Comfort Zone – Exhibitions

I started my project "This is Vilnius" in 2014 when I came back to Lithuania after living in London for five years. I born in Lithuania in Russian-Ukrainian family during the collapse of Soviet Union. The search of identity was always my concern. On my return to Vilnius I saw my native city in a new light. “This is Vilnius” is an urban photography documentary project which aims to unveil the true face of contemporary Vilnius. We live in a time that is particularly crucial for the formation of Vilnius. What makes Vilnius' cityscape unique is its history — a lot of has happened here over the decades and much of that is revealed in the city's architecture. Architecture and urban space act as a mirror to uncover identity of a Vilnius inhabitants. Photography is always subjective, but I am trying to leave as much space as I can for the viewer in my photographs. In my photographs, I am asking questions rather than giving answers. “This is Vilnius” captures the mix of different pasts and ongoing current changes in town’s environment. My project and upcoming book is an archive of contemporary Vilnius. “This is Vilnius” started as a blog in Facebook.

Andrej Vasilenko (born August 26, 1985) is Lithuanian documentary photographer currently living in Vilnius. He received he's bachelor degree in Photography and Media Arts from Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2009. In the same year he moved to London (UK) and worked and lived there for 5 years until spring of 2014. During the stay in London he took a part in various exhibitions and projects: "Municipality"- Bethnal Green Library, London 2011, "Point of View" - RKB Gallery, London 2013, "Desire, Delirium, Danger, Dada!! On Film" - Whitechapel Gallery, London 2014. In May of 2014 Andrej came back to live to his hometown Vilnius, Lithuania. In 2017 Andrej Vasilenko won Portfo.LT portfolio review organized by Kaunas Photo festival. The prize is a residency in Beauvais, France in 2018.

"Bitter Honeydew" depicts the lives of those who run roadside stalls in Ukraine – “tochka“, where they sell fruit according to the season and often far more. “Tochka” is a general Ukrainian term for sales point, but can sometimes also refer to prostitution. The merchants, many of them coming from Azerbaijan and Georgia mix with locals and live close to their makeshift emporiums in tents and trailers. They work and live either alone or with their families. A microcosm of very different people with a common goal: they want to make money. But Golovchenko’s images talk also about his compassion for these uprooted men and women and the bitterness in their lives.

Kirill Golovchenko (born in Odessa, Ukraine) studied photography and design under Barbara Klemm and Kris Scholz at Darmstadt University from 2002 to 2007. Kirill Golovchenko has been awarded among others: European Publishers Award for Photography, 2014; European Photo Exhibition Award; Abisag-Tüllmann-Preis, 2013; and a documentary photography grant from Wüstenrot Foundation, 2007. Bibliography: ‘Out of the Blue‘, Rodovid Press, 2016; ‘Bitter Honeydew‘, Dewi Lewis, Kehrer, Actes Sud, Blume, Peliti Associati; ‚Arbeitsbuch’ Salo Books, ‚Obval/Crash’, Salo Books, 2015, ‘Kachalka – Muscle beach’, Kehrer Verlag, ‘Totalniy Futbol’, Suhrkamp, 2012; ’7km - Field of Wonders’, Snoeck, 2009. Kirill Golovchenko is represented by Dymchuk Gallery in Kyiv and Pavlov´s Dog Gallery, Berlin and Focus agency, Hamburg.

It seems that causing awkwardness is one of Ažušilis’ most successful creative strategies. The unstaged spaces and objects of accidents are drawn through light in a way that causes one to sincerely admire the crumpled metal plates glinting in the sun, the automotive innards on display, the flowing oil, the crippled, upside-down massive constructions. It is all so perfectly beautiful that the perception that these are in fact places of pain and tragedy has a hard time getting through. That is due to the elimination of details which are inevitably evoked at the sight of accidents by imagination, over which morality has no control.

These aesthetic landscapes contain no ambulances, fire trucks, police, frightening lights, blood, victims, witnesses or uninvited and unwelcome gawkers. In beautiful green or brown fields, sunlit outskirts of forests, against the somewhat dramatic backdrop of the sun, right in the middle of the photographs, eye-catching metal corpses are laying. It is a nerve-tingling paradox of the marriage between beauty and horror.

