REVOLUTIONARY. IN EVERY WAY - Female in Focus
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Capital culture: Photo London, How do women photograph Laia Abril, Zuza Krajewska, Peckham 24 and Prix Pictet women differently to men? Endia Beal, Riposte magazine Established 1854 Female Gaze REVOLUTIONARY. IN EVERY WAY. Issue 7859 May 2017 Change the game with the E-M1 Mark II. It is a powerful, precise and high-speed OM-D which $19.99 perfectly meets the needs of photographers. Even in combination with a super-telephoto M.ZUIKO FEMALE GA ZE UK £9.99 CAN/NZ $22.99 US/AUS DIGITAL lens, it keeps you light on your feet throughout any photo assignment and with its US/ weatherproof construction, anywhere in the world. The PRO Service dedicated to professionals ensures you are free to focus on what you do best: taking inspiring photos. NEW PERSPEC TIVES FROM Find out more at your local dealer or visit www.olympus.co.uk T H E S E L F I E G E N E R AT I O N
Editor’s Introduction Female Gaze The leading source of inspiration and insight into cutting-edge contemporary photography. How do women photograph women differently to men? It’s one of theGet questions we asked 12 issues Charlotte of BJP Jansen, with our a London-based no-risk, writer and full back money guarantee* curator who is the author of the recently published Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze. She argues that as more female photographers get behind the camera and find their audience directly through social media, it will have an effect on the way we see women. Put another way, as women gain more control of how they are represented, they change how women are perceived. “Photography is an expression of power,” writes Jansen in our cover story. “The photographic act is often viewed as an assertion of masculine dominance; a predatory point- and-shoot action.” What is more contentious is the extent to which women bring a ‘female gaze’ to the subject. The phrase was first used in opposition to the ‘male gaze’, a term coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in the 1970s to define the dominant masculine point of view, in which women are presented Photo © Fredrik Lerneryd as objects of male pleasure. However, many didn’t like the idea of a female gaze defined by its male counterpart, or argued that women couldn’t simply disengage from the influences of society and were as likely to objectify female bodies as men. Jansen says the current generation of women photographing men are different to the second-wave feminists of the 1970s. “It’s harder for women photographers working now to move against the CALLING ALL STUDENTS DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES patriarchal system because wherever you put your pictures, you are invariably consumed by that system,” she writes. But despite the fact AND GRADUATES 08 MAY 2017 that women are expected to conform with or counter the male gaze, EXHIBIT YOUR WORK BJPBREAKTHROUGH.COM she says, “they see the world differently – in just as muchwww.bjpsubs.com colour and GET FEATURED IN BJP nuance. We are beginning to see that world, everywhere we look”. Simon Bainbridge, SAVE PROMO CODE: MAY17A MEET INDUSTRY EXPERTS LAUNCH YOUR CAREER Supported by Editor 37% Introduction: May 2017 3
36 50 76 68 Photo © Fredrik Lerneryd JUDGES INCLUDE EMMA LEWIS ASSISTANT CURATOR, TATE MODERN CALLING ALL STUDENTS DIANA MARKOSIAN Featured 36 – 49 50 – 66 I'll be your mirror Lost boys PHOTOGRAPHER, MAGNUM PHOTOS AND GRADUATES Charlotte Jansen explores the work of the new generation of women artists In breaking away from her usual work in commercial fashion, Zuza Krajewska EMMA BOWKETT and photographers who are thriving spent a year uncovering the sensitive DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY, FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE in the image-saturated world of social media, and asks whether this will be a and, at times, tragic backstory of 32 teenage boys growing up in a youth MONDAY 08 MAY 2017 catalyst for a new era of the female gaze. detention centre near Warsaw. VIVIENNE GAMBLE 68 – 75 76 – 81 DIRECTOR, SEEN FIFTEEN GALLERY & PECKHAM 24 BJPBREAKTHROUGH.COM Am I what you're looking for? Endia Beal taps into the unwritten codes Secret history Approaching provocative issues MAISIE SKIDMORE of the corporate ‘look’ in a work that to expose challenges faced by ONLINE EDITOR, ANOTHER combines testimonies and portraits vulnerable women around the world, to expose prejudices and judgements Laia Abril gives an insight into her LISA FARRELL women of colour experience in an office workplace. new project on misogyny, starting with On Abortion. HEAD OF EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS, Supported by BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY Featured: May 2017 5
Index WATCH THE XMT BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO NOW Projects 23 Lena Mucha captures life for female army cadets in Nagorno-Karabakh. 26 Tania Franco Klein explores the culture of convenience in her autobiographical project Our Life in the Shadows. 30 Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup mixes archival and digitally manipulated images to question notions of reality. 16 – 19 ©Steve Brown - stevebrowncreative.com Features 36 Charlotte Jansen looks at the ways in which female photographers choose to represent women in their work. 50 Zuza Krajewska takes a 38 – 39 deeper view of youthful male vulnerability in her record of a Polish correctional institute for troubled boys. 68 Endia Beal examines gender and race in the corporate world. Unmatched 76 Laia Abril delves into the history of misogyny with her project On Abortion. Intelligence 86– 87 Creative 83 Discovering a little-known collection of Irving Penn's early work. 86 Creative Brief: Shaz Madani is Freedom the co-founder and art director Agenda of women's magazine Riposte. 10 Photo London returns for its third, and biggest, edition. Technology 14 South London's upstart 89 Focusing on the latest 24-hour photofestival lenses announced at CP+ in Peckham 24. Yokohama, along with new Generation X is a revolutionary and uncompromising range of flash products from Bowens that has been engineered for speed, reliability and cutting edge 16 The seventh edition of the glass from Irix and Nikkor. design. The XMT500 all-in-one battery flash is an unrivalled location system annual Prix Pictet launches at designed to provide photographers with limitless creative opportunities. London's V&A with a shortlist Archive of photographers exploring 98 Lise Straatsma's use of Includes TTL, HSS, Strobe mode (up to 100 flashes), 2.4GHz radio control, the theme of Space with survivalist video tutorials and Lithium-ion battery (500 full power flashes), integrated reflector, easy-open Twitter.com/BowensFlash diverse and surprising work. her own research materials and quick-lock angle adjustment latch, foldaway stand mount. Facebook.com/BowensFlash 20 Any Answers: mix order and chaos to Instagram.com/BowensFlash Anders Petersen. intriguing effect. 90 – 91 6 Index: May 2017 Bowens.co.uk
