Parallel Voices 2021
Ioannis Asmis (GR)
Polydefkis Asonitis (GR)
Noemi Comi (IT)
Emilia Haar (DE)
Makis Makris (GR)
Karoline Schneider (DE)
Alexandre Silberman (FR)
Vasiliki Stamou (GR)
Vassilis Vasileiou (GR)
Parallel Voices 2021
Ioannis Asmis (GR)
Polydefkis Asonitis (GR)
Noemi Comi (IT)
Emilia Haar (DE)
Makis Makris (GR)
Karoline Schneider (DE)
Alexandre Silberman (FR)
Vasiliki Stamou (GR)
Vassilis Vasileiou (GR)
“Reprocess”, Ioannis Asmis
This series of images is a result of my love for the night and my interest in finding beauty in items that are nearly dead or in a state of transition. Death and what comes next is something that always triggered my mind. Reprocess is documentation about this transition. A last dance or a new beginning, are highlighted in this series. A tree that partly dies and partly revives, an old, trapped piece of furniture, a breathing hole, unprocessed marbles that are ready to be used, all separated from their surroundings, make an entry or a final exit from a theatrical scene.
“MESSOLOGGI: The city of the sea and the sky”, Polydefkis Asonitis
What draws me to photograph in Messolonghi? What makes me go there every week and often sit in hotels for days? Apparently the events that happened there, the male and female heroes and heroines who fell to defend it. However, there is something else that overwhelms you, such as the vastness of the sea, the continuous level of the land, the salt flats that are separated as photo frames, the huge asphalt paved and dirt roads that connect the land with the sea.
But the dominant element for a photographer is that Messolonghi is a huge photographic scene starring the sky, the sea, the perfectly aligned horizon and its inhabitants with their works and events.
In this setting I chose images but also created my own, in order to symbolically render what Messolonghi was for me: geometric primordial shapes, unobstructed vision, natural scenery, sea and sky without limits, without beginning and end. In other words landscape and man companions to freedom.
“Alba Lux”, Noemi Comi
Alba lux is an artistic project that combines documentation and conceptual photography. The photographs become real symbolic images, reproducing idyllic atmospheres and ineffable realities. It’s a multidisciplinary journey between spirituality and science, which begins within the earthly reality and then takes off within the otherworldly one.
The central topic of the project concern Near-Death Experiences. NDE is a profound personal experience associated with death or impending death which researchers claim share similar characteristics. In fact, although have been documented people with very different religious, political and social beliefs, their experiences have many elements in common: the presence of a strong light, a sense of bliss and changes in personality.
I found the subjects within social networks like Facebook and through personal knowledge. At first time they were very wary but after clarifying my intentions I met them.
Each experience is very different and connoted by different religious aspects. Some have experienced it positively, others were traumatized and they suffered from depression. Each story is described by three different photographs: the first two want to represent the subject and his/her changes and the third is a conceptual interpretation of the experience he/she lived. The writings inserted are texts in Italian written directly by the subjects about their experiences.
“Saudade – How much do you miss me?”, Emilia Haar
Similar to the German equivalents Heimat, Fernweh or Vorfreude, the term Saudade refers to an emotional state of melancholy and “weltschmerz”. Almost paradigmatic, the Portuguese word works as a unique tool to communicate intrinsic feelings in a poetic manner. Nevertheless, the emotional attachment, because of the deeper meaning of this word, makes a universal definition more complicated.
Saudade – How much do you miss me? offers an approach to make this term more tangible, through the medium of photography. Similar to a diptychon, two images pair as a juxtaposition of yonder and proximity, while past and present are depicted simultaneously. Accordingly, the counterpart of the image of a past journey, in this case to Japan, forms the congruence of the current everyday life, whereas the evocation of certain memories through a confrontation with the presence builds upon the factor of resemblance. For instance, this might emerge through specific forms, colors or lighting conditions. Thus, the core topic of the photographies is the subjective observation of the everyday life concerning the chance, to build a bridge to the yond by means of the recognition of emotional afflicted analogies. And even though the memory might fade away in the course of time, the immanent longing constantly presents itself as driving force to conserve the momentum for the eternity in various ways.