All dead people are beautiful, even bad ones, a play once said. This applies here, only in Ažušilis’ scenography of accidents, purified to aesthetic perfection, people have been replaced by machines – hauntingly beautiful despite the context that reeks of disaster and loss. Text by Eglė Deltuvaitė

Mindaugas Ažušilis (b. 1987) is a photographer of the younger generation, who is among the Lithuanian artists most active in presenting their work abroad. He earned MA in Photography and Media Arts at Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2014; in the same year, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture granted him the status of Art Creator. He has been a member of the Lithuanian Photographers Association since 2015. In Ažušilis’ relatively brief artistic biography, his success at photography festivals in Europe and elsewhere stands out in particular. Since his exceptionally well-received 2012 debut project “Happiness in Lithuania”, Ažušilis has been exploring other uncomfortable, critical, yet very relevant subjects, including masculinity, hedonism, road accidents, and the power(lessness) of images.

© Gloria Oyarzabal

Empires, by their very nature, embody and institutionalize difference, both between metropolis and colony and between colonial subjects. The imperial imaginary floods popular culture. Gender categories were one kind of bio-logic "new tradition" that European colonialism institutionalized in Yoruba, as well as other African cultures. There is significant religious and linguistic evidence that Yoruba society was not gendered in its original form: before colonization social practices (such as division of labor, kinship, profession and monarchical structures) were not differentiated by gender, but by the lineage. Rethinking gender is a Western construction: the postcolonial mapping of the distinctively European approach to feminism has been developing in recent decades and the "woman question” is mostly a Western one, rather than a proper lens for viewing African society. Where is the African women identity leading to? How is it changing in relation to men? Would they be able to recover their ancestral social hierarchy or will there be a new super retro-futuristic way to interact between both genders? How will the colonizing tactics change? Maybe "we" could be the ones geographically (mentally and socially we already are) colonized in a near future, or maybe colonies could disappear as a tactic of power... We need to look at imperialism, colonization and other global and local forms of stratification, which lead to the conclusion that gender cannot be separated from the social context and other systems of hierarchy. Thus, the three central concepts that have been the pillars of feminism, women, gender and sisterhood, are only understood with a careful attention to the nuclear family from which they have emerged. Feminist concepts arise from the logic of the patriarchal nuclear family, which is a familiar form that is far from universal. Can we assume that social relations in all societies are organized around biological sexual difference? Is the male body in African societies seen as normative and therefore a channel for the exercise of power? 

Gloria Oyarzabal is a Spanish artist photographer with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (UCM), she diversifies her professional activity between photography, cinema and teaching. Programmer and co-founder of the Independent Cinema "La Enana Marrón" in Madrid (1999-2009), dedicated to the diffusion of author, experimental and alternative cinema. She lived 3 years in Mali developing her interest in the construction of the Idea of Africa. After her Master's Degree in Blankpaper School of Photography in 2014-2015 her work has been shown at Odessa Photo (Ukraine), Lagos Photo Festival (Nigeria), Athens Photo Festival (Greece), PHE PhotoEspaña (Spain), Thessaloniki (Greece), Lecce (Italy), Encontros da Imagem Braga (Portugal), Madrid, Barcelona (Spain), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), etc.

"The Silk Road was established during the Han dynasty, beginning around 130 B.C. Markets and trading posts were strung along a loose skein of thoroughfares that ran from the Greco-Roman metropolis of Antioch, across the Syrian desert, through modern-day Iraq and Iran, to the former Chinese capital of Xian, streamlining the transport of livestock and grain, medicine and science. In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced that the Silk Road would be reborn as the Belt and Road Initiative, the most ambitious infrastructure project the world has ever known—and the most expensive. Its expected cost is more than a trillion dollars. When complete, the Belt and Road will connect, by China’s accounting, sixty-five per cent of the world’s population and thirty per cent of global G.D.P. So far, sixty-eight countries have signed on. If bridges, pipelines, and railroads are the arteries of the modern world, then China is positioning itself as the beating heart. Photographer Davide Monteleone traced stretches of one of the land routes, travelling from Yiwu, in the southeastern province of Zhejiang, to Khorgos, home to one of the world’s largest dry ports, and to Aktau, in Kazakhstan, on the Caspian Sea.”, —Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker, January 8, 2018 issue.

