sittcomm award 2010 - catalogue

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TTCOMMWARD.010


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My Newspaper

The projectMy Newspaper wasrealized during one year while I wasworking as a photo-reporter in oneof the main daily Czech newspa-pers Denk. Everyday from photoeditors and journalists I got severalassignments to photograph eventsaround Prague. Before sendingphotographs to the newspapersphoto-bank I quickly manipulatedthem in Photoshop. Originally ideawas to change some little, unimport-ant details where the manipulationwouldnt change much the content

of the photograph, for example, add-

ing some more buttons on writersZdenek Mahler t-shirt or paintinginscription Cunt on the brickwall. Although during the process ithappened to make some more radicalones, for example, creating a trafcjam on the highway or cutting offsingers Jos Carreras nger. The aimof this project was to make an absurd,nonsense manipulation over themedia manipulations.

Ivars Gravlejs

Gravlejs projectMy Newspaper isa typical example of so called sub-versive art. Art which is parasitic onthe concrete subject and affects thissubject (in this case media society),undermines and criticizes it. On theone hand Ivars Gravlejs deconstructsauthority of medial business, decon-structs authenticity and objectivityof information (in any way medial-ized and interpreted), but on theother hand Gravlejs contemplatesthe circumstances of contemporaryartist, who often has to suspend

his/her creative process in order to

earn money for living. Gravlfully smuggled his art in a enon-art activity.

Milan Mikultk

IVARS GRAVLEJSLATVIA


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One does not need to prove, that he once lived

In the project One does not need to prove,that he once lived I am trying to visual-ize history, relations and emotionsexisting between members of myfamily. Situations, gestures xed ina frame of a picture seem to be real

even if they are strictly directed. Sucha spontaneity has a long traditionin family photography, in the pastcaused by long exposure times I amusing such a way to expose the worldwhich was my primary world. It is

an extremely personal story of justone of the actors. The key to under-stand the series is to understand howit was created: work with own memo-ries, trying to reinstate the past whichcould be expressed only with images.

Is there a soul shared by all tmembers? Who is looking atbehind of the dead portraitsgestures do we repeat? Can our identity, not involving faidentity in the rst place?

MICHA BUGALSKIPOLAND


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The Edge

Boundaries both abstract and formalare the focus of this project. Shotalong the border of Moscow city itexplores the edges of a city. Humanhabitat confronted with empti-

ness. Snow performs as an abstractplane to put buildings and peopleout of 3-dimensional context. Andon the other level the image itself isconfronted with blank photographic

paper as white areas of snow are onlypresumed to be an image and in factare only blank paper.

ALEXANDER GRONSKYRUSSIA


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Natural Catalogue (In Alphabetical Order)

Increasingly, different texts, mediaand social movements proclaim thatart can newly regain the meaningprecisely by becoming engaged in acollective commitment to our environ-mental surrounding or by adoptingthe role of certain moral fundamentfor the pursuit of a positive, alterna-tive eco-centric culture.

I do not want to dismiss these no-tions as such, yet I think that signi-cance of art reecting on nature liessomewhere else. Instead of presentingexplicit solutions to art and ecology,

more relevantly, artistic practicegives possibilities to look at rigidlyestablished reasoning behind theenvironmental discourse and questionideologically awed perceptions orhistorically outdated facts.

In this sense, Natural Cataloguedoes not aim to present any com-prehensive concept of Nature, itsimply emphasises the multiplicityof meanings, often contradictoryand un-natural, all of which equallycontribute to how Nature is perceivedby the society.

For this purpose I found mostuseful to adopt Peter Greenawaysmethod of alphabetic order. Thismethod helps to enforce equal atten-tion to all aspects within the contextof Nature and in this way it revealshidden and underlying elementswhich are, however, inherent to ourunderstanding of what is Nature andnatural.

Nowadays, looking at and photo-graphing represent ultimate way howpeople relate towards their naturalsurroundings. Therefore I see photog-

raphy as a paradoxical mediecting back on these relatiosame time, as the series attemcomment on the social underof nature, I nd proper to comy own works with approprphotographs, generated by itions for which Nature belonofcial agenda.

Sources of the photographic material:

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26 personal archive,10, 25 University archives, Geography department, Liverpool University,24 eld works documentation, Institute of Ecology, Tallinn University,18, 23 promotional les, SEEDS Iceland, NGO for environmental education,3, 8 Academic archive, Doc. Ing. Duan Haama, CSc.,12 other sources.