“Odysseus’ Clepsydra”, Makis Makris
The present project constitutes an assemblage of visual fragments deriving from candid shots and selected scenes through the lengthy process of watching assorted television broadcasts, under very special conditions compared to those of my ordinary lifestyle. It is a personal allegorical narrative inspired the Homeric epic poem, Odyssey.
Odysseus’ Clepsydra seeks the visualization of all the emotional transitions that take place during our difficult and laden with dubiousness journey into the world. The eternal inner struggle is unceasing and equivocal. Positive thoughts, dreams and desires pitted against fears and unease, not only for bygones but also for what is yet to come.
The goals we set at the dawn of our lives are often succeeded by unexpected twists and frustrations, as years turn into an incessant struggle for survival.
However, the Time we are left with is teeming with the hope of restoration of our psychological balance, so that we are ultimately led to redemption.
“Pears in the Afternoon”, Karoline Schneider
Pears in the Afternoon, is a portrait series created between 2010 and 2018.
Originally a fine artist, I swapped my brushes for a camera and my colours for photochemistry. That’s how the ‘paintings’ that I never painted emerged.
In wet plate photography, I found a suitable medium to bring my images into being. Due to its very analogue nature, its distorting effects and its slow unfolding the wet plate process comes very close to the process of painting. At the same time, I use the so-called objectivity of photography to develop my own artistic imagery.
My artistic focus is on the portrait in the broadest sense: I’m always looking for the special quality of my subject, whether person, prop or situation.
For me, it is never about the portrait of an individual, it’s about the portrait of the human being per se.
“DIFFERENCES & REPETITIONS”, Alexandre Silberman
“My territories are beyond grasp, and not because they are imaginary, but on the contrary, because I am in the process of outlining them.”
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Gattari, A Thousand Plateaus
Established in 1968 for the purpose of fragmenting the Île-de-France’s “red belt,” the Seine-Saint-Denis department was formed in a way that simultaneously attached it to and isolated it from Paris. Ideologically split from the concomitant capital, it was also demographically, economically, and culturally so, all while still being “the periphery of.” In opposition to Paris’s immutable heritage, the area asserted its own identity through its heterogeneity, the plurality of its voices, and the radicalness of its mutations.
As the 2024 Olympic Games loom, of which it is one of the biggest beneficiaries, the Seine-Saint-Denis finds itself caught up in monumental building sites, whose scope contrasts with the reality on the ground. Former vast agricultural plains that have become the most extensive industrial area in Europe, it is now suffering from its early urbanization. The most cosmopolitan department, but also the poorest in mainland France, it is also one of the
youngest. Facing a prominent past and a difficult current situation, Seine-Saint-Denis is entering the 2020s with lofty ambitions for the future.
At a time when an army of cranes are working the ground just as much to build a shiny future as to bury an annoying present, it is an entire territory which makes its strata appear to our eyes. Agricultural and industrial, natural and urban, poor and opulent, all these asynchronous layers make up a complex landscape, both spatial and temporal, crossed by a constant balance of power. That opposing the morbid repetition of the identical, of the established order and to reestablish, and the vigorous repetition of the difference, that of the life that disappears and springs again.
Here, the latter has never seemed so beautiful.
But it has also, unfortunately, never seemed so fragile.
“GOOD ENOUGH”, Vasiliki Stamou
Mother good enough.
It’s a piece of art through which I’ am willing to approach the relationship between mother and daughter, it is considered to be important, many-sided, defining, unnegotiable. The starting place of that photographic depiction was my own personal chase and impulsive consideration about the relationship between me and my mother.
Each photograph is an aspect of reality that describer that unique bond.
Winnicott first ever brought in the meaning of “good enough” mother who covers the basic needs of her child, but not all of them, she let it be autonomous. She makes it possible to become mature and self. Contained during adulthood. She is neither deficient, nor very kind.