Davide Monteleone (b. 1974) works on long term independent project using photography video and text. He has devoted himself to the study of social issues, exploring the relation between Power and individuals. Known for his specific interest in the post-soviet countries, he published five books: Dusha, Russian Soul in 2007, La Linea Inesistente in 2009, Red Thistle in 2012 and Spasibo in 2013, The April Theses in 2017. His projects have brought him numerous awards, including several World Press Photo prizes, and grants, such as: the Aftermath Project Photography Grant, European Publishers Award and Carmignac Photojournalism Award. He regularly contributes for leading publications all over the world, and his projects have been presented as installations, exhibitions and screenings at festivals and galleries worldwide including the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Saatchi Gallery in London, MEP in Paris and Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. He is engaged with educational activities, regularly lecturing at universities and teaching workshops internationally.

Shine Heroes

There are 3,000 shoe shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz and El Alto suburbs each day in search for clients. These people of different age have recently become a social phenomenon in the Bolivian capital. What characterizes this group is their use of ski masks not to be recognized by others. In this way, they are confronting the discrimination they might face in their neighborhoods, at school and even in their families. The mask is their strongest identity, making them invisible and uniting. This collective anonymity makes them stronger when facing the rest of society and is their resistance against the exclusion they are suffering because of such occupation. For three years, Federico Estol has been collaborating with sixty shoe shiners associated with the NGO "Hormigón Armado". During a series of workshops, the scenes with the backgrounds of the urban landscape of El Alto were planned together for the portrait sessions.

Federico Estol is Uruguayan photographer, graduated from the Image and Multimedia Technology Center of Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He is currently working as artistic director of SAN JOSÉ FOTO festival, promoting the Photobook Club Montevideo and as editor of El Ministerio Ediciones publishing house. He has been selected in festivals as Noorderlicht photofestival (NL), Athens photofestival (GR), Aleppo photofestival (SR), Backlight photofestival (FIN), Festival Internazionale di Roma (IT), Paraty em Foco and Canela foto (BR), Fotograma and San José Foto (UY), Nexofoto and Emulsión Sur (ES), In Out Transylvania (RO), Verzasca Foto (CH), Addis Foto Fest (ET), Fotofest (BO) and Photonic Moments (SL). He has been included in exhibitions at Aperture Foundation New York, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry Punta el Este, Fototeca Latinoamericana and Casa Florida Buenos Aires, Contemporary Art Space Montevideo, Metropolitan State University Minneapolis and MACRO Museum Rome. The Treasure Island is his third published photobook after Fiestas del Uruguay and Hello Montevideo. He has received several awards, grants and scholarships, recently honoured with the Latin American Photobook award by CDF of Montevideo 2013, the Latin American Fotografía award 2015 and the IILA Fotografía award in Rome 2016. World Press Photo Global Talent program nominator in 2017.

During the Stalin regime millions of innocent people were imprisoned, executed or exiled. It was forbidden to talk about what happened in the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until the end of the 1980s that a confrontation with the past would commence. However, from the beginning, the authorities were cautious and the perpetrators were never brought to justice. Today, the idea of a great leader is glorified by Putin's regime. History is being rewritten. This creates a strong division; Stalin as a hero is not exactly in line with the memories of (the relatives of) many victims. Hester den Boer’s project brings these opposing voices together. Official documents, laws from the Stalin era, speeches by Putin, newspaper clippings, etc. are colliding with intimate portraits of people who were affected by the Stalinist terror - personally, through family or friends - as victim or as bystander. Each narrative takes a different stance on the past and the present. The selected images for KAUNAS PHOTO are merely a glimpse of Den Boer’s long-term project. In addition, an exhibition sketch has been provided. Its design visualizes the layering of voices and leaves it up to the viewer to decide which information to follow or to block. The Gulag Heritage gives a unique insight into Russia’s past and the current climate of growing repression.

