The Exposure Project

Monday, July 13, 2009

Koen Hauser's The Lustre of the Land

In 2008, Koen Hauser teamed up with Spaarnestad Photo to create The Luster of the Land, a project that integrates archival appropriation and a kind of performative self-portraiture. As he explains in his statement:

"By means of a selection based on personal interests, fascination, and my obsession with the notion of ‘the diorama’, it interweaves impressions of a (re-created) fantasyworld with pictures on the process of creation, using my personal appearance. These images of the creation process - I call them performéances -, are the residue of performances held to invoke the spirit of creation. Together with the narratives of old photographs they form an installation on imagination and ephemerality."

From "The Luster of the Land"
© Koen Hauser and Spaarnestad Photo & Nationaal Archief

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Emile Hyperion Dubuisson's Siberia, The Far North

Emile Hyperion Dubuisson e-mailed the other day to share some work from his austerely beautiful series Siberia, The Far North. As explains in his statement:

"These bleak images from Siberia, which I once gave up as lost due to an accident in development, have been brought back to life through careful scanning.

By putting contradictory feelings side by side, I tried to recreate the rudeness and the fullness of this landscape. This story is a very personal, intimate and human portrait of these men and women."

From "Siberia, The Far North"
© Emile Hyperion Dubuisson

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Seba Kurtis' 700 Miles

Seba Kurtis' series 700 Miles is a powerful and thought-provoking exploration of Hispanic immigration to the United States. As Kurtis explains in his statement:

"There are currently 45million Hispanics working or living in the USA, (particularly from Mexico) of which 12 million are suspected illegal. This diluting of their race breeds insecurity in some American citizens, fearful of the face of America being changed. An anti-immigrant crusade has developed to prevent illegal aliens from crossing the southern border. In 2006 President Bush authorized the fencing of 700miles of the US-Mexico border of the states of California, Texas and Arizona. This $2.2 billion project is yet to materialize, but has been compared to the Berlin Wall. Patriotic Americans have given up their free time to become vigilantes “Minutemen”, who secure the border themselves and report any infiltration to border police from 24hour video cameras in their own home"

From "700 Miles"
© Seba Kurtis

Suyeon Yun's Homecoming

Suyeon Yun's project Homecoming depicts the lives and families of war veterans spanning many different conflicts - namely though from WWII through the Iraq war. You can see some images from this series in the current issue of Aperture if you haven't already picked up a copy.

‘OzarKa’/ Menphis MS. 2007 (From "Homecoming")
© Suyeon Yun

‘Kleenex’/ Laredo TX. 2007 (From "Homecoming")
© Suyeon Yun

crab meat/ Boulder CO. 2007 (From "Homecoming")
© Suyeon Yun

wet pants/ Silver Spring MD. 2008 (From "Homecoming")
© Suyeon Yun

noodles/ Fort Belvoir VA. 2008 (From "Homecoming")
© Suyeon Yun

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Erica Allen's Untitled Gentlemen

Women in Photography is currently featuring Erica Allen's series Untitled Gentlemen - a project that, through photographic mediation, aims to explore issues of identity in contemporary portraiture. The images that Allen uses as her inspiration are "faces from contemporary barbershop hairstyle posters combined with figures from discarded studio photographs." In her statement she affirms:

"Existing between the real and artificial, these images are made effective by creating an expressive ambiguity in an unexpected context. In subverting the meaning and expectations of the traditional studio portrait, the images create an unknown narrative and visual tension that play with the viewer’s perception of the work.

The ambiguous expressions captured in these barbershop portraits inherit a vulnerable quality when placed inside the familiar frame of the studio portrait. In this new context, these once primarily functional photographs become unusually candid and passive representations of masculinity. Paired with figures from historical and contemporary found photographs, these men adopt new identities and are recognized as individuals, while remaining anonymous; identified by the hairstyle number originally found on the barbershop posters."

Untitled Gentleman #15
© Erica Allen

Untitled Gentleman #12
© Erica Allen

Monday, July 6, 2009

Damon Zucconi's Colors Preceding Photographs

I discovered Damon Zucconi's amazing series of videos Colors Preceding Photographs today. Comprised of three different videos, IMG_0258, woodshed and 1535925-Inside-the-Roman-Baths-0, these simple transformations provide a number of perceptual and chromatic surprises. Enjoy.

Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann's Zapallal/Yurinaki

Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann's project Zapallal/Yurinaki explores the economic, social and political hardships faced by impoverished Peruvian communities. As he asserts in his statement:

"With the help of the communities of Zapallal and Yurinaki, I started a photographic project, that deals with life conditions in these particular surroundings. I wasn't interested in creating a classic reportage or using a journalistic approach. I wanted the community to participate in the project and involved my subjects in the creative process. They helped me composing the images, selecting and arranging characteristic elements of these surroundings, searching for typical spaces to stage every-day situations in order to deal with social and political issues. Most of the people now living in Zapallal came from the countryside to the outskirts of Lima, hoping to find better work opportunities and establish a solid economical wealth. The high percentage of unemployment and an overpopulated capital city didn't leave them many chances except starting all over again. Most of the people I photographed in this project experienced this social instability. After a few years of development the several tendencies and stages, all emerging from the same origin, became noticeable."