Each mother should face the shadows of her own past and complete against them giving real love to her child, she can find the balance between delimitation of her own behavior and the affection that gives to her child.
In that relationship nothing is considered to be given and defined from the beginning. That kind of emotional tie is alive, being modified, contextually but mother is always “there”. It’s a cycle of life during which mother turns into daughter and daughter becomes mother. Τwo leading rοles in a woman’s life.
That internal pursuit drove me to visit women who attach themselves to that unique relationship, shooting them at their homes, as they are mirrored in my eyes, complicating a dreamy reality, balancing between their own reality and my personal imagination.
“The Voice of the Cicada”, Vassilis Vasileiou
“Oh, tranquility!
Penetrating the very rock,
A cicada’s voice.”
Matsuo Basho, Haiku
The way that we approach our everyday life, our habits and routines reflect more or less conscious choices. The human-induced alterations on the natural environment, which surround these choices through structures and constructed spaces, as well as the objects that accompany human activity, are in a dialectical relationship, influencing us in a more impactful way than we believe they do. The purpose of this feedback process between persons, structures, objects and habitual behaviors is no other than the accomplishment of the ideal conditions, the pursuit of a comfortable life and, ultimately, a happiness that is to be found in scenes lacking heroism and drama.
Parallel Voices 2020
Ela Polkowska
Kostis Argyriadis
Areta Peristeri
Svetlin Yosifov
Nikos Priporas
Simone Jimena Rudolphi
Pinelopi Thomaidi
Gian Marco Sanna
Vasilis Nempegleriotis
Ela Polkowska, “Splinter”
“Splinter” is a story of people living in continuous disorder and about the feeling of uneasiness that their lives provoke.
For a year, I used to visit a family living in a house which should have fallen apart a long time ago. Yet, its residents apparently refused to accept that only order is legitimate in today’s world. They created around themselves a world resembling a warehouse – a space packed with things, whether working or not. Every time I went there, things would change their position, different people were visiting the house, sometimes it was hard to tell who is a member of the family and who is a stranger. It seemed that the continuous change gave meaning to that reality.
At the same time, I had the feeling that something is wrong, that this disorder should have end up with a catastrophe. And, somehow, this happened – the car which was owned by the family crushed, two animals died and the woman left the man and the house. Now they live apart, but with the same perpetual motion and disorder.
Svetlin Yosifov, “Mursi People”
“Mursi People” is a series of photos that were taken during my visit to Ethiopia and are part of the album “Ethiopian tribes expedition 2018”.
The African tribe of Mursi people is isolated in Omo valley – South Ethiopia near the border with Sudan. They are one of the most fascinating tribes in Africa with their lives being a combination of brutal reality and amazing beauty. What was really appealing to me, as a photographer, was to capture and recreate the perplexing nature of their culture and way of life. Suffering from extreme drought in the past few years has made their life cruel and sometimes dangerous, but has not left a single mark on their traditions. Living among them gave the sense of extreme authenticity and in the same time felt like an illusion. Their faces filled my insatiable passion for capturing pure, untouched souls of a culture on the brink of extinction.
Simone Jimena Rudolphi, “The DisUnited Queendom – “We Won! : We Are Right!”
This series of images illustrates the state of mind of a nation. Showing the colourful tableau of campaigners from all corners of society in Black & White offers a means of unifying the commonalities … the viewer is encouraged to look and read the details of the images to discover the parallel perspectives vying for validation and recognition in an increasingly divided country.
Some of the text on placards gives vital clues but also hint at the difficulties when common frameworks for living together have different connotations for different people.
While each is a stand-alone image they are best viewed in pairs.
Gian Marco Sanna, “Agarthi”
When walking along the shores of Lake Bolsena one is made aware of its distinctive and particular ambience.The water with its many colors and sounds, all of which play a crucial part in the natural cycle of the lake, its flora and fauna. The lake, a fascinating and mysterious place, over which many myths and legends hover. There are several stories about people going missing on the lake, and never found. The most recent was in 2007, when a man and his young children simply disappeared, and were never found.