Contributors Zuza Krajewska One of the standout fashion and commercial Editorial Director Simon Bainbridge Digital Editor photographers in Eastern Europe, the Gdansk Diane Smyth Capital culture: Photo London, How do women photograph Laia Abril, Zuza Krajewska, Peckham Twenty-Four and Prix Pictet women differently to men? Endia Beal, Riposte magazine Academy of Fine Arts graduate has produced Lead Feature Writer Tom Seymour Established 1854 work that has appeared in Elle, Harper’s Assistant Editor Bazaar and InStyle, to name but a few. Izabela Radwanska Zhang However, her featured project, Imago, set in a Creative Director Polish youth detention centre, belongs to the Mick Moore other side of her more personal documentary Senior Designer Nicky Brown practice. “I did it for the people living in Poland, Contributors also for the kids, so they could learn that life Rob Alderson, Gerry Badger, Taco Hidde can be cruel,” she says. The project is a step in Bakker, Kathy Ball, Emma Bowkett, Laurence Butet-Roch, David Campany, a new direction for Krajewska, whose previous Federica Chiocchetti, Lucy Davies, work has addressed stereotypes of gender, Damien Demolder, Martin Evening, Paul Fairclough, Marc Feustel, Jessica marginalised groups and the nude. $19.99 FEMALE GA ZE Gordon, Michael Grieve, Peter Hamilton, UK £9.99 CAN/NZ $22.99 US/AUS US/ NEW PERSPEC TIVES FROM T H E S E L F I E G E N E R AT I O N zuzakrajewska.com Lauren Heinz, Charlotte Jansen, David Kilpatrick, Richard Kilpatrick, Stephen McLaren, Donatella Montrone, Female Gaze issue Charlotte Jansen Gemma Padley, Colin Pantall, Juan Peces, Rachel Segal Hamilton, Maisie Skidmore, May 2017 A British Sri Lankan journalist and editor-at- Shana Ting Lipton, Eliza Williams, Paul Issue 7859, Volume 164 large of Elephant magazine, Jansen writes Wombell, Sophie Wright, Sonia Zhuravlyova Cover about contemporary art and culture for Editorial Enquiries Untitled, from Like a Stone series editorial@bjphoto.co.uk © Pinar Yolacan. The Guardian, Vice, Wallpaper*, Wallpaper* Artsy and Sales Enquiries Contemporary Art Review LA, among others, sales@apptitudemedia.co.uk and also runs the art agency No Way. She is Head of Commercial the author of Girl On Girl Girl, a new photography Pax Zoega book made under the female gaze, which Commercial Campaign Manager Ameena Rojee she deconstructs in this month’s issue. “I’ve Marketing Director learnt that photography is very important Marc Ghione as a transformative social tool, and that this Head of Exhibitions & Events moment is particularly important for women, Lisa Farrell More Photos. for both the bad and good,” she says. “I also Media Consultant Harry Rose understood selfies aren’t always vapid, and CTO that there really is such a thing as sisterhood.” Tom Royal She is now working on a very different project: Founder & CEO More Features. the biography of a 74-year-old Japanese Marc Hartog erotica artist. In May, she will be speaking at Subscription Enquiries 01795 414682 Fotogalleriet in Oslo alongside Anja Carr and bjp@servicehelpline.co.uk Tonje Bøe Birkeland, who both feature in Girl Distribution & Marketing Enquiries On Girl. More Motion. marketing@apptitudemedia.co.uk @omfg_NOWAY Apptitude Media Donatella Montrone 9th Floor, Anchorage House, Montrone tells the story of the remarkable 2 Clove Crescent, London E14 2BE 020 7193 2625 uncovering of Irving Penn’s early work. She explains: “Many years ago, I worked for a Distributed by Comag publisher in Manhattan and shared a cubicle Printed by Park Communications Ltd with Peter Homans – copy editor by day, parkcom.co.uk @ParkCommLondon composer by night. Peter is Katie Cangelosi’s #PrintedByPark husband and Katie is the daughter of Nonny ISSN: 0007-1196 Our new print partner is an award-winning Gardner, Irving Penn’s first wife. Katie and London company celebrated for its Peter visited London a year ago and the three Published by Apptitude Media Limited © Apptitude Media Limited, 34a Watling uncompromising attention to quality and detail. of us met for a catch-up at the Ace Hotel in Street, Radlett, Herts, WD7 7NN. Producing everything from auction catalogues Shoreditch. I was enthralled listening to Katie UK Company No: 8361351. No part of this publication may be and annual reports to high-end magazines and tell how she and her siblings sifted through reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or photobooks, Park’s clients include Pentagram, their mother’s belongings after her death and transmitted in any form or by any means without the express permission of the Christie’s, Mulberry and Lloyd’s of London. Park found this trove of images, and of the journey publisher or editor. This is considered breach is the go-to printer for Mondial, Boat Magazine to getting them authenticated, which involved of copyright and will be acted upon. and Riposte and is also active in supporting Penn’s brother, the filmmaker Authur Penn.” www.thebjpshop.com A member of the cultural initiatives with partners including She adds: “This may well be my biggest story Audit Bureau of Circulations Print | Online | iPad | iPhone | Social The Photographers’ Gallery, It’s Nice That, ever, and I content myself in the knowledge Philanthropic & Media Partner Stack and magCulture. BJP looks forward to that my long-lost friends in New York entrusted deepening our relationship. it to me.” 8 Colophon: May 2017
Agenda Photo London co-founder Michael 2 Benson reflects on the hard work behind establishing the fair as a key date in the photography calendar Photo London 35,000 visitors over its five-day run, with Words by Tom Seymour collectors and VIP photography professionals visibly active. Most of London’s commercial photography dealers will be represented among the 100 or so galleries booked so far for this year’s edition (from 18 to 21 May); many public institutions are either directly involved or programming in response to the fair, following the lead of Tate Modern, which Spring is in the air in London and for the has staged Offprint London in its Turbine first time this year the sun is shining on the Hall since the fair’s inception in 2015. “The courtyard of Somerset House. Michael Benson, industry has a habit of almost talking itself to one of the two founding directors of Photo a standstill,” says Benson. “We had to deal London, sits in its centre, drinking a morning with a lot of scepticism. But I think we’ve had a coffee and soaking up the rays. He could be rather good start.” forgiven for feeling a little smug but today he That scepticism was not without merit seems merely quietly content that later this – after all, Photo London had been tried month the art fair will be back for its third before. A photography fair with the same edition, its biggest yet. name, initiated by UK-based dealer Daniel “We kept hearing from people that ‘there’s Newburg, ran at the Royal Academy’s no market for photography in London, there’s Burlington galleries annually for three years no interest’,” says Benson. “These were people between 2004 and 2006 before it was bought in the industry and they should have known by Paris Photo owners, Reed Exhibitions, who better.” In fact, the fair established itself as a closed it after just one failed edition. But key fixture on the international photography Reed had relocated it to Old Billingsgate on calendar and soon this grand old courtyard a Bank Holiday weekend – it’s fair to say the and the labyrinthine rooms of Somerset House events organiser misjudged the date and will be filled with gallerists, collectors, artists, location – while the mood of confidence from curators and exhibitors once again. the first edition had been dimmed by the Last year’s edition featured 84 galleries absence of North American galleries, some from 19 countries, welcoming more than of which complained they had been burnt by 1 Photo London gears up for its third edition, bringing