Invisible Threat

The project ’Invisible Threat’ by Dutch photographer Marlonneke Willemsen shows the harmful effects new garden plants can have on insects and other little creatures that live in our garden and therefore on biodiversity.

Different studies in the Netherlands, but also other countries have shown that over 70-90% of new garden plants contain a cocktail of different pesticides, including insecticides designed to kill insects as effectively as possible. But how harmful are they in real life? And can these beautiful plants really lead to such a devastating result? To investigate this, Marlonneke bought 10 new garden plants and fed them to different insects, slugs and snails. She also set up a control group with safe food to eliminate other possible causes. 

The results are shocking; in 9 out of 10 cases, where the animals were fed with a new garden plant, all the animals died, while no animals died in the control groups. This led to a series of distressing images showing the suffering that is taking place in our gardens. By substances that are invisible to us and that have consequences that we usually do not see. For most of us, this will be beyond imagination.

Find out more: 

Website: marlonnekewillemsen.com

Instagram: @marlonnekewillemsen

 

Bee’s Eye View

A Glimpse into an Extraordinary Journey of Imagination through the lens of a bee. Inspired by the spring blooms in the Netherlands, these images encourage you to see the hidden forms and captivating beauty of nature up close. 

As we consider the profound significance of bees in our world, ‘Bee’s Eye View’ invites us not only to admire and appreciate the elegant lines and delicate curves of flower petals but also to immerse ourselves in the intricate details and shapes that elude the unaided eye. 

Let your imagination take flight and discover the magic of how a bee sees.

“I thoroughly enjoy capturing the intricate details of flowers and plants. I do this by merging shallow depth of field and graphic compositions to create close-up, minimal abstract images. The idea of photographing the exquisite beauty of tiny details and magnifying it in large prints fascinates me.”

Find out more: 

Website: photoart.fromjane.nl

Instagram: @photoart.fromjane 

 

 

The Future Tales 

The Future Tales offers a futuristic perspective, depicting a world where once groundbreaking technologies like cyborgs and quantum robotics are now relegated to the past. Quantum technology, initially introduced by humans, is now extracted as fossil fuels, and the first cyborg model, now reduced to a skull with a functioning implant, continues to record data.

This evolved world introduces novel technologies envisioning a coexistence of cybernetic organisms, blending biology and AI, with extraterrestrial beings. Stemming from a fascination with technology-human integration for enhanced capabilities and space exploration, The photographic portrayal illustrates a world entwined with disappearing natural habitats, emphasising the profound connection between technological growth and its environmental impact. 

The entanglement of past and present is evident in the fusion of cyborgs and quantum robotics with historical development. The extraction of quantum technology as fossil fuels exemplifies the interweaving of futuristic concepts with conventional resource-based technologies, revealing the interconnectedness of the future with remnants of its technological past. Ethical concerns arising from the coexistence of humans and cybernetic organisms underscore the complex relationship between technological advancement and ethical considerations, deeply intertwined with progress. The narrative further emphasises the interconnectedness of various aspects within this future world, suggesting that technology’s growth bears consequences for the natural world.

Find out more: 

Website: karolinamariadudek.co.uk

Instagram: @karolina_m_dudek

Once Upon a Pink Moon

I defy traditional artmaking and social conservatism through dissident bodies of work. I explore brokenness and healing through caring destruction, creating photographic work that pushes against assumptions of representation and is free to express itself through abstraction. I create artwork where each piece is a testament to its resilience: my images are survivors.

When creating with a camera, my paint and canvas are local ingredients and 35mm film. I photograph a variety of surfaces, spaces, and faces and then treat my negatives with regional recipes and local materials, viscerally bonding what was exposed to where it was captured. 

The pandemic made me question the relationship between home and safety: While quarantining offered protection from COVID-19, it led to a surge in domestic violence in Brazil. With this project, I aimed to create a realm without it, in solidarity with fellow survivors. The images are of my home’s walls, made with 35mm film eroded by Brazilian spices. Amorphous bodies and dreamlike landscapes emerged, a new realm born from deterioration, under shades of pink.

Find out more: 

Website: dauracampos.com

Instagram: @dauracampos

Inheritance

“I remember standing in front of his casket, saying ‘Paperle, wake up. Paperle, wake up.’ He didn’t open his eyes. I was mad.”

The term ‘transgenerational trauma’ is used to refer to the generally subconscious transmission of traumatic experiences to subsequent generations and to society. People in the next generation find themselves showing the symptoms of trauma without having experienced the trauma themselves.

The Photography project ‘Inheritance‘ aims to contribute to a broader understanding of the intricate bonds within families affected by transgenerational trauma. Imagine how different your life would be if certain events didn’t happen in your parents’ lives, your grandparents’ lives… It’s a thought that can create a million different realities, a thought that can be frightening with the endless possibilities it entails.

The images presented reflect on personal stories of trauma in my family’s life — stories that have been buried for decades, paired with blurry memories. By shedding light on the complexities of these relationships, the project seeks to foster and encourage conversations, and to reflect upon the ways in which family histories might impact present realities.

