I’m thinking about sexuality and queer sexuality. Are there differences, and if so, what are they? In the country I live in, queer identity is referred to as immoral, unacceptable, at best people would advise not to tell anyone who you are. As I think about queerness, I take pictures of myself and my partner. At the same time, “they” look at me and see me as different, distinctive, inappropriate. Meanwhile, love is the only thing I notice.
Located: Kazakhstan
Website: https://irinadmitrovskaya.com/en
Cora Sun
Project title: Journey to Home
Project description: Journey to Home examines the personal connections with the urban change of my hometown Chuxiong, a small city in southwest China, it illustrates the story of the city, people, and memory metaphorically. Through Journey to Home, I ask and attempt to answer the fundamental question, is this change indicative of a denial of the past or a bright new future of the Chinese Dream?
Located: Hungary
Website: www.cora-sun.com
Assaf Hinden
Project title: A Parallel Chronicle
Project description: The project corresponds with a peculiar historical event in the art market: In September 1937, the extensive art collection of a Jewish philanthropist and art collector from Hamburg was put up for forced-auction in Nazi Germany against her will. Until today many pieces are missing. In order to intervene and respond to the event and to its documents, I delved into the archives together with the researcher of the collection’s provenance, which is working on reclaiming the artworks to this day. I sampled, manipulated and reconstructed archival materials digitally (in the form of Collages and 3D modeling), and integrated my original photography works. By doing so, the project explores different themes surrounding source and evolution of art. It confronts different questions regarding the role of the archive, preservation, and the manipulation of images and thus of meanings.
Located: Israel
Website: https://www.assafhinden.com/aparallelchronicle
Isha Gahlot
Project title: Re
Project description: Being both a form of knowledge and an agent of imagination, memory serves as a key to the emotional understanding of ourselves and the world. Through this project, I have sought to explore the themes concerning the construction of memory, the nature of memory, remembering and forgetting.
Located: India
Website: https://ishagahlot.wixsite.com/re-thememoryimage
Milah van Zuilen
Project title: Fieldwork
Project description: Both as a visual artist and forest ecologist in training, Milah van Zuilen (1998) aims to bend the fields of art and ecology closer towards each other. Reflecting on people’s urge to understand, shape and neatly organize landscapes, she gathers and rearranges leaves and other plant material during fieldwork. Central in her work is the shape of the square, which, to her, characterizes the human perspective and presence in the landscape.
Located: Netherlands
Website: www.milahvanzuilen.com
Anna Gajewszky
Project title: In the search for Venus
Located: Hungary
Website: https://www.behance.net/gajewszkyanna
Vaghinak Ghazaryan
Project title: Contused space
Project description: It was Sunday, September 27, 2020, when the Armenian-Azerbaijani war broke out 2 years ago. Life was divided into “before” and “after”. The present resembled a dismantled reality. The issues I got concerned about during my documenting activities transformed into the reason to cover post-war traumas as well, the unknown present that we seek to coexist with today.
Located: Armenia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vaghinakghazaryan/
Alysha Magro
Project title: Deeper than thirst
Project description: An immersive and interactive multimedia installation that explores the human connection to water that runs ”deeper than thirst”.
Located: Australia
Website: https://www.alyshamagro.com/deeper-than-thirst
Jana Rothe
Project title: Name to be determined
Located: Deutschland
Website: janarothe.com