Widely held beliefs take us back to the legend of “The Gate of Agarthi” a mythical place located on Bisentina Island, one of only two islands on the lake. Bisentina is believed to be the point of contact between “terra firma” and its mythical parallel – the legendary inner – earth kingdom of Agarthi – described in the work of the author Willis George Emerson (1856 – 1918).
Emerson’s conceptualization was linked to the theory of “Terra Cava” (Hollow Earth), a very popular subject in the field of esotericism and literature, as expounded by Dante Alighieri, who allegedly descended amongst the chosen-few, in order to explore the underground kingdom, and receive its energy called VRYL.
I have worked on the mystery of Bolsena and on its legends, investigating among reality and fantasy. The work is based on the territory of Etruria that could be a point of passage, the “Door, of passage” towards something of indefinite and mysterious. The Etruscans considered the Bisentina island (situated in the middle of the lake) the spiritual heart of the entire Etruscan nation that guard their secrets.
Areta Peristeri, “Bad Girls”
Metamorphosis: “a complete change of character, appearance or condition”.
In my photographs, I use my own self because it is my most valuable friend.
I have chosen a clear white background that does not distract the viewer’s gaze, ordinary objects and faces with extraordinary features that have become my allies in a journey of self-knowledge. Characters who trouble me, who are distinctive, who have always made me seek them out, analyze them and compare myself to them in order to erase an old trauma and achieve an internal catharsis. I impersonate other characters, because I cannot escape my own body. Why am I ailing, while others don’t?
My transformations are both a symptom and a cure, a total repression of every concern, a deterioration that helps identify the deepest reason of the current situation.
Photography as a therapy. I started photographing, when I became sick.
To me, it is the reality in which I am obliged to give reasons to nobody, my cure. “BAD GIRLS” is the emancipation of myself from the self-imposed prudery. It is Me.
Kostis Argyriadis, “The Moscow Derivative”
The derivative measures the sensitivity to change of the output with respect to a change in the input. I photographed Moscow in 2015 and some years later, as I was looking the photos on my screen, I re-shot them. This change of view offered me the distance in space and time needed to distance myself from the theme and at the same time returning back to its space.
Vasilis Nempegleriotis, “Meadow of asphodelus”
The Municipal Home of Retirement is a charity institution located in Central Greece, Larissa. It began accepting old and abandoned people in 1967, following the merger of the assets of Dimitrios Hatzizogides, Athanasios Chalkiopoulos and Angeliki Lappa. The institution , considered as a lung full of life enhances the everyday of the local and old people.
When, I finally realized that my grandfather was the most important person for me, it was too late. Our grandchild-grandpa relationship made my life better and stable. He gave me the love that I needed as a kid and transmitted all the inner peace and patient he had. I needed a lot to talk to him, even if I could not. So, this drove me to this institution. Searching for a way out of the everyday routine I started visiting this heart-warming Home. I can call all these people as friends, even if I do not know them at all.
Using my camera as a ‘boat’ and the famous poem ‘Oblivion’, of the Greek poet Lorenzo Mavilis, as a ‘compass’ I walked through the corridors of Municipal Home of retirement and ‘breathed’ doses of love and warm. The poem ‘Oblivion’ includes the lyric ‘Meadow of Asphodelus’ which is considered to be the garden of resting souls.
In conclusion, I feel as the grandchild of all these old residents. This feeling gave me the taste of magic of these people and the colour of human relations.
Penelope Thomaidi, “A Zone to Defend”
“ZAD” in french stands for an activist occupation intended to physically blockade a development project. Called officially in France, the Zone d’aménagement différé (zone for future development), it was renamed by protesters as the Zone à défendre (zone to defend). The ZAD of Notre Dame des Landes in west France was the first place to be so named. Since 2008, after a call by local farmers and inhabitants, a living utopia was formed around a fifty-year-old struggle against an “airport and its world”. By the beginnings of 2018, approximately 300 activists had organised their lives around this protest, horizontally and collectively, despite the markets and the state. On January 17th, 2018 the french government officially announced the cancellation of the airport project. But with this decision came another: the french PM also announced that the community had until spring to leave. I had a short time to get a glimpse of the community’s life before eviction operations started, comprising 2500 gendarmes, armoured cars, drones and helicopters. French newspapers calculated the cost of these operations around 5 million euros just in their first phase. Today negotiations with the state are still ongoing.