Hester den Boer (b. 1981) obtained a BA in Religion Studies, a BA in Russian Language and Culture and a MA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She works as independent journalist and photographer, specializing in Russia. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally in various places, including Photoville (USA) and Foam Lab (the Netherlands). Den Boer’s work has been published in various media, such as: NRC, De Groene Amsterdammer, Trouw, and Investico. She has also received numerous awards, including the European Press Prize (2015) and New Dutch Talent Award (2015). In fall 2018 the first solo exhibition The Gulag Heritage will take place at Melkweg Expo in Amsterdam. During the opening of the show her first non-fiction book on the same subject (published by Atlas-Contact) will be launched.

Throughout her body of work Lynné Bowman Cravens works in an interdisciplinary method. She takes a wide range of approaches as a response to her autobiographical narrative. The work is poetic and expressive, revealing a glimpse into her desires through contemporary self-portraiture. Cravens works primarily with photography, making unique pieces from an infinitely reproducible medium. Through meticulous physical distortions and transdisciplinary techniques, she creates photographic pieces that address her personal experiences, identity, and physical form. Each piece and series range from large-scale digital installations to delicate one of a kind objects. Each piece looks organized and intentional on the surface because of the folded grids inherent in tessellations; however, the images are fragmented through the methodical folding and unfolding of each object. Cravens continually deconstructs the tessellation throughout her work utilizing paper and fabric. The use of multiples and layering can be seen throughout Cravens’ work, drawing focus to repeating objects and showing the differences between similar imagery. In the piece Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (2014), Cravens addresses her experience with cancer. She revisits the original CT Scan of her tumor in order to take control of her cancer and recontextualize the experience of the tumor removal. Cravens utilizes a laser cutter to remove the imagery of the tumor from each of the twenty hand-coated cyanotype fabric panels.

Lynne’ Bowman Cravens was born and raised in Austin, Texas. She attended St. Edward’s University, and received her BA in Photocommunications in 2009. Cravens later attended graduate school at the University of North Texas where she received her MFA in Photography in 2015. Cravens currently resides in the DFW area, working as the Gallery Manager at The Art Galleries at TCU. Cravens is in her second and final season as a member of the artist run co-op, 500X Gallery in Dallas, Texas. Her work was also featured in the June 2016 issue of the British Origami Society’s international publication, and in the 4th annual Rising Stars exhibition at Turner House. Cravens recently had a solo exhibition of her work in Fort Worth at the Moncrief Cancer Institute.

In 2014, armed groups of separatists with support of Russian troops have occupied part of the Ukrainian Donbas. The town of Marinka is now located on the front line. There is boundary between Ukrainian military and illegal armed groups. About 6500 people live in Marinka, among them 493 are children. These people for various reasons could not leave the war zone. There is fighting on the outskirts of the city. The inhabitants are constantly forced to hide in shelters. 323 children study in two schools. Man-made objects, as well as natural objects used in the educational process as carriers of educational information and a tool for the activities of the educator and students to achieve the goals of education, upbringing and development - medium of instruction.

Alena Grom was born and lived in Donetsk city. In the spring of 2014, Russia began a mixed war against Ukraine. Now more than 2 million inhabitants who had left Donbass because of the war, have become refugees. Alena and her family had to leave their home and become refugees. At the moment lives in Kiev.

She creates projects that tell about children living in the conflict zone, refugees in Ukraine.

Now is working on the creation of a book, which will include her recent project "Warehouse of Toys". The project addresses the theme of empathy, humanity, childhood dreams. Alena studied at various photo schools in Ukraine. She is a member of The National Society of Photo Artists of Ukraine (NSPAU). Alena's photos, multimedia projects such as Bogotà, at Jorge Jurado Gallery (2017), Festival Palazzo Ca 'Zanardi (2017); Festival Kolga Tbilisi Photo (2016); International photo show in Scotland (2016) and others.

"Subsidences" explore the slow, decaying process of abandoned historical buildings by unveiling the magic emerging from their downfall. In this last stage of their journey, stripped of their original purpose and context, these empty structures become objects of contemplation and introspection. Decay is then considered as a creative actor, continuously reshaping existing spaces and textures.