Find out more: 

Website: michellemaicher.com

Instagram: @mjcher

The Water is Cold and Deep 

Daily life was ordinary, neither dark, nor light. I missed the emotional contrast. I craved for something new to be experienced, a new feeling, a new place, a new emotion. 

For that to happen, I let my imagination go beyond my reality. I imagined a story, created narratives, and staged myself for the camera to fit that story. 

My imagination also opened my vulnerability to the world. I let unknown feelings and desires into my soul. I opened myself to nature. I started to feel male and female energies, silent communications, gazes. For the first time, I allowed myself to feel beautiful and desired, which I never felt. I felt alive and explorative. Only, I am yet to learn that opening vulnerability always comes with confronting hidden feelings and desires. 

The borders between real and imagined became blurred. I lost myself between real and imagined. 

I opened my vulnerability, but I also lost my ground. I was trapped inside of my destructive thoughts. I no longer understood what is hidden, what is real. I had no one to ask. 

I was in search of truth, which did not even exist. There were dark and cold days, deep, but unexpressed feelings, forgotten secrets. This uncertainty was too heavy to handle. 

I felt I lost something I have never had. 

 

Imagination, Memories, Realities

In my photographic journey, I portray physical, mental, and emotional landscapes through the layer of my current events, memories, emotions and nostalgia. I am connecting imagination to realities, and realities to memories. 

In my photographic process I am searching for the borderline between the dissolving reality and imaginary world to show hidden desires, suppressed feelings and silenced fantasies. This project is still ongoing and  is  searching and investigating the subtle moments in time. The moments that turn into eternity. 

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Instagram: @olena_denysyuk_photography

A Factless Autobiography

Confronting tuberculosis at the young age of 17 forced me to live in isolation for a prolonged period. After a few years, the suicide of a lover put me in a similar position- a certain alienation, despair, and failure to come to terms with the trauma of loss and death. Tragedies shape the human in you.

A Factless Autobiography, based on the book by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, reflects my understanding of human desire, gender, identity, and the often overlooked but complicated relationship between mourning and melancholia. I try to achieve this through portraits of my encounters with strangers, vis-a-vis- images of the self, creating a playful back-and-forth between the self and the other. 

Through this game of intimate exchanges, I come closer to understanding what it is to occupy a “queer” existence, as a South Asian immigrant in the politically fragmented landscape of America.  In its experience with the gestures of the body, desire, and space, this journey strives to look beyond the presupposed zones of identity and representation to think of the anonymous, erotic, and uncertain forms of sociality- death, disappearance, and the fragmentary passage of people and places.

Find out more: 

Website: rayd.space

Instagram: @debchoudhuri

Stereotypes 

The Oxford dictionary defines the word stereotype as, “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” 

One would think that as the world’s myriad cultures mingle and intermix that the stereotypes people hold about one another would fall to the wayside. But, based on my extensive research, the reality is that stereotypes are still prevalent. Sadly, these stereotypes are used to reinforce suspicions and hostile attitudes that people have about one another.I examined the stereotype, basing my photographic representations on an actual visual “average” determined via Google image analytics.

I started by searching the Internet for images of specific types of people – plumbers, secretaries, and priests, as well as “more general” categories of people such as nerds, hipsters, and grandmothers. I saved approximately 100 of each type, then reviewed these images one by one to determine their visual similarities, usually in clothing and accessories, hairstyles and facial hair, and gender. 

Then I broke these observations down into percentages In Stereotypes, the final images are blurry-challenging the viewer to find a real individual in each image. There is no one person to find in these “stereotypes” and that is ultimately my point. Everyone, whatever his or her origin, is unique. A stereotype is, in the final analysis, a meaningless and harmful construction.

Find out more: 

Website: wonkimphotography.com

Instagram: @w0n_k1m

Under The Weight Of Flowers

‘Memory is something that surprises you; it’s your identity, it’s yourself, but it only comes through sometimes. And you never know when it will come. It’s like an eruption. ‘ – Simone Fattal

A new collection of images from Stephanie O’Connor captures the delicate fecundity of Spring. O’Connor scoured urban cities for flora, the urban concrete city densely layered with histories and populated by transitory residents who bloom and fade with the seasons. 

Cropped close-ups blur the boundaries of human and floral forms, creating an urban garden of light and intricate texture, dense with memory of the lush gardens of O’Connor’s childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand – and the familial intimacy to be found there. Colours move like the memory of a fragrance – rich, layered; their gentle temporal fade ruptured by new waves of remembering.

Drawing on the late poet/artist Etel Adnan’s love of flowers (for they ‘shine stronger / than the sun’) and the fragile knowledge of their temporariness (‘their eclipse means the end of / Times’), O’Connor dwells in the present moment, the active verb of Spring, these graceful blooms and their human beholders stilled in a dream-like dawn celebrating new life – however long it may last.

Find out more: 

Website: stephanieoconnor.co.nz

Instagram: @steph_oconnor