in its wake Peckham import and export duties. However, the wider cultural producers and entrepreneurs to 24’s non-stop fringe 1 CHAPTER XI, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII, 2011 consensus at the time was that London simply create commercial partnerships with sponsors. show. Plus we 2 © Taryn Simon, courtesy Gagosian Gallery Dorothy with light face, 1962 © William couldn’t sustain a photography fair without “When we started off trying to persuade preview the work Klein, courtesy HackelBury Fine Art, London. the backing of local institutions or the kind of people to come, they had some bad memories grass-roots enthusiasm the medium enjoys in of being in London from the previous fair,” in the running for France or Germany. Benson admits today. “It was a very tough the Prix Pictet and Benson and his partner Fariba Farshad sell. A lot of people had come to London from hear from Anders (who together co-founded Candlestar, the abroad and discovered that nothing much producer of Photo London and the Prix Pictet) was happening. I had to act as an evangelist Petersen about have since gone a long way to confound for something that didn’t then exist. But I also what makes a those assumptions, bringing to bear years had to convince them that, this time, their faith photographer of expertise gained working as curators, would be repaid.” 10 Agenda: Photofestival Agenda: Photofestival 11
3 3 Cafe with photo of Dylan Thomas, might one day rival that of Paris. “Our plan by indexing top image results for given search Laugharne, Wales, G.B. 1974 © David Hurn, courtesy Magnum Photos. was to act as if we’d been around for a long terms across local engines throughout the 4 Thresholds early test visualisation time: as if we were an established part of the world. It is a great example of Taryn’s ground- © Mat Collishaw, courtesy the artist. cultural fabric of London,” says Benson. “Since breaking artistic practice and confirms her as 5 Drifting Over the Italian Riviera, 2016 then a lot of sceptics have become supporters.” an outstanding, pioneering artist.” © Joshua Jensen-Nagle, courtesy Bau-Xi gallery Photo London still has its critics but the And while a lot of the paying galleries voices that complained of conservatism in seemed to be playing it safe during the first both the programme and the work shown by two editions, Photo London has encouraged many of the selected galleries seem to have younger dealers in. This year it has introduced been heard. For a start, this year’s Master a new Discovery section, led by Tristan Lund. is a 42-year-old woman, Taryn Simon, who “The expansion of the Discovery section works with conceptual themes guided by is very much in line with our determination extensive research, presented in museum-style to establish Photo London as the global installations. She will show Image Atlas, a work destination for anyone with an interest in created in collaboration with the late computer the future of photography,” Farshad says. programmer and activist Aaron Swartz. “We want visitors to learn about the latest The exhibition will “index top image results developments in the market and, in doing so, for given search terms across local engines discover new galleries and artists from around throughout the world”, Benson says, alongside the world. We hope seasoned collectors will a display of Simon’s books — spanning from find something new, and the Discovery section The Innocents, first published 2002, through is a great place to start.” to Paperwork and the Will of Capital, released Photo London continues to court a last year. younger crowd of fledgling collectors. “Music Photo London grew out of the founding Fariba Farshad, co-director of Photo and dancing events,” in Benson’s words, will of Candlestar, which helps corporate clients London, says of Simon’s accolade: “The first take place in the vaults of Somerset House sponsor major arts projects, and its flagship two Masters of Photography – Sebastião during the fair in an attempt to reach a more project the Prix Pictet, which nine years Salgado and Don McCullin – are extremely garrulous, less monied crowd. “Young people ago brought together a Swiss bank and a hard acts to follow. So we decided to turn are fascinated by photography,” he says. “They major media partner in the Financial Times instead to Taryn Simon, an artist who is widely have a very different relationship to it than to create “a global award in photography recognised as one of the most important people of my age and generation. There’s an and sustainability”. Both institutions are photographers of her generation. enormous swell of excitement about it and a also partners in Photo London and it was “We’re delighted she has selected Image thirst to understand the history of the medium through that relationship that Benson met Atlas for her Masters exhibition. The work among younger people. For a long time this Maja Hoffmann, a Swiss philanthropist with pushes the boundaries of what photography has gone unnoticed, or even been dismissed, interests spanning the worlds of art, film and can be – and is, therefore, in tune with our by certain sections of the photography photography. She agreed to funnel some of her thinking about this year’s edition. The work community. But attracting that demographic is formidable funds into a London art fair that investigates cultural differences and similarities an extremely important part of what we want 4 to do.” Elsewhere, William Klein will develop a 5 new 18-metre-wide mural in Somerset House, while Juergen Teller will present a special exhibition in the Great Arch Hall and, “using the latest virtual reality technology”, Mat Collishaw will re-stage British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot’s first public exhibition, when he showed his photographic prints to the people of Birmingham at the city’s King Edward’s School in 1839. Magnum Photos will be celebrating its 70th anniversary, with Martin Parr and David Hurn curating a selection of works that the latter has compiled over six decades through a series of swaps with fellow photographers. Hurn’s own images will be juxtaposed with prints from photographers including Bill Brandt, Bruce Davidson, Sergio Larrain and Diana Markosian. It augurs well for another year of growth and a further entrenchment of the fair into the cultural fabric of London. For now, it seems, the sun will continue to shine. photolondon.org 12 Agenda: Photofestival Agenda: Photofestival 13
