║ Marysa Dowling ║

© Marysa Dowling, Portrait 028, Ireland, from the series The Dowling Study, Parts 1-7, 2005-07

© Marysa Dowling, Portrait 03, Stockport, UK, from the series The Dowling Study, Parts 1-7, 2005-07

“This collaborative family study spans four generations (involving all 32 blood related members of the family) and three countries, the UK, Ireland and the USA. It aims to memorialise the family through sets of images, as well as to explore the role photography has at every level to define, group, classify and individualise us. The series looks at our sense of self, migration, family history and memory, with particular regard to the relationship between photographer / subject / audience.

The images vary from personal portraits to pseudo-forensic and pseudo-anthropological documents. Each person is photographed in the same way, regardless of age or place. The Dowling Study investigates not only the nature of a family group but also my own sense of self, place, belonging and heritage.

Within such a group the use of photography helps to create emotional links, form a group identity (both fictional and real), highlight loss within the family unit, record genealogy, suspend familial events, and expose cultural, emotional and social parallels and contradictions.

Finally, the project highlights the ways in which individuals represent themselves within the family group, both privately and publicly, and perceive the self and others.”

To see more of Marysa’s work click here

║ Millie Burton ║

© Millie Burton, Mantlepiece, from the series Pictures from an Interior, 2004

© Millie Burton, Dresser, from the series Pictures from an Interior, 2004

“Pictures from an Interior (2004) is a photographic record and celebration of the house that my grandmother lived in from 1956 until 2008. She was a practical woman and did much of the work on the house herself, and had a knack for putting things together in beautiful and functional displays. But when her children and friends were clearing the house after her death, they found that many of the objects were flawed in some way – vases turned to hide a crack, pairs of glass candlesticks that didn’t match, rugs covering bare patches in carpets. The house has since been sold, and, though it once seemed so permanent, little seen in these photographs now remains.”

To see more of Millie’s work click here

║ Maximilian Haidacher ║

© Maximilian Haidacher, Untitled, from the series Erz

© Maximilian Haidacher, Untitled, from the series Thron

To see more of Maximilian’s work click here

║ Daniel Augschöll ║

© Daniel Augschöll, Untitled #1, from the series Celestial Planisphere

© Daniel Augschöll, Untitled #10, from the series Celestial Planisphere

To see more of Daniel’s work click here

║ Susan Worsham ║

© Susan Worsham, Lynn watching Dr. Phill, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

© Susan Worsham, Hearse in my childhood driveway, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

© Susan Worsham, Untitled, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

“This series of photographs is taken in and around Virginia, the place in which I grew up. The title comes from a book written by my father’s ancestor, to show the lineage of the Fox family in Virginia. For my own purpose, it acts as a metaphorical map, of the rediscovered paths of my childhood home.

At the age of 34, I came back to Virginia to care for my mother, who died shortly after my return. As the last of my family passed, I turned my lens to old friends, and their new families. I photographed the house in which I grew up. The man that lives there now houses snakes in my father’s old office, and rests them in my old bedroom, while he changes their cages. My mother always promised that there were no snakes in my room, and now that she is gone, there are. A hearse sits in my childhood driveway, representing the passing of my father, and suicide of my brother.

These photographs are not meant to be purely autobiographical, but rather representations of how I view things, based on my own experiences, and those of the people that I have met along the way. My boyfriend Michael, stands on the street I grew up on, bridging the gap between past and present. Lynn, the first stranger that ever sat for me, continues to pose for me, along with her son Max. I have been photographing her for sixteen years now.”

To see more of Susan’s work click here

║ Alexander Gronsky ║

© Alexander Gronsky, Untitled, from the series Pastoral

© Alexander Gronsky, Untitled, from the series Pastoral

“In this project I explore wastelands within Moscow city. Areas that are not urban not rural. Areas that lack definition.”

To see more of Alexander’s work click here

║ Peter Fraser ║

© Peter Fraser, Untitled, from the series 12 Day Journay, 1984

© Peter Fraser, Untitled, from the series 12 Day Journay, 1984

“I see photographs everywhere, like everyone else, nowadays; they come from the world to me, without my asking; they are only ‘images,’ their mode of appearance is heterogeneous…I realized that some provoked tiny jubilations, as if they referred to a stilled center, an erotic or lacerating value buried in myself (however harmless the subject matter may have appeared)…” So writes Roland Barthes, pointing out the way in which we have learned to see “photographically,” to frame, to snap, to make our memories into fragmented images to be recalled (or not) as though appearing in a mnemonic scrapbook. The accumulated mass of the world appears as a heterogeneous fabric of multi-colored threads, a tiny percentage of them glistening, glancing toward the eye of a beholder, provoking “tiny jubilations.” Fraser seeks these shudders, behaving as a convalescent drunken child charmed with the sparkle of even the most pedestrian things, unwilling to posit any hierarchy of value between, say, the hue of a lumpy red suitcase and the intricate scaffold-structure of a communications satellite. To borrow a term from Russian structuralism, Fraser is in the business of “making strange,” not because he is endowed with any secret transformative touch but, rather, because he sees strangeness itself as the most natural thing in the world.

