4th SIPF

1) How are the photographs in the festival presented? What choices did the curators make in the display of the works? Are the photographs grouped in a certain way?



The photographs are displayed side by side in a series by each photographers. The style and fonts used to describe the photography series are the same, all done in minimal fashion. I think it is probably to make it look formal, simple, and time-saving, as well as to keep to focus on the photographs instead. The names of the photographers are always at the bottom of the photos. I think that the curators grouped the photos that complement each other best, as well as similar color tones together, so as to allow the viewers to pay more attention to each and every photographs.

2) Name a series that attracts you the most. Who is the photographer? What is his or her work about? Explain what you like about it.

It is quite hard for me to name just one series but out of all the photographs I have seen the entire day, only 2 series caught my eye.

After School by Lau Chi-Chung is one of them because they give me a very nostalgic feel.

"For this series, I used a representation of a student as my response to the rapid changes in various spaces in a city. How much difference is there between the things we learn from teachers and books and the actual situations we face in our daily lives? Students seem to be more curious of their surroundings and grown-ups tend to be uncertain most of the time. Is the city we live in more absurd, or does the pedagogy of our time never actually catch up with the world of constant changes?"

I feel that it is very relatable because I am always filled with unanswerable questions from my parents and teachers. The series also speaks out to me as it makes me reminisce about wearing a school uniform all over again.



Portraits of Time by Koo Bohn Chang also stood out particularly because I am a huge fan of monochrome colors, textures and minimalistic styles.

The photos, although they are in B&W, have lots of details and they were the only one I observed and bothered to stare intently at for an extended period of time at the festival. Once I lay my eyes on these series, I could not take my eyes away and the rest of the photos in the festival were not appealing to me at all. There is just so much detail to marvel at and it still interests me as I am typing this.

"For a long time my work has expressed a history of certain living things and their decay and disappearance. My concerns have been with man’s mortality, with cherished objects, with animals and plants. Recently I have concentrated my work on simple things such as the lines of a hand’s palm, tree roots, earth and water. The subject of my work is an extension of those projects, specks of dust that have accumulated on the surface of a wall that in turn has been subject to a variety of shocks over a long period of time. As I worked on this piece, I was reminded of a saying they have in India: “What we call the world is an accumulation of dust.” I wonder how many stories the almost invisible traces of dust can tell us?"

Reading this, I think the photographer has succeeded in connecting with me and making me feel exactly what he wants me to feel.

3) Is there any series of photos that explores the topic of work or leisure?



Euromaiden by Brendan Hoffmen. It shows how the police and military personnels handle riots.

"During the winter of 2013/2014, incredible scenes of anti-government protests in Ukraine captivated the world. A ragtag and multi-faceted coalition of students, right-wing nationalists, and ordinary citizens camped and rallied in Kiev’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan, hoping to bring down a corrupt and aloof president. Despite the cold and escalating brutality by the police, over the course of three months these grassroots revolutionaries created and exploited cracks in the regime’s will to stay in power, eventually causing President Viktor Yanukovych to lash out violently, then flee.
While the crisis in Ukraine quickly pivoted to Crimea and unprecedented Russian aggression there, the primary goal of the Euromaidan protests was achieved with the removal of Viktor Yanukovych as president. As the new government of Ukraine struggles to move forward and maintain unity, Yanukovych is on the run, wanted for mass murder."

4) Write some of your thoughts about the festival. What do you think of the festival overall. Would you visit the rest of the exhibits or attend the film screenings on your own time?

Personally, I enjoyed the festival very much even though I didn't enjoy walking from one location to the other under the hot sun. Weirdly enough, I actually enjoyed the interior design of the festival more than the photos displayed probably because I enjoy how simple it is, as compared to the photos. The photos were mostly identical, except for a few that I felt were different. Most of them were just people, people and more people and some landscapes but that was just that. However, the interior was just space, geometric shapes, textures, white and black and I was really quite obsessed with it. I understand that they probably designed it that way to attract lesser attention so our focus would be on the photographs, and that it is cheaper to do it this way but it has gotten most of my attention actually...

I tried visiting DECK again a few weeks later on a Monday, unfortunately, but they were closed and I was a little bit disappointed as I was raving about Koo Bohn Chang's series of photographs to my friend.

Overall, I think the SIPF is not bad but I will only visit it once to see everything, then probably just once more, to look at my favorite series for a last time before they are gone.

EDWARD BURTYNSKY

Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky is on a mission to document how we all are transforming our natural world on an industrial scale, from stone to minerals, oil, transportation and silicon.

His pictures of oil-themed landscapes (‘I… think about oil itself: as both the source of energy that makes everything possible, and as a source of dread, for its ongoing endangerment of our habitat’) from oil spills off the Gulf of Mexico, to the oil fields of California, are extraordinary.