Grégoire Cachemaille, photographer, born in Switzerland in 1978. After moving to Berlin in 2006 he made a habit of getting lost in the city and wandering through the many deserted spaces of the urban landscape, absorbing the distinctive layers of the city’s recent history. That’s when his passion for the forgotten and the derelict took shape. After he spent a full day exploring a former Soviet military complex in the city outskirts, he was definitely hooked. Ever since this experience, he has been capturing the strange but appealing beauty of abandoned locations around the world.

His work questions the patrimonial value of abandoned structures, not only from an architectural point of view, but also as a witness of the history of the communities and powers that erected them. As chronological relicts stripped of their elementary purpose, they become objects of contemplation and introspection.

Death follows life. Always. A fact that unites all and everyone of us. As a young person I expect to die when I'm old, maybe when I'm sick, but definitely not now. So much still lies ahead of me. For the ones who are left behind, suicide always raises the question of life. Why did someone choose death over life? The suicide rate in Lithuania is nearly three times as high as the average rate in the European Union. It is among the highest in the world. Looking at the bigger picture, suicides occur more frequently in bigger cities. Whereas in rural areas, where social ties are stronger, less people lose hope in life. But in Lithuania, more people commit suicide in the countryside. Men between ages 40 and 50 are at a high risk of suicide. Alcoholism, unemployment and many other reasons are contributing factors. The reasons for each suicide are different. They are not an expression of personal freedom, but often attached to hopelessness and disease. Since World War II and starting with the Soviet occupation, the per-capita suicide rate for Lithuanian men at times has grown from 10 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants to 90. Experts speak about a collective trauma and loss of identity – influenced among others by the forced collectivization of the farms in rural areas by the Soviets. But the reasons for suicide are always complex and personal, and they cannot mainly rest on the country’s trauma.

“How is Life?” is not just about photography. It is about the people and their stories. I worked with the subjects and asked them to write down their personal stories. Their statements are an essential part of this project. I photograph life, not death, because death cannot be seen. It’s like the wind: You can’t take photos  of the wind, but you can capture its consequences, the bending trees, the rolling waves.

Hannes Jung (b. 1986) is a documentary photographer based in Berlin. He studied photography in Munich, Hannover and Valencia and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop. He was awarded among other with the Prix Mark Grosset, n-ost Reportage prize, Rückblende, College Photographer of the Year Award and Canon Profifoto award. Hannes' work was shown in several exhibitions and festivals around Europe like the Athens Photo Festival, C/O Berlin, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Fototage Wiesbaden, Kolga Tbilisi Photo, Vilnius Photo Circle, Visa Pour l‘Image “Visa Off”.

The project is about a “hairdresser road trip” from Ethiopia to Ghana and from Gambia to Cuba, focusing on "Afro salons". I have been interested in the atmosphere and color combinations, which are so unique in Africa and Cuba. I have tried to show the beauty, which appears everywhere despite poverty and sometimes tragic human conditions... I often work on very sad and dramatic topics and wanted to go for something light and beautiful. Nothing serious, nothing heavy, just pure pleasure of photography. My objective/dream is to produce a book based on the series. I am not good with words, so let the pictures speak for themselves.

Laurent Muschel was born in Strasbourg (France) in 1968. He has, among other diploma, a Master in Philosophy at Sorbonne University. He lives and works in Brussels with his wife and three kids. Over the last five years he has been exhibiting in Belgium, France and Spain, also USA and Asia. He was first discovered with his portfolio of black women in front of the black background. In a minimalist spirit, Laurent Muschel developed an "aesthetic investigation", which aims to capture the meaning of what he calls "Blackitude". His work gives some intense and unique light to these pictures where black is the dominant colour. His second main portfolio is called "Back to the Museum". He has spent many hours in museums all around the world, looking for the perfect match between the back of the viewers and the paintings. This portfolio was published by Editions Husson in the book "Back to the museum" (2013) and also widely exhibited.