Johanna Burton, New York, December 2003

To see more of Peter’s work click here

║ Simone Bergantini ║

© Simone Bergantini, Untitled, from the series Seminario sull’infanzia

© Simone Bergantini, Untitled, from the series Seminario sull’infanzia

To see more of Simone’s work click here

║ Michael Lundgren ║

© Michael Lundgren, Untittled #1, from the series Ruins

© Michael Lundgren, Untittled #14, from the series Ruins

“As an artist, I have always been drawn to the field of landscape. It is the perfect subject with which to explore our history and our desire, two urges bound deeply together in the mythology and experience of the American West. As well, working in wild places always feels like coming
home.
For seven years I worked exclusively on a series entitled, Transfigurations. I began this work in 2000 as a graduate student at Arizona State University—culminating in a monograph published by Radius Books (October 2008). Born from a long-term relationship with the desert, these pictures refer to the heart of these places, not by description, but by metaphor. If I have learned anything from Postmodernism, it is that photographs are not the thing itself. Photography’s burden of representation has been lessened and yet I am still able to access real experience with these pictures. While this work is about being on the surface of the earth, the images do not proceed by literal content; their meaning comes from an engagement with the transformative capacity of photography. Through sequence they speak of a search for the elusive, through layers of
phenomena unfurled as a story of desert experience.
These photographs are a lust for the primitive, for what lies behind personality. They are a search to understand beauty and terror, which are bound to one utter certainty—change. In the desert nothing is static, even rocks move. Through intuition, I hope to photograph the impossible, to fix the fugitive on film.”

Excerpt from artist’s statement

To see more of Michael’s work click here

║ Kathrin Spirk ║

© Kathrin Spirk, Urban Nomads/Squatters in London, 2009

© Kathrin Spirk, Urban Nomads/Squatters in London, 2009

To see more of Kathrin’s work click here

║ Jörg Brüggemann ║

© Jörg Brüggemann, Untitled, from the series G8 Heiligendamm, Germany, July 2007

© Jörg Brüggemann, Untitled, from the series G8 Heiligendamm, Germany, July 2007

“From the 6th until the 8th of June 2007 the annual G8 summit was held in Heiligendamm, Germany. During these three days the most powerful leaders of the world met to discuss and decide the future of humanity. Outside the fence, that was built for an estimated 13 million euros, the globalization critical movement gathered 16.000 people to protest against the decision made inside the fence. Both sides used detailled designed stagings to get the attention of the media.”

Jörg Brüggemann

To see more of Jörg’s work click here

║ Andreas Weinand ║

© Andreas Weinand, Julia und André, from the series Finding Oneself, 1990

© Andreas Weinand, Gero und Olli, from the series Finding Oneself, 1989

© Andreas Weinand, Anna und Gero, from the series Finding Oneself, 1990

“While reflecting on my own youth, the cycle Finding Oneself developed from 1988 – 1990 in Essen. The philosophy of life held by the people I photographed during this time reminded me in a way of my own philosophy as a young person in the ’70s, that of not seeing in society a chance for one`s future. The protest of not conforming to society`s conventions, as they were at that time, is an issue I felt also existed amongst the people I met while photographing Finding Oneself.

But as this work developed, I became aware of my own subjective interpretation of the situation; I could no longer compare the lifestyle of those represented in Finding Oneself with that of my own youth. Rather, I recognized that I looked at their lifestyle with the eyes of an adult. My youth had been more than 10 years prior. Out of this tension between sympathy and distance I developed my photographic message.

Both works deal with the question of the identity of the individual within a community. The people in both groups are looking for social contacts. They develop habits and demonstrate their outlook on life. One can say that the individuals and families from Deutsche Volksfeste adhere to a set of rules created for them by previous generations and help to convey those rules0 and codes of behaviour to future generations. Simply said, the people from Finding Oneself oppose the principles and manners given to them by their upbringing. They create a way of living that demonstrates their rejection of social values. In living out this rejection, they create other rules and codes of behaviour.”

Andreas Weinand

To see more of Andreas’ work click here

║ Miguel Duarte ║

© Miguel Duarte, Untitled, from the series Pánelak, Prague, 2008

© Miguel Duarte, Untitled, from the series Pánelak, Prague, 2008

© Miguel Duarte, Untitled, from the series Pánelak, Prague, 2008

║ Anna Rackard ║

© Anna Rackard, Untitled, from the series Farmers

© Anna Rackard, Untitled, from the series Farmers

‘Farmers’ is an exploration of contemporary rural identity in Ireland. Specifically it examines the role of women in farming and their invisibility within the family farm. Women have always been involved in farming in Ireland, usually as a spouse, sister or daughter.

Studies show that despite the process of modernisation rural farming identity is still based on a traditional, patriarchal construct – the visible representation of the family farm is usually of the male farmer who owns the land, is subject to taxation and entitled to social security. Most rural women have no legal or professional status unless they are farm owners. A report published by the NDP Gender Equality Unit in 2002 showed that two-thirds of men owned their farms through inheritance, compared with one twelfth of women.
Despite the level of input a woman (usually a wife) put in on a farm she would more often be classified as ‘farmer’s wife’ instead of ‘farmer’. The women in ‘Farmers’ are not meant to be archetypes, it is not a survey of all women farmers, but it is a sample of some of the people who fall into that category. Some of these women farm with their husbands, others farm with a daughter or a son and some farm on their own. Some of them own their farms jointly with their spouse, some inherited the farm through being widowed and others inherited from a parent or other relative. The point is not how much work an individual woman may contribute to an individual farm but that they do contribute (on a national level) to the farming labour force and that their work, no matter how many or few hours should be recognised as farm work, and the women themselves as farmers.

Anna Rackard

To see more of Anna’s work click here

║ Gaston Zvi Ickowicz ║

© Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Untitled #2, from the series August 06, 2006

© Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Untitled #6, from the series August 06, 2006

“The images in the series “August 06″ were taken in the summer of 2006, during the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon.
These photographs portray Ickowicz’s view of the war  a dark cloud that is at once present and absent. The images in this series examine the traces of a war that faded as quickly as it had begun  the vestiges of its contaminating presence.”

To see more of Gaston’s work click here