Innholdsfortegnelse for #4 2021 i Artdoc Photography Magazine

Despite having been defined in nearly countless ways, photography has long secured its place among other forms of imagery by representing objects in a reliable, consistent manner. Such supremacy may be considered a culturally or socially constructed outcome born of an entrenched affinity between seeing and knowing. Alternatively, photography might appear to be a product of its social functions (i.e., proving and verifying). No matter the rationale, photography’s superiority in object representation remains essentially indisputable. Yet a solid corpus of literature has emerged along with the rise of the so-called “digital revolution” or “digital age”, examining the issue of whether or not digitality has transformed the ties between reality and photography or, put more precisely, the ways in which reality is represented through photography. Even before digitality rose to prominence,…

Out of curiosity, Alakananda Nag wanted to know more about the history of her multicultural city. She realised that all the different ethnic groups were visible in the street life: Chinese, Jews, British, Greeks, and Portuguese. But the Armenian group, which was once a very prominent community, was hardly visible. “When I became a photographer, I decided to explore the Armenian history. The buildings of the old popular part of Calcutta, which I adored since childhood, were built by the Armenians. It was an exploration of a world in my city that I didn’t know of. When I delved deeper, digging beyond the surface, more and more information came to me, and I just could not stop”. Alakananda found out that the history of the Armenian settlement went back as…

While living in Tokyo, Florian Ruiz decided to visit the nuclear plant after the Fukushima disaster on 11 March 2011. “I didn’t want to take a journalistic approach, so I used a pinhole camera to distort the images to show the disturbing familiarity of the world. The question I had as a photographer was: How do you portray this invisible danger of radioactivity? I decided to explore the medium of photography which involves using a digital process of superimposing image fragments to photograph the distortion of the presence of radiation in the landscape. The transparency effects, the broken perspectives give rise to a shape that is in motion. This process reinvents and twists the very landscape, leading to a sort of vertigo or malaise, a threatening danger hidden behind the…

In 2007 I started documenting the pieces of evidence left by mining exploitation on Sardinia. Abandoned buildings, deep shafts, dumps and several galleries are just a few keys to the transformed landscape. I am looking for traces from the past along with signs that made this change happen. Moreover, there is my personal need of wandering through empty spaces in the absence of people. Generations can forget their roots because no more miners are working on the island, so it is crucial to make images of the places that build our story. I became a speleologist to access those remote places. Sometimes you have to go down in deep shafts using ropes to reach the underground. The core of a mine is under the surface, hundreds of meters below. Visiting…

“It had been raining for days. Four days before the water level rose further, the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) sent out the first warnings. These became more precise by the hour. Neither the responsible agencies nor the media responded to the alarms. The flood claimed 180 lives and left behind enormous suffering and immense damage to infrastructure. Countless times I drove through the Ahr valley to visit my parents-in-law. The Eifel became my second home. Now you pass through almost untouched areas until you reach the places where the flood had reached. The transition from the natural landscape to chaos is abrupt and exceeds any usual dimension: houses washed away, black holes from windows and doors foreshadow the force with which the flood advanced. Brown areas with distinct lines…

What intrigued Michael Chinnici to travel so often to this Caribbean Island? “Going to Cuba was very emotional for me. Cuba had always intrigued me as a young adult, so it was a special experience when I got there. I was surprised by how warm and welcoming the people were, along with their resilience and sacrifice. The United States is responsible for much of their poverty, yet I experienced no animosity. Such lovely people. That is something you have to respect and admire.” Chinnici was also impressed with their educational system. “They knew more about the political landscape of the United States than most Americans.” He fell in love with the Cubans. “They are beautiful people. Christopher Columbus noted when he landed in Cuba; the native Siboney were some of…