In the past decade Peckham has blossomed with the help 2 Mack First Book Award), Jill Quigley and BJP Breakthrough winner Jan McCullough all of a community of artists, making for a singularly vibrant afforded solo exhibitions and the gallery has established itself as a stalwart of the Peckham cultural scene. The area’s 24-hour-long photography festival, scene. “It’s been challenging,” Gamble says of set during Photo London, celebrates their creativity founding the gallery. “There have been times when I felt like I could have given up, when the going got tough; there’s a lot of uncertainty in running your own gallery. But it’s a dream for Peckham 24 In 1999, when she first arrived in Peckham as long been an artistic centre and, over the me and something I care about a lot.” Words by Tom Seymour a recent graduate in modern history from the past two decades, has undergone a process Peckham 24 later started to take shape University of Glasgow, Vivienne Gamble found of gentrification to become one of London’s as Gamble gained confidence within the that taxi drivers would refuse to take her to hippest neighbourhoods. During that time, a photography industry. It launched for the first the south London neighbourhood, such was disparate community of artists and creators time last year and, although small compared its reputation for crime. “It was much rougher used the cheap warehouse spaces Peckham with this year’s edition, it attracted 2000 than what I was used to,” she says. “But it’s afforded, while developers updated the visitors over its 24-hour run. “I realised there changed so dramatically.” The area, which area’s grand but crumbling Victorian housing was no fringe around Photo London,” Gamble gained particular notoriety following the killing stock; the area has become, according to a says. “The photography community descended of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor in 2000, and recent survey by The Sunday Times, the most on the city for that week and there was a huge then again during the 2011 London riots, has desirable place to live in the capital, not least opportunity for artists to initiate their own always endured a spurious reputation as for its burgeoning cultural and party scene. events on the fringes of the main festival.” one of the capital’s ‘no-go’ areas. Yet it has This is encapsulated in Peckham 24, Hosting the event in the Bussey Building a round-the-clock celebration of the was important – it was saved from demolition neighbourhood’s contemporary photography in 2007 only after a concerted effort by the 1 scene, which takes place during the weekend local artistic community. The site has long of Photo London and Offprint. The two-day been the cornerstone of Peckham’s creative event, which is this year supported by British scene. “I don’t think there’s anywhere else in Journal of Photography as its official media London quite like the Bussey Building,” says partner, will be centred around the Bussey Gamble. “There’s a real sense of pride that Building in Copeland Park – the red-brick we managed to save the space.” Her hope former cricket-bat factory and warehouse is that Peckham 24 becomes an established complex that has been at the heart of part of Photo London week, and that visitors Peckham’s creative metamorphosis. to the festival will make the trip south to “see In contrast to the grandeur of Photo an area of London where artists are actually London’s home at Somerset House, the festival working on a day-to-day basis”. will make use of some rather unconventional Peckham 24 will also see the launch, at gallery spaces, such as DKUK Salon, where Seen Fifteen, of a new exhibition by Egyptian- clients can get haircuts in front of artworks, born photographer Laura El-Tantawy, who and the Safehouses, a pair of derelict grew up in Saudi Arabia and studied in the US properties on Copeland Road now taken over 3 before moving to London. She was nominated for art exhibitions and music-video shoots. The for the Deutsche Börse prize in 2016 for In Nines bar, a teeming local drinking hole, will The Shadow of the Pyramids, her photographic host a six-hour continuous screening of video meditation on the Arab Spring in Egypt. art through to midnight on the Friday before “The series started as a personal journey the programme continues into Saturday with into her own identity as an Egyptian woman,” artists’ talks, workshops and exhibition tours. Gamble says. “And then it changed when she The venue is also due to host the Peckham 24 witnessed, very closely, the events in Tahrir closing party. Square. Now she has circled back to what she Peckham 24 is the creation of Vivienne was originally exploring. I’m very excited about Gamble, founder of Seen Fifteen, one of a showing this new work for the first time.” number of galleries in the Bussey Building, One of the most anticipated exhibitions is which she founded in 2015 during the week of curated by Tom Lovelace, a photography artist the inaugural Photo London. After years spent who is a long-term member of the Peckham in the television industry, she decided to act on 1 Merry Widow © creative community. For Peckham 24, he has her love for the still image and worked towards Julie Cockburn. devised a show displaying various artists’ work, a history of photography MA at Sotheby’s 2 Beyond Here is titled At Home She’s a Tourist, and available Nothing © Laura Institute. She then gained an internship at El-Tantawy. to view in the Copeland Gallery of the Bussey Candlestar, the agency behind Photo London. 3 The Open Door, Building. “The show is a mix of established Gamble is originally from Belfast and Closed and Inverted artists, like Clare Strand, Eva Stenran and © Tom Lovelace. has used her space to give a platform to Tereza, with lesser-known but exciting names Images courtesy Irish and Northern Irish photographic artists. Seen Fifteen and Tom like Emma Bäcklund and Dominic Till.” Ciaran Og Arnold (a recent recipient of the Lovelace. seenfifteen.com 14 Agenda: Photofestival Agenda: Photofestival 15
The seventh cycle of the award, on the theme of Space, launches its worldwide exhibition tour at the V&A, where the winner of the £80,000 prize will soon be announced Prix Pictet Dubbed “the global award in photography and “The intention was never to just feature Words by Tom Seymour sustainability”, the seventh cycle of the Prix photojournalism, much as we all love it,” says Pictet opens at the Victoria & Albert Museum Michael Benson of Candlestar. “It was about (V&A) in London this month, showcasing the opening up to all genres of photography.” work of a dozen artists and documentarists This year’s Prix Pictet comes through on under the common theme of Space. Founded that promise, straddling the breadth of nine years ago by Swiss private bank the Pictet photographic discourse. Group and Candlestar – the company behind Among this year’s shortlist is classic Photo London, which opens a fortnight later reportage in the form of Sergey Ponomarev’s – the prize draws attention to environmental series Europe Migration Crisis, created in issues but also reflects the strategies and association with The Sunday Times and on approaches used by photographers to tackle show at the Imperial War Museum from socio-political concerns. 27 April to 03 September. For the Russian The first edition, in 2008, was themed photographer, the migrants’ journeys across Water and was awarded to Canadian Europe represented a transgression of space photographer Benoit Aquin for his photo – the crossing of literal borders as well as essay The Chinese Dust Bowl, while Munem something much more personal, moving from Wasif was commissioned to shoot a story home to a place both unknown and idealised. on water shortages in his homeland, “Their pasts were no more than a memory Bangladesh. Among the shortlisted names immortalised in the bright family photographs was Edward Burtynsky, a photographer they’d saved on their smartphones,” he says. whose commitment to documenting “Their whole lives were encapsulated in the environmental issues through the prism of few possessions they’d managed to bring stunning landscape photography seemed to along in their rucksacks. These fragments of a encapsulate the Prix Pictet’s ideals. Indeed, broken, far-off land that each migrant carried he was nominated for the first three cycles of with them are now scattered across Europe the award but never won. Over subsequent … The refugees continued forward, entering years