AGTA MARZECOVESTONIA/SLOVAKIA


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Everything is white

The region of Bieszczady moun-tains has been settled for hundredsof years and its landscape has beenshaped by the hands of its habitants.In 1947 more than 140 thousandpeople, especially those with Ukrai-nian nationality, were resettled fromsoutheastern Poland to its westernarea called regained territories. Suchan operation was undertaken to helpPolish government to tackle with theUkrainian insurgent army (UPA),which had been operating in south-east of Poland since 1944. Military

activity of UPA has declined in earlyfties. Some of the Ukrainian gueril-las forced their way to the westerncountries, the rest of them have beenkilled. As a result of this so-calledoperation Wisla the centuries oldPolish-Ukrainian community hascompletely been destroyed.

Nowadays, this perceived as a wildand untouched by civilization region,every year during spring remindsus of the dramatic course of history.Bounteous blossoming orchardslocated in many forgotten villages are

still the subtle sign of former humanexistence and life which had beenblooming there. My approach to thisissue is connected with a loss of in-nocence of nature as well as with a di-chotomy of beauty and evil. Althoughall of the places which I am present-ing have their own violent history,today we can perceive them as quiet,almost idyllic spaces. What strikesme the most is the contrast betweenundisturbed silence of the landscapewith the year-to-year wakening ofblossoming and the scenes of deadly

battles and horric tragedy wtaken place there.

I am not aiming to tell indstories of people or show whpening with those places in amanner. I am interested if thversatility something whicbeyond historical facts. Blosgardens the houses which existing any more, in the scewhere all remains are wind-they are a kind of manifesto,traces of life and rebirth.

JOANNA PIOTROWSKAPOLAND


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Theres no such thing as an innocent eye

1.The aim of my project is photogra-phing buildings of synagogues to befound in the present-day Poland.During the Second World War, asa result of the politics of extermina-tion of the Jews led by the ThirdReich, the overwhelming majority ofthis type of buildings was destroyed.The few surviving buildings (veryoften holding an important historicalvalue) changed their function in thebest case scenario to stables or shops.After the end of the war they have not

received their old status back.

2.Abandoned synagogues and houses ofprayer (often in a state of ruin) wereadapted without any scruples to: cine-mas, factories, depots, silos, residen-tial houses, ofces or in the best casescenario: museums, cultural centresor municipal libraries. The changeof function stripped the houses fromtheir original sacral character, theirusage for the sake of Jewish rituals.

This project traces the fate of theseedices as well as the transformationsof their own image as well as that of

their immediate close surroundings.My interest has also been directed to-wards every intentional action havingtaken place in order to disguise andwash away this sort of information. Ithappened has often taken place afterthe war and it still does today (whichis related to the anti-Semitic tenden-cies which are unfortunately still alivein our country). I am interested in acertain form of memory, which is in-scribed within the architectural formof a building or the planning of urbanspaces, neighbourhoods, villages orsettlements which were the home ofthe Jewish Diaspora before 1939.

3.The main intention of this cycle isnot the creation of a photographictypology of these objects, but rathera sequence of photos presentingconsistently the facades of formersynagogues, occupying a distinctlyvisible space. Taking the photo-graphs, I try to bring into the picturethe contemporary context, wherethis sort of buildings are to be found.This way, this project tells the story ofmodern, usually rural Poland, whichis rarely represented in visual works

and records.A photographic documentalconvention is applied here. On theone hand it allows the assembly ofrich visual material with a pure visualcharacter, whereas on the other handit also enables an element, whichis substantial for the project thecreation of a visual narrative with ametaphoric sense. It tells the storyof a deserted place, as it was leftafter the Endlsung, initiated by theNazis 65 years ago. This aspect of myrecord shows a universal character. Itconcerns racial hatred as well as theconsequences of ethnic cleansing.

4.The cycle has been producedthe aim of publishing the assmaterial in an album. The bohold 307 photos showing allobjects preserved to the presday (excluding those lling afunction). The pictures in thare accompanied by additionwith visual descriptions as whistory of the photographed(as much as it is possible to mout nowadays, of course). Thword to the book is a summa

the conversations held with situations I had encounteredthe realisation of the project

WOJCIECH WILCZYKPOLAND


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1. Biala Rawska, 12/2006


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2. Dabrowa Tarnowska, 07/2007


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3. Dzialoszyce, 11/2006


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4. Kargowa, 03/2008


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5. Luban Slaski, 11/2007


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6. Modliborzyce, 01/2007


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7. Nowy Korczyn, 03/2008


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8. Radymno, 06/2007


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9. Ujazd, 03/2007


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10. Wielkie Oczy, 07/2007


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Jury

Contact

Lucia Nimcov, visual artist Sebastian Arthur Hau, Le Bal Books Karol Hordziej, Photomonth Krakow Pavel Vant, Gallery Klatovy

Roman Babjak [email protected] +421 948 000 497 www.award.sittcomm.sk


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sittcomm award 2010 - catalogue

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