KAUNAS PHOTO STAR is an open contest of KAUNAS PHOTO festival, organised since 2010 with an objective to distinguish the future stars of photography. The winner is awarded with a solo exhibition at Kaunas Photography Gallery. In 2018, the competition received about 300 proposals from photographers of 50 countries of the world. Based on the votes of the international jury, composed of 10 members, 12 Finalists were distinguished. A joint curatorial team of KAUNAS PHOTO festival and Kaunas Photography Gallery selected the Winner.

From 2018, KAUNAS PHOTO STAR acquired a new format. An exhibition of all 12 Finalists is staged in three venues: Kaunas City Museum, Lithuanian folk music department, “Meno parkas” gallery and Kaunas Photography Gallery. The Winner, besides the exhibition in the latter space, receives a monetary prize of 2500 EUR. Selected as the Winner of KAUNAS PHOTO STAR 2018 is Simon Menner (Germany) for his work “Camouflage” offering an intriguing visual experience.

Simon Menner earned a Diploma and subsequently an MFA from the Universität der Künste Berlin, in both cases as a student of Stan Douglas. He has spent time as a student at the School of the Art Institute Chicago. Menner has exhibited his work in photography internationally and among other venues, participated in solo and group shows in the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Anchorage Museum, CO Berlin, Museum for Photography Berlin, NRW Forum Düsseldorf, Benaki Museum Athens, Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Krakow and the Biennale de Lubumbashi. His work was featured widely by the Guardian, Der Spiegel, BBC, New York Times, The Independent, CNN, Frieze, Vice, Wired and many others. Menner has received a number of stipends and awards, such as a working grant by the Berlin Senate in 2015, a working grant by the German Stiftung Kunstfonds in 2014 and the Presidential Award of the Universität der Künste Berlin for the best Diploma in 2007. He is a member of photography association.

“The mayor bought the paraglider He said he saw the cosmos But the truth is, that he just flew over our village” * There are places in which most of us are usually not interested. If you want to get there you need to drive off the main road, you need to look behind the sound walls, slow down and calm down your thoughts. I have traveled across Polish province and has been visiting places, which seemed to be abandoned and empty because everyone left for work: to nearby fields, to a larger town or to work abroad. Life has a different rhythm there and time passes much slower than in the cities. These places come to life only during holidays, harvest time, festivals - when stars from a talent show or “popular” music band come to perform there. “Close to the ground, far from heaven" is a story about people who value peace, tradition and their connection to their place. At the same time they dream to be someone else. They want their life to become more expressive and exciting and contemporary “big world” is shining and tempting them with its colors. I’ve tried to define the concept of homeland as a microcosm. Place which is so important for people who live there. Place which they want to change but at the same time they want to stay connected and keep alive their tradition. *Part of song by Łukasz "Lewy" Kalupa, local rapper and songwriter.

Michal Adamski - born in 1976 in Poznan. Member of the The Association of Polish Art Photographers. Participant of Napo Images Agency Mentor Program. He deals with social and documentary issues with a great importance of a man and his life in the modern world. Scholar of the Marshal of Wielkopolska Region. Stipendist of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2017. Winner of photographic competitions, including International Photography Award, PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS (PX3), Grand Press Photo, Greater Poland Press Photo. He cofounder Pix.House Foundation and Gallery.

Various ethnic and religious groups existing in Anatolia, either forced to migrate in the guise of “population exchange”, or assimilated to be a ‘Turkish citizen’ as part of the nation state politics. Therefore, especially after the First World War and foundation of the Turkish Republic, most of these ethnic and religious groups are forced to abandoned their culture, religion and language to become a ‘Turk’. Confiscating the properties of minorities is one of the aspects of the repression politics. Killing the non-Muslims in Anatolia, confiscating and plundering their properties have never been considered as a criminal act that should be punished and the Turkish State has never faced off the fact that confiscated properties of the minorities is one of the core tools to create a ‘national economy’.