more conceptual approaches have been into a strange, unknown but sheltered space. shortlisted in response to changing themes, Sometimes they didn’t really know where they which have included Power, Consumption and were or where exactly they were headed.” Disorder, won by Lucas Delahaye, Michael Others have taken on the idea of space Schmidt and Valérie Belin respectively. to explore transgression of both territory and 2 of the relationship between photographer and subject. Munem Wasif (nominated for a second time since the Water commission in 2008) photographs the unmarked edges of the blurred boundary between Bangladesh and India. In Land of Undefined Territory this “mundane land” simultaneously hides and represents the ongoing struggle between dominance and subjugation, and ideals of liberty and independence. Richard Mosse is shortlisted for Incoming, showing at the Barbican’s Curve Gallery in London until 23 April. The Irishman also photographed migrants’ journeys through Europe using a military-grade thermal camera, capturing them from miles away, oblivious to his presence. The heat signatures of the camera deprive Mosse’s subjects of facial expressions and cultural demarcations – even of gender, race, age or sex. By inverting the sense of space between photographer and 16 Agenda: Award Agenda: Award 17
3 subject – when so much of documentary work she is nominated for presents unique planet’s geology and plot potential landing photography is defined by closeness and ‘specimens’ that echo the pioneering sites, reveal extreme close-ups of the red intimacy – the idea is that he elevates the discoveries made by marine biologist John planet’s rugged surface, until recently unseen people at the heart of the migration crisis to Vaughn Thompson in the same area during by anyone. He makes what he calls “visual symbolic, parabolic stature. “We captured the 1800s. Thompson conducted pioneering statements that are at once documentary and people asleep, people embracing each other, research on plankton while living in Cobh, fictional” by transforming the originals via people at prayer,” says Mosse. “There’s a documenting the microscopic organisms chromogenic printing techniques. “Indicative stolen intimacy to it. There’s no awareness, using the photographic technology of the of Nasa’s own efforts to measure topographic there’s no self consciousness. They are, time; Barker’s plastic particles are presented highs and lows,” Ruff says, “these works add instead, authentic gestures.” as microscopic samples that recall Thompson’s an aspect of the absurd, in that you can Michael Wolf and Benny Lam provide early scientific investigations. actually recognise deep relief on the surface of a more direct interpretation of space – or Germany is particularly well represented another planet with cheap 3D glasses.” the intense lack of it. Wolf’s series Tokyo on this year’s shortlist, with photographers The Jewish-Russian photographer Compression was photographed largely on Saskia Groneberg, Beate Gütschow and Pavel Wolberg was born in Leningrad and commuter trains at Shinjuku railway station, Thomas Ruff all in line for the prize. Groneberg grew up in southern Israel. Now living capturing rush hour at a rail hub that averages is nominated for her mediations on “artificially and working in Tel Aviv, he is ostensibly 3.6 million passengers a day, making it the moulded nature”, photographing manmade a documentary photographer but his most crowded in the world. His images, he parks, landscapes and ornamental plants nominated work, Barricades, is driven by says, depict “complete vulnerability in the most designed to mimic the natural world. Here personal exploration of his identity. The series extreme of cities”. Lam, meanwhile, focuses she focuses on a very specific German term, comprises panoramic photographs taken on the private spaces of a city. Commissioned Büropflanze, which translates as ‘office plant’. from within Israel and the West Bank and in by the Society for Community Organisation “These bits and pieces of nature, almost Ukraine during the recent conflict. Each of the (SoCO), he created a series of overhead unconsciously brought to the workplace, images focus on barricades, dividing fences, images of poor families, singletons and elderly seem to reveal lot about the basic needs of separating walls and improvised borders people living in Hong Kong’s cramped outer human beings when artificially placed into as “living signifiers” of conflicts and disputes. slums. “Hong Kong is regarded as one of an inorganic, standardised environment “This is a photographic journey that focuses on the world’s richest cities but lurking beneath where everything present is assigned to fulfil two contemporary conflicts: Israel-Palestine the prosperity is also extreme poverty,” says a specific function,” she says. By focusing on and Russia-Ukraine,” he says. Ho Hei-Wah, director of SoCO, referring to the such organic forms, often in the context of Both his Russian and Israeli heritage thousands who live in caged homes and wood- highly institutional environments, Groneberg comprise active parts of his identity. “Both partitioned cubicles, as well as the constant hopes to capture “a tiny bit of anarchy amid places are controlled by a human need to flow of new arrivals from mainland China. the rigid clockwork, something amorphous constantly formulate, define and separate among the geometric forms, a spark of life spaces for living, of nations or communities,” Outer limits within the mechanisms of control”. he says. “Barricades is, therefore, a personal From the space between photographer and Gütschow interprets space in a way that project – a research into landscape imagery 4 subject to how a photographer understands might be considered in the canon of Bernd and its transformation into an emblematic, the space around him: Sohei Nishino is and Hilla Becher. Her images are architectural disordered space during territorial disputes.” nominated for his ‘diorama maps’ of cities, studies of the borders that exist in a highly Finally, Prix Pictet has shortlisted each painstakingly created from thousands built-up environment, inspired by a line from Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi, of images taken on solo urban wanderings. Georges Perec’s book Species of Spaces: “To based in Tokyo, for a somewhat existential Once back home in Tokyo, Nishino edits down live is to pass from one space to another while project. Her series focuses on a Japanese handprints in his darkroom and pieces the doing your very best not to bump yourself.” farming practice called yakihata, in which images together in a mosaic. The photographs “The built environment is the greedy fields are burned before planting. Yakihata, are detailed studies of buildings, streets, counterpart of the natural realm,” Gütschow Kawauchi says, has been practiced for 1300 people and everything else that goes with city says. “A space is defined only by differentiation years and still takes place every year in March. life. A composite map emerges from each from another space, for which it needs walls The inspiration came from a dream in which but such studies share little with geometric that serve as barriers or borders.” she stood in front of burning fields, prompting ordnance surveys. This is a more psychological Thomas Ruff, the celebrated student her to travel to the southern Japanese town of understanding of space – one in which of the Bechers and the Art Academy in