Daria Tuminas
Writing
Curating & Production
Dutch Photography Experience

Presentation by Jaap Scheeren

January 11, 2014

"‘Fresh anarchy’ is one way to describe the work of Dutch photographer Jaap Scheeren. With his own, slightly absurdist style he investigates the connection between reality and photography. In doing so, Scheeren has developed a visual world which follows its own intuition, logic and rules - always with a humorous twist."

From the artist's website

Guided tour by Inna Veselova

January 11, 2014

Inna Veselova is a philologist, specialist in study of literature, specialist in folklore, anthropologist, Doctor of philological studies, docent at the department of the history of Russian literature (faculty of philology, St. Petersburg State University), member of the Independent Noncommercial Organization 'Propp Centre: humanitarian research in the field of traditional culture', the head of yearly folklore and anthropological field researches of the philological faculty SPSU. Staring from 2011, she is a co-head of a research project 'Primary signs, or pragmemas', that among others works with visual material and photography.

Tour: 'Signs of time and relationship in mass photography'

Among the variety of forms of visual narratives, games, provocations and experiences that were presented at the exhibition of the contemporary Dutch photobook Undercover, I (as an anthropologist) payed attention to several projects. Some of them are a small publication 'Mimicry' Judith van Ijken and '_and Willem. Documentation of a Youth'. What unites them is the topic: presentation of family relationship from a time perspective. Artists think about a connection that unites people in a family or outside of it. They think of how we make relationships last and about traumas of breaking relationships. Driving off amateur photography, artists extend borders trying to find or to hide visual norms or rules. During the tour, I would like to discuss norms and rules of interpersonal attitudes visualisation, and the differences of these norms between Dutch and Russian photography traditions.

Guided tour by Nadya Sheremetova

January 5, 2014

Nadya Sheremetova is the director of FotoDepartament and a photo critic.

The subject of the tour: 'Why would you collect a home library, or what theoretical approaches do photographers incorporate in their practice?'

On one hand, the tour will be devoted to the obsessive collecting of a personal library, that is being fulfilled after each trip to photoevents by not only photobooks but books on theory of photography on the first place. On the other hand, the visitors will be offered to see books presented at the exhibition from a perspective of what theoretical knowledge do photographers use in their practice, and how one can understand a project deeper if one has a background of knowledge received from books that once got into your library.

Skype interview with Robin Uleman and Paulien Oltheten by Jana Romanova 

December 21, 2013

 

" We will talk with the photographer Paulien Oltheten who made the books 'Theory of the Street' (2007), "A Sort of Lecture" (2010), "Photo's from Japan and my Archive" (2012) presented at the show Undercover. We will also have an interview with the designer Robin Uleman who worked on such books as '_And Willem' by Willem Popelier and 'Schelter' by Henk Wildschut that you can find at Undercover as well. 

This meeting can be called 'Visual Theory' (with a reference to the Paulien's book 'Theory of the Street'). It rather difficult to describe what she does as a photographer - as soon as you try to do it, you get something crazy. She catches and studies different gestures of people at a street, their behaviour, non-verbal sygnals, honestly and brightly, through the use of a regular documentation.

Guided tour by Sasha Burenkov 

December 21, 2013

Sasha Burenkov is an artist and a curator living and working in Moscow. Since his graduation from the St. Petersburg State University and the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow he has collaborated with a number of media and art institutions including State Polytechnic Museum and Calvert 22 Foundation. In August 2013, he curated Books in the air, a special project by Strelka Institute for Architecture, Media and Design, that focuses on the future of reading and e-publishing as a form of artistic practice.

Skype interview with Anais Lopez and Teun van der Heijden by Jana Romanova

December 14, 2013

Subject of the interview - 'Photography and graphic design: conflict and colaboration'.

'Today's boom of the photobook is marked by limited editions publications; new types of publishing houses that are organised by artists themselves; and by an innumerable quantity of book fairs in Europe and the USA. Design and the form of a book seem to dominate, creating an object of 'book fetishism' that is attractive due to it's appearance more rather than due to a photographer's work. In this context, a question can be asked: who is the author of a book if both a photographer and a designer worked on it? What kind of conflicts may arrive in such a collaboration? How to find a balance between form and contact? What is a photobook for contemporary collectors and photographers? And how one can make a photobook today?

On the 14th of December, we are going to talk with Anais Lopez about her project 'In the beginning no bird sang' and with a designer Teun van der Heijden who worked on this book together with Anais for a few months. 

Before the interview, we will have a 20 minutes tour through the Book Gallery of Undercover. During the tour you can formulate your questions for the photographer and designer.'

Guided tour by Anton Mikhailovsky

 

December 14

Anton Mikhailovsky is a producer and an educational program director. From 2008 he has coordinated and produced various educational projects connected to visual communications and social projects. From 2009 to 2013 he has coordinated workshops of the 15th World Press Photo winners (Moscow), Lucian Perkins’ workshop on producing multimedia projects (Moscow, June 2009), workshops of photographers and multimedia producers held during the Projections of Reality exhibition (Moscow, March 2010), workshop for the Polish and Russian youth (Kaliningrad, November 2011; Gdansk, February 2012), more that 15 long term online workshops of famous photographers, photo editors and leaders of the industry held on the base of OR[EDU] educational initiative, numerous of lectures and portfolio reviews. Anton is currently working on educational events of OR[EDU], as an editor of Treemedia publishing house (Moscow), and as a co-founder and the head of the printing service for photography books Nemakulatura.ru (Moscow).

I was incredibly happy to take part in Undercover by making a tour through the exhibition. I was glad to support this fresh and, in my opinion, extremely important for the current moment (not only in Russia and St. Petersburg) educational initiative and the exhibition. I was really positively surprised when I saw a big number of interested visitors that came for my tour, I also appreciated their serious attitude, understanding of the subject, and a strong will to go beyond a superficial understanding of visual narration in a book. The whole experience met my best expectations. I consider this exhibition and it's educational program to be one of the most important events of the year 2013. It is the exhibition that you can not leave in an hour, neither in two, and you want to come back again and again."

Anton Mikhailovsky

Guided tour by Daria Tuminas

December 7, 2013

Daria Tumians is a freelance researcher, photographer, and a curator (together with Zhenia Sveshinskaya) of the Undercover exhibition.

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