Ali Shobeiri

© Ali Shobeiri

AliShobeiri.com

My photos are about our modern “Man-altered” places in the cities where identifying the traditional line of demarcation between nature and culture has become inconceivable. They are about those uncanny moments when a photographer senses that s(he) is being hunted by a “place,” and instead of escaping from it, s(he) decides to arrest that intimate moment in order to tame it and later consign it into his/her memory.

My photos of our modern urban-ruins allow me to remember those uncanny moments that once took place between me, my camera and the photographed event. By doing so, they assure me that those moments are stored (in my hard drive) and tamed (in my memory), so I can forget them. In short, I can say that these photos are the way I pay tribute to those encounters when my optical unconscious allowed me to sneak into a new territory, a territory that was once a physical place in the city, and now it has become another form of place in my memory.

— Ali Shobeiri, Tehran, Iran

© Ali Shobeiri

© Ali Shobeiri3

Lara Bacchiega

© Lara Bacchiega

CargoCollective.com/LaraBacchiega

The project analyzes the concept of non-place. Considering the definition provided by the French anthropologist Marc Augé in 1992 as a starting point, the concept is applied to the contemporary landscape, recognizing in particular the seaside town of Bibione, in the province of Venice, as the appropriate area of research for this investigation. Bibione is considered in the sense of large non-place as a place of transition, frequenting by masses in the summer season while suspended and empty during the winter months, to the point of assuming the aspect of a ghost town. The work highlights some of the features identified by Augé about these particular spaces, as their standardization and uniformity, their anonymity, their being untied from the context they physically occupy and their nature of a not-truly-lived environment: these places are seen just temporarily, without a real awareness.

— Lara Bacchiega, Venice, Italy

© Lara Bacchiega

© Lara Bacchiega3

Miguel Urbano

© Miguel Urbano

MiguelUrbano.com

These past few years I have been photographing the outskirts of Malaga, a city in the south of Europe.

The value of the targeted places doesn’t reside in their attractiveness or their history, but in the fact that they are a reflection of the life of their inhabitants and workers and show the humans’ footprints.

The quality of these peripheral landscapes is the total incapacity to seduce the viewer. As a cause for attraction, the landscapes don’t arouse any satisfactory emotion in the beholder. But, after being photographed, when they acquire the status of object of contemplation, the observer finds out that is just this lack of attractiveness and charm which gives them their peculiar interest and makes them worthy of being photographed.

— Miguel Urbano, Malaga, Spain

© Miguel Urbano

© Miguel Urbano3

Sergio Figliolia

© Sergio Figliolia

SergioFigliolia.it

A road trip along the Norwegian part of the E10, also known as “Kong Olav Vs Vei” is 397 kilometers. It is one of those places where the human alteration of the landscape is still weak as compared to other European countries, yet ever present.

With the road as a metaphor for journey and experience, I photographed places in which people appear at most marginally as part of the landscape.

Though retaining two distinct series, I decided to mix color and black and white stills to be independent from the specific language.
 
The E10 is the northernmost European road and connects Luleå in Sweden to Å i Lofoten in Norway. By means of several kilometers of tunnels and bridges the road lets one travel by car to the most remote areas of Lofoten islands without need of ferries. The Lofoten islands are like an extension of the continent by which one can get a privileged view of it. A bit like separating from something to be able to better see it.

— Sergio Figliolia, Rome, Italy

© Sergio Figliolia

© Sergio Figliolia3

Jan Töve

© Jan Töve

JanTöve.com

Silent Landscape is a project about landscape as a refuge for recovery and silence in a stressful world, but also about the landscape that is silenced by human influence. The geographical position of the places is subordinate. My starting point has been the fact that Sweden got its first “silent sanctuary” in order to protect the area’s unique sound environment and not allow pollutions caused by noises such as cars, boats, machines, people and so on.

I feel it is important to highlight the everyday landscape, which in one way or another is always linked with time and history and is of great importance to our well-being. Those nearby landscapes are an inalienable part of our lives. We are deeply connected to them. They constitute our external physical environment in which we reflect ourselves and create our internal mental landscapes.

Landscapes are not only monumental beauties of wilderness that enrich our romantic dreams. Landscape is not something that exists only in the distance. The landscape is a reality in each person’s life.

— Jan Töve, Hökerum, Sweden

© Jan Töve3

© Jan Töve