Aso to take these pictures. “Standing by myself, 1 S#1 © Beate Gütschow, perspective, scale and proportion give way to Düsseldorf, the city in which he still lives, solitary in that vast land, the feeling that I courtesy VG Bild-Kunst Bonn. mood, experience and emotion. is also represented on the shortlist. His was living on this planet called Earth suddenly 2 Police on horseback escort hundreds of migrants after Space has also been used in highly interpretation of space veers dramatically welled up inside me,” she says. “Since I never crossing from Croatia in Dobova, conceptual ways by photographers selected from others on the shortlist, understanding paid attention to such thoughts in my everyday Slovenia. Tuesday 20 October 2015, from the series Europe for the Prix Pictet shortlist, not least by Mandy the term from a different etymological life, it was an odd sensation: the awareness Migration Crisis © Sergey Barker. Her images could be mistaken for perspective in his ma.r.s. series, which that my legs were, at that very moment, being Ponomarev. Victorian glass-plate photographs; in fact considers photography’s relationship with the pulled by gravity toward the Earth.” 3 From Land of Undefined Territory © Munem Wasif, courtesy Project 88. they are ornate, long-exposure studies of the universe – the infinite space beyond Earth. The work of the finalists goes on show at 4 Trapped 03 by Benny Lam, from plastic debris that pollutes beaches in and Ruff’s images are based on black-and- the V&A on 04 May, when the winner will be the series Subdivided Flats, 2012 around Cobh in Cork Harbour, Ireland. white satellite photographs of the surface of announced by Prix Pictet Honorary President © Benny Lam (photographs), Kwong Chi Kit and Dave Ho The series is part of an ongoing Mars taken by the high-resolution camera Kofi Annan. The exhibition runs until 28 May, (concept). photographic study of human contamination aboard Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. before a global tour throughout 2017. All images courtesy Prix Pictet. of the world’s oceans and coastlines. The These pictures, used by scientists to study the prixpictet.com 18 Agenda: Award Agenda: Award 19
Any Answers My earliest memory is of sitting alone in my grandmother’s cherry tree in her pink Anders Petersen underwear. I was four years old. Nobody could see me behind the leaves but I could see the whole Words and portrait by Michael Grieve garden beneath, with apple trees and a cat running over the street far away. It was my paradise. I was brought up in a privileged and bourgeois family. We lived in the countryside surrounded by forest and I spent a lot of time there. I must have been a disappointment for them. The first photograph to make an impression on me was a picture of a cemetery with footsteps in the snow, surrounded by graves. The photographer must have been there very early in the morning to capture that dead people met each other during the night... For me, this was fantastic. It was both a symbolic and a literary way to use photography. I didn’t know the photographer’s name. Many years later I found out it was Christer Strömholm. I first met Strömholm when I was illegally using the photography lab at his school. I had been using it for many months, making many mistakes printing and developing. One night at 3am he stood at the door and found me. I looked around and saw only a mess. But he asked to see my pictures. He told me to visit him the next day, when I thought I would surely end up in prison. But instead he asked if I wanted to join the school. He became not only a teacher but a close friend. I miss him a lot. When I was a young man photographing Café Lehmitz, I learned that photography is not about photography. And being strong is not going to help you much. But being weak – just enough – opens up a presence. Then you begin to understand that we belong to a big family. Since the 1970s, I’ve dreamt about a ‘Lehmitz Family Album’. When I was shooting in the bar I felt like it was a big and warm family. I finally hope this can be realised with a revised version of Café Lehmitz. It’s a desire to give back something to those I photographed. I have a profound fear of intolerance. But also a profound excitement at the diversity of people and different cultures. I profoundly miss a world built on equality and justice. Failure must be a part of everything. If you are lucky enough to survive a failure or a loss, you will be stronger. And your new self-confidence makes the impossible suddenly more possible. I am a father. My son is called Jens and I love him. He brought responsibility into my life. I was married recently and it feels fine. To experience love is a favour, a present everyday. Though my wife does keep me awake at night. I like being Swedish. Emotionally and for many other reasons, such as the stillness of nature. It doesn’t mean that I’m for everything that happens politically or culturally here. But compared with other countries, Sweden is privileged. We haven’t been in a war for more than 200 years. The Swede made his seminal work I am interested to see what is hidden; what you cannot see. That is a decent explanation of why I spent so many years photographing behind closed institutions, such as a prison, a in the late 1960s, psychiatric hospital and a home for old people. photographing the I had four walls and my time. I could focus on the people and get to know their personalities, denizens of a bar on their dreams and secrets and vulnerabilities, their innermost longings. Hamburg’s infamous To know I exist, I need to be at touching distance. Not only when I’m shooting. It’s often a Reeperbahn. Café question of approaching a reality I’m aware of but don’t want to know. This behaviour has many Lehmitz, published names; one of them could be curiosity. eight years after In life there is a constant movement between feeling up or down. Between presence he finished, is and absence, love and hate, defying the natural meaninglessness, as I got to know it. If you are now considered a unprotected and curious you easily suffer, you are a target. classic. Petersen When you are older, people expect you to know how things are. But the truth is you don’t has produced more know at all. The more you know the less you know. When I was younger, I knew everything. than 20 books since My advice to younger photographers is not to be a photographer but to be a human. then, and has been It is about you: your emotions, experiences and knowledge. The camera is just a tool. So find a language with your own distinct smell. It is important to be weak enough to feel and innocent particularly prolific enough to enter the confusion. over the past decade anderspetersen.se 20 Agenda: Any Answers Intelligence: New Media 21