TIINA ITKONEN

 The Inuit people of Northern Greenland have a myth that partly explains their theory of creation, and it goes something likes this: ‘In the beginning giants lived on the land and ate plants that they gathered. One day, when it was almost winter, a mother giant and a father giant had a baby girl. Her name was Sedna.

As the days got shorter, Sedna got bigger and bigger. Soon she was so huge that there wasn’t enough food for her anywhere. She got so hungry that she started to bite her mother and father’s legs. Her parents could no longer bear it so they smuggled Sedna into a blanket and carried her to their canoe. It was dark but there was a moon to see by and they paddled the canoe out to sea. When they got way out in the middle of the ocean they dumped Sedna overboard into the cold water, left her to drown and started to paddle their canoe home feeling cold and ashamed of themselves for drowning their own daughter.

 But they had just started paddling when the canoe stopped. No matter how hard they paddled they couldn’t move. They looked over the canoe and saw that Sedna’s huge hands were holding their canoe. She was going to toss them into the ocean and they would drown. So Sedna’s mother and father started to chop at Sedna’s fingers with their sharp stone knives and they cut off her fingers, one by one. But as Sedna’s big fingers splashed into the water, they changed into animals. One finger became a whale. One finger became a seal. One finger became a walrus. One became a salmon.

Sedna swam to the bottom of the ocean and stayed there. She became Mother of the Sea and came to rule over Adlivun, the Inuit underworld. The fish built her a tent there to live in. She still lives there, and if you are hungry, you can ask Sedna to send you more food, even in the winter.’

It was this story that originally inspired Finnish photographer Tiina Itkonen to travel to Greenland and experience that ancient culture of the Polar Eskimoes, a culture that has endured in the harsh and majestic conditions there for millennia. she visited countless times over twenty years, often staying for months. The result is a spectacular photographic series that reveals hidden aspects of Inuit life, from intimate portraits to stark contrasts of modern western influences against the bleak environment.

Ultimately Itkonen highlights the tenuous nature of the Inuit’s existence, caught in a trap where the slightest environmental change will cause everything they know to alter drastically and irreparably.

ELENA CHERNYSHOVA

Travelling can be a very stressful business from time to time. Rushing through airports, scurrying between platforms or wedging yourself in among hundreds of sweaty people, none of this is exactly calming and we inevitably go through at least some of it in our lives.

Elena Chernyshova has created an illuminating photographic series that captures the still moments in the otherwise frantic journeys of commuters and other travellers. By hunting down the peaceful silence hiding among the hustle and bustle of 21st transit the France-based photographer has created Awaiting Movement, a collection of images that combine the rushing impressions of motion with peaceful faces of travellers gazing out of windows, sitting quietly or dozing.

 ‘Whether you’re in France, the Czech Republic, China, Singapore, Nepal, the expressions on the faces of the passengers are the same. Waiting for transport is a universal ‘emotion,” says Elena ‘Waiting gives everyone a moment of personal introspection.’

SHAE DETAR

Shae DeTar creates otherworldly photographic prints, combining photography and painting to take her subjects out of reality and place them within her etherial world. Shae shoots analog and digital photographs and then adds layers of paint to exaggerate color, create texture, and add an element of fantasy to the image.

Prior to discovering such photographs, I never knew hand-painted photos existed or how beautiful they actually were. After exploring around the net for more photos besides my usual monochromatic ones, I am taken aback at how amazing these photos are. I feel that people are paying too much attention to photos of nature etc that we are not focusing on photos that have a more unique concept/approach to it. These photos stand out more due to their originality and brilliant concept.

LI HUI

I don't even know how to start by describing these photos....
They are calm and dreamy, and definitely very quirky.

Lihui's photos are actually very desaturated because she uses a negative scanner but this process has allowed her photos to look very nostalgic and calm. The people in her photos all look very ambiguous because their faces are always not shown fully, which captures my attention even more.

She captures everything in soft focus and takes advantage of the grainy quality of film to set a very ethereal atmosphere.

GRAY MALIN

  

These photos are from Gray Malin's photo series Antartica: The White Continent.

I chose these photos because it gives me a different view of how Antartica is usually like. The most interesting part of the photo isn't the landscape, but more of the props shown in the photo. From umbrellas to floats, these items will be more commonly found in beaches or sunny areas where people can play and swim. However, Malin's use of such props in his photos make them look more vibrant as they stand out from the monochromatic background.

His photos give me a lot of inspiration because I have learnt that props make a huge difference in photos. Initially, I always thought it was the camera, settings, angles and lightings that make the difference but now I have learnt that the usage of items in my photos can make it look very impressive too.

Furthermore, because Antartica is such a mysterious continent, the photos have a larger impact to me because I don't really know how it looks like. It is not everyday I get to witness icebergs and snowy landscapes in photos so it is a very novel idea.