The 17th issue of the online monthly devoted to contemporary documentary photography doc! photo magazine was webbed on November 9th. This time, as November dictates it is about specific climates resulting from either tradition or weather, the issue is dominated by materials relating to passing. This topic can be found in the materials of Dana Stirling (USA), Phadthanun Rueangpeerapat (Thailand), and Wojtek Wieteska (Poland), who is the main photographer of this issue of the magazine. When asked about the role of photo exhibitions, he said:
“An exhibition is a feeling in the sense of direct, spatial emotion which disappears at the moment the exhibition closes and it will never happen again. I will give an example. At the Atlas Sztuki gallery, where the exhibition ‘I Am from Poland’ was presented, in one of its totally white exhibition rooms, the photographs from the last chapter of the album – ‘The Epilogue 2012-2013 were shown.’ There were 14 of them. Ten in 150×150 cm size, doubly assembled and hanging in that space, levitating, in fact. It was possible to walk among them and see different connections, relations, and to have your own visions. Such a situation cannot be repeated in an album where linearity of the story and mental penetrations between particular photographs appearing in our imagination matter. Yet that physical experience of being among the photographs is impossible to transfer into an album. Both, the scale and grandeur of an exhibition cannot be put from the three-dimensionality into the two-dimensionality of an album.”
Not only is the doc! November issue full of memories; it is the last one partly devoted to the impact of today’s canons of beauty on society and its behaviour. This time, the topic is illustrated by a member of the INSTITUTE agency – Zed Nelson (United Kingdom), who worked on the story presented for five years.
doc! #17 also returns to psychiatric hospitals, topic that started in the previous issue. A Photo story by Scott Typaldos (Switzerland), shot in Kosovo, proves that not matter where, people hardly have any respect for the dignity of those who are weaker, more needy, and totally dependent .
Polish photographer Mikolaj Nowacki, author of another essay, will take you on a journey along the Odra River, in which you will accompany the crew of the barge, and thanks to photographs by Jian Gao (USA) – you will go across contemporary China looking for its real image.
And to improve your mood and to prove that the world isn’t such a gloomy place, stop for different scenes from life caught by Robert Rutöd from Austria.
doc! #17‘s list of photographers and stories (in alphabetic order):
* Jian Gao – Red Fragments
* Zed Nelson – Love Me
* Mikoaj Nowacki – The Last Kings of the Odra
* Phadthanum Rueangpeerapat – One Year Roll
* Robert Rutöd – Right Time Right Place
* Dana Stirling – Dead Water
* Scott Typaldos – Butterflies Chapter 2
* Wojtek Wieteska – I Am from Poland (photo essay) & My Projects Result from Emotions or Passions (interview)