Lena Mucha All images © Lena Mucha. media and, more and more, investigations into gender roles – which led her to the befriends female female cadets in Karabakh. army cadets in To Their motivations to join the army vary; Nagorno-Karabakh some yearn for the frontline and some to be peacekeepers. They are all, however, deeply while Mexican patriotic. “They grew up in the context of war,” photographer says Mucha. “Many of their family members Tania Franco Klein died or they had parents or grandfathers “It’s what I miss in the media. Some people fighting in the army.” explores the notion don’t even know where Karabakh is.” The Female training was introduced less than of isolation in our Berlin-based photographer Lena Mucha two years ago, so the majority of their facilities evermore connected says this in reference to her newest project, and accommodation is off site. In Karabakh, Women to the Frontline, which began when they live a 50-minute bus ride away, “but world. And Jennifer she flew to Yerevan in Armenia last September they are happy to be there,” says Mucha. “I Niederhauser Schlup with journalist Naomi Conrad. She was think maybe they see it as an honour because probes how we there on the back of a Reporters in the Field they’re the first.” But some opposition and scholarship from the Robert Bosch Stiftung scrutiny remains, particularly among the older construct knowledge foundation in Germany. The duo drove for male officers who rationalise their inclusion by and historical facts. your six hours across the border to Stepanakert saying that “with the presence of women, the Interviews by Izabela in Nagorno-Karabakh, a self-declared men should be better behaved – they’re there independent state wedged between Armenia to help the men be better,” explains Mucha. Radwanska Zhang and Azerbaijan, defined for more than 20 “It’s a story about conflict and society, years by its frozen war. without showing the country as a conflict Mucha graduated with an MA in social zone. More, it talks about the girls and anthropology and political sciences from the their challenges. When they put away their University of Cologne in 2011. She has since uniforms they are just ordinary girls. I became been mentored by Max Pinckers, Cristina very close to them and hope that the people de Middel and David Alan Harvey, among who will see the photos can connect and others, and had her images published in Geo identify with them. That’s what I’m looking for door. and Der Spiegel. Her work draws attention with my work – to connect.” to stories that go unreported by mainstream lenamucha.com Buy the next issue of BJP direct from us and have it delivered straight to your door. www.thebjpshop.com Projects Lena Mucha 96 Intelligence: Robbie Cooper 23
Projects: Personal 25
All images © Tania Franco Klein. We are living in a world where we are more connected than ever and yet we can still be left feeling completely alone. In his book, The Burnout Society, the philosopher Byung-Chul Han explores this, and the idea that the overload of modern technology and the “culture of convenience” are catalysts for depression and various personality disorders. Drawing inspiration from his theories, Mexican photographer Tania Franco Klein places this contradiction at the centre of her ongoing autobiographical project, Our Life in the Shadows, which also explores the pursuit of the American Dream and facets of perfection. “We have these compulsions to perform and we live in a society of achievement and positivity that has led to a constant fatigue,” she says. The need to escape from media overstimulation is seen through the eyes of fictional female characters placed in vulnerable, hunched positions, shot in different rooms of a 1970s-style house. They smoke cigarettes, stare at the television and lie on the floor. Some were cast from the street, with Franco Klein particularly looking for individuals “trying to be invisible and avoid any attention from the crowd”, but most are self-modelled. Her clever use of bold, dramatic colour blocking, which engulfs each image in a separate tone, serves as a contrast to their introverted behaviour. “Emotions are the most important for my work. If you can connect through emotions and the experience of the visual, sometimes it opens up the door to imagine smells and sounds and a whole 4D experience.” She adds: “It’s funny because I’m talking about isolation, but at the same time I realise that doing self-portraits isolated me more.” The photographer pays meticulous attention to the spaces used as backdrops for the sensitivity she seeks to communicate. She finds specific rooms and locations by knocking on neighbours’ doors, and constructs her own sets and props – often entirely from scratch. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that she came to photography through architecture, which she studied in Mexico before moving to London to do an MA in fashion photography at the University of the Arts London in 2014. Crucially, although relatable, her narrative carries an ambiguity, which encourages the viewer to apply their own story and interpretation, and hopefully think about our modern-day dual identities. “We are always trying to create identities with social media to express the good part of ourselves, as if there is some kind of shame in knowing what we are on the other side… because we feel that we have failed in what we are supposed to be.” taniafrancoklein.com Tania Franco Klein 26 Projects: Personal Projects: Personal 27
28 Projects: Personal Projects: Personal 29
It’s nearly a half-century since man first set foot on the moon, yet many remain sceptical it ever happened. Countless conspiracy theories speculate about inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the footage of that “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, ultimately arguing that the Apollo missions were a highly elaborate hoax. For Swiss photographer Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup, it’s a fascinating example of our innate dependence on film and photography to authenticate – or debunk – perceptions of historical fact. It’s also the basis of her latest work, Do you really believe they put a man on the moon?, for which she amalgamates archival and digitally manipulated imagery with straight photographs to challenge our assumptions of reality. The series evolved following an invitation to teach a semester at Alfred University in upstate New York last year. Niederhauser was thrilled to discover that not only does the small village of Alfred have one of the oldest observatories in the country, but that it is also just a few miles from the birthplace of Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the aviation pioneer and founder of the American aircraft industry. It is also the site of the first public demonstration of a powered aircraft flight in the US. “From this decisive historical fact I drew up a fictional character, telling an abstract story that combines strange experiments and discoveries,” writes Niederhauser in her project statement, entered into BJP’s International Photography Award last year. “It is a utopian tale of seemingly unattainable dreams, which alludes to a place of hope and togetherness in a common effort to transcend natural frontiers, to the moon and back. “Examining visual and written archives; building useless tools and an escape vehicle bound to crash as a metaphor for happy failure; mixing replicas and artefacts with scientific records to confound their veracity while embodying the wildest of ideas, Do you really believe they put a man on the moon? questions the construction of knowledge and the interpretation of history seen through a specific prism. Borrowing devices that enhance our perception of the world, it aims to open our eyes to the possibility of utopia and dreams.” As well as raising questions of complexity, Niederhauser is playful in the techniques and devices she employs to enhance her narrative, which treads the line between fact and fiction. For example, there is one image of two circular frames of mountains viewed through a stereoscope, a device that presents a pair of photographs of the same subject taken from subtly different angles, creating an optical illusion of a 3D image when viewed together. “It’s a very old process and another device to enhance your vision, and,” she says, “it’s actually just a pile of flour – everything is constructed.” Although Niederhauser is far from finished with this project, she hopes to eventually publish it. A selected edit of her investigations will be shown at Les Boutographies festival in Montpellier this May. The question remains, does she believe that man walked on the moon? “Now that I know how I am able to make things up, I shouldn’t trust it. But I do believe it, because I want to.” jennifer-niederhauser-schlup.com Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup 30 Projects: Work in Progress Projects: Personal 31