Nikos Priporas, “Souvenirs”
These photographs, under the title ‘Souvenirs’, describe a highly conservative Greek reality, which claims that the adhesion to an unskilled reproduction of ancient symbols along with the adoption of false mimic images of the Western civilisation, add to the self-sufficiency and the prestige that it seems to seek. Throughout these reconstructions which mime ancient monuments and statues, one can witness the marching of representations of popular emblems, churches that appear as miniatures in the middle of nowhere (which believers do they invite, really?), as well as symbols that, due to the recent political developments regarding the name of North Macedonia., became objects of quarrel. In these images, surrounded by square frames and despite their strictness, one can witness the playful, even ironic, mood of the photographer. The invocation of the past, the oblique westward gaze and the emphasis on the religious element are the triptych, which runs a large part of the disoriented Greek society. The hyperbole in their use, certainly invokes beliefs and arbitrary, often contradictory, adopted identities. Everything fits but nothing matches. This series reaches the lines of political photography as it records and gleans that which longs to be, through the use of symbols, the public image of the modern Greek and how he coexists with the public space. It is the image that he, himself constructs by using old and light-reflecting stereotypes which he estimates that they emulate the splendour of a long gone civilisation as a deficiency for the creation of a new one.
Aleka Tsironi
Photometria International Photography Festival continuing the promotion of modern photographic creativity, announces a portfolio competition at 1 November – 31st December 2018.
It is requested by the participants one (1) portfolio including fifteen (15) photos of which eight (8) will be chosen. Through these pictures, the photographer addresses a topic of his preference, an idea or even the narration of a story.
The top nine (9) portfolios will be the material of the exhibitions entitled ”Parallel Voices”, and the following ten (10) will be presented as screenings.
The selection of the portfolios will be based on the following characteristics:
The relevance of the pictures to the topic.
The coherence of the pictures as a united whole.
The artistic and aesthetic quality of the photos.
The cost for every participant is 15 euros (to find out how you are going to pay, please follow this link: https://www.photobookstore.gr/index.php?route=product/product&path=60&product_id=59 ) Each photographer has to send his pictures at a digital form via WeTransfer at portfolio@photometria.gr. Also the email should include the following information:
Title of your work
Your name and surname
Your father’s name
Your address / place where you live
Your phone
Short cv/bio
Small description of the project
Your participation is going to be valid only if you have sent the portfolio and paid the cost of your participation.
In chase the photographs depict individuals without their knowledge or their approve, the responsibility lies exclusively on the photographer at whom the work belongs to and NOT on Photometria International Photography Festival.
The large side of the pictures sent must be 1500 pixels wide and 300 ppi in resolution.
Of those who will be excelled from the contest, it will be requested in time, to send their pictures at full resolution to be printed for the following exhibition.
The final day which pictures will be accepted is December 31 of 2018.
The results will be announced at the website of the festival ( www.photometria.gr), at social networks, whereas the winners will be informed also via email.
Jury team:
Panagiotis Papoutsis
Achilleas Tziakos
Panagiotis Pappas
The excelled portfolios will be the material of the exhibitions and screening entitled Parallel Voices, which will take place at places specified by the festival. Photometria International Photography Festival reserves the right to use the excelled pictures for the promotion of these exhibitions, as also at future promotional acts of the festival, with reference to the creator of the work. The printed portfolios will be reserved at the archive of the festival which holds the right to manage them and re-exhibit them.
The submission of your portfolio entails the acceptance of the above terms of the festival from each individual competitor.
We are waiting for your participation!!!