All images © Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup. 32 Projects: Work in Progress
Image © Isabelle Wenzel. FEMALE GA ZE Charlot te Jansen considers a new generation of female photographer s who make women their subjec t. Zuza K rajewska goes inside a y o u n g m e n’s c o r r e c t i o n a l i n s t i t u t e . E n d i a Beal addresses themes of race, gender and corporate culture. And Laia Abril uncovers secret histories in her wide - ranging e x a m i n a t i o n o f m i s o g y n y. 34
I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR Charlot te Jansen looks at how a new generation of female photographers are choosing to represent women in their work 36 Female Gaze: Girl On Girl Habitat: Format Festival 37
Three years ago, I got into a Twitter fight iPhone. I wanted to find out why and how I don’t know if a woman took the picture from early on to represent themselves. It was frame the artists as bra-burning, man-hating through photographic imagery, making about selfies. A fiery debate had ensued they photographed women and what the effect of Azalea but most of the photographs of a tool of crucial importance in the Suffragette psychopaths to be feared. To get noticed in the a significant impact on everyday media. about an article I had written, suggesting that might be on the way we perceive women in women we see daily are made to appeal to the movement (Christina Broom, dubbed world in the 1970s, artists had to go out and Suddenly it was possible to be a woman and photographs – especially sexy ones – that society. This is what the book, titled Girl on heteronormative male gaze. We’re supposed ‘Britain’s first female photojournalist’, recorded confront it. Valie Export strapped a box to her photograph yourself or the women around women took of themselves and shared online Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the to see Iggy Azalea’s bum, compare ours to some of the movement’s landmark events) bust and invited people to touch her breasts, you as you wanted. couldn’t be feminist. Several feminist selfie Female Gaze, is all about. it, panic and then buy things to prevent a but it was perhaps not until the 1970s, during or in another action, thrust her bare groin artists, including a former Australian TV star The research soon led me beyond the similar physical ‘disaster’. The message such the so-called second wave of feminism, that into a cinema audience’s faces. Photography A new generation turned feminist magazine editor, disagreed. realm of feminist selfies. There is a wider photographs of women give us is still very women’s photography became a force for in their day was often rooted in performance, In 2017, the age of social media, our I saw this as an opportunity to try to shift happening in photography as more and narrow. Photography undoubtedly has an change in its own right. Experimental artists which was then really the more effective form context is totally different. On the internet, understand the female gaze and how it was more women get behind the camera and more effect on the way we understand people so, as such as Renate Bertlmann, Valie Export, of disruption. photographs are seen together, juxtaposed, being used. For the next three years, I began of their work is out in the public domain. more women create photographs of women, Lynda Benglis and Birgit Jürgenssen – all In the 1990s, as Naomi Wolf ’s bestselling with their only frame created by the device to look at the photographs women take of Photographers no longer have to wait to will it change how we understand them? included in the Feminist Avant-Garde of the The Beauty Myth was published, photography used to view them. It’s almost as if we have women – either of themselves or of other have their work published to reach a wide In the patriarchy in which we live, 1970s (2016) exhibition at The Photographers’ was seen by artists as a more malignant to start again. Online, photographs women women – more closely. It’s not hard to find audience. Women are able to control how photography is an expression of power. Gallery – used photography in their practice power. Images of women in the media were take of themselves and of other women still them. They are everywhere. But how many they are represented more than ever before in The photographic act is often viewed as to reclaim their bodies and reveal the artificial selling a lie: the women shown in ads for the have the same connotations: that they are of those images are created by fellow women, cultural history. an assertion of masculine dominance; a construction of gender roles in mainstream cosmetics and fashion industry were plastic, narcissistic, flimsy, vain or vapid. It’s much and do they photograph women differently I was recently perusing the magazines in predatory point-and-shoot action. This media to limit their position in both the art manipulated, unreal. And they were still harder for women photographers working to men? the women’s section in a newsagent. On the control over a subject – what to show and world and society as a whole. presented as objects of male desire. Finally the now to move against the patriarchal system I interviewed more than 40 women cover of one was a picture of a scantily clad how to frame it – has made photography a The photographs created by women first female art photographers photographing because wherever you put your pictures, photographers from very different pop star on the beach with the text, “Iggy duplicitous partner of colonialism, the sex in the 1970s were mostly staged – posed women broke through in a big way: Cindy you are invariably consumed by that system. backgrounds, countries and cultures. They Azalea’s Bum Implants Are Sagging!”. We are industry and the veiled agendas of advertising against patriarchy – and they never really Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, Annie Petra Collins [above] is an obvious example were at various stages in their lives and careers so accustomed to this kind of portrayal of and the mass media. made it to the mainstream. They were part Leibovitz, Nan Goldin, Shirin Neshat, Sally of this. When in 2013 she made a T-shirt but have all emerged since 2010, the year the women, and to it being so in our faces, that Photography was introduced before of a radical, intellectual movement that was Mann, Rineke Dijkstra. Their work paved the with a drawing of a menstruating vagina front-facing camera was introduced to the the horror of it almost escapes us. Almost. women could vote but it gave women power kept away from the press unless it was to way for understanding women differently for American Apparel, the resulting media 38 Female Gaze: Girl On Girl 39
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