Confiscated Armenian properties are the starting point of this photography project. According to the “Declaration of the Confiscated Properties of Armenian Foundations in İstanbul’, written by Hrant Dink Foundation in 2012, half of the confiscated properties had already passed to the third parties. Some of the properties are in possession of the state institutions. The properties that no longer exist as land and the ones with unknown fates constitute 12% of these confiscated properties. And only 11% of the confiscated properties returned to the original owners thanks to the Armenian foundation that resorted to jurisdiction. In İstanbul, 29% of the confiscated properties are originally Armenian cemeteries. These cemeteries are mainly in the neighbourhoods like Bakırköy, Yeşilköy, Beşiktaş, Beyoğlu and Kadıköy, where the Armenians once lived in large populations. These lands are no longer used as cemeteries; instead, on those cemeteries, there are highways, military bases, mosques, bridges, hotels and factories which are the symbols that a nation-state needs. Still, some of them still exist as cemeteries, they are worn out and neglected.

In eastern cultures, cemeteries represent the homeland of the people. According to the belief, no matter where you die, you should be buried in the land you were born. In the same time, Anatolian people respect the peace of the dead body, regardless of its ethnic origin, religion or gender. Despite these beliefs, the fact that even the cemeteries are systematically confiscated is a symbolic example of the anti-democratic practices towards minorities that is carried by the Turkish state.

Öncü Hrant Gültekin, 2015

Öncü Hrant Gültekin (b. 1989, Istanbul) is a visual artist based in Hamburg. He got his BA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at University of Applied Science and Arts Hannover. Currently he is a master’s student in Culture & Identity class of Prof. Peter Bialobrzeski at University of Arts Bremen. His personal projects mainly focuses on historical, social and political subject matters.

On the year of 100^th anniversary of restoration of Lithuania’s Independence, KAUNAS PHOTO festival invites its audience to a very special exhibition. Every year, festival’s program feature Lithuanian artists from across the globe.

This way the photographic diaspora premieres in a Duo: Ignas Šeinius, a Lithuanian – Swedish public figure, which reveals more and more of its faces, including a talent for visual art, impeccable taste and Lina Scheynius, her great grand-daughter, well known artist, followed by tens of thousands on social networks.

A prominent Lithuanian diplomat, writer, journalist Ignas Šeinius, needs us to discover more of his activity and work. Well cultivated, loving cinema, in 1922 he bought a camera and…

The co-artist and co-curator of this exhibition Lina Scheynius is the fourth generation in the family taking pictures, and the first one having chose photography art as the main occupation.

What does connect these Šeinius family members using a camera?

In the subject line, it is Irvis – Ignas’ son and Linas grandfather. Also, attention to detail, everything that is natural, spontaneous. Lina, who does not like to talk about her photography enjoys when people look at it…

© Evžen Sobek

After 1989 “Velvet revolution” economic changes in the Czech Republic had dramatic impact on everyday life. Those changes have not only brought freedom and offered new chances in building up the career but also required from people much higher personal responsibility and self-reliance. Everyday reality has simply changed and slowly enthusiasm and euphoria of freedom was often replaced by disillusionment, complaints and nostalgia for “old good times” when communist government guaranteed basic living standards and “easy” life. Listening to all those complaints around me I did not uderstand what the people lament all the time? Instead of permanent queueing for various goods, growing fruits and vegetables in gardens to get some fresh food for their children people have been spending their weekends in shopping centres, amusement parks, traveling all around Europe in new cars... Looking around me I decided to create story which brings my report on the nation experiencing two decades of its freedom and dreams…

Evžen Sobek was born on the 4th June 1967 in Brno, Czech Republic. Graduated from the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University Opava, Czech Republic. Freelance photographer and photography teacher – lectures and workshops on documentary photography in various universities and schools in the Czech Republic. The focal point of his work is documentary photography. Represented in public and private collections in Europe, USA, Israel and Japan. Presenting his photographs in both solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Participant of Credit Suisse Masterclass for Photojournalists from Central and Eastern Europe, Budapest - New York. Awards: MiO Photo Award 2000, Grand Prix Winner, Japan - M.I.L.K. Competition 2000, U.S.A. - Talentinum 2001, Czech Republic, Honorable Montion Lens Culture Award 2010, Paris - fotoMAGAZIN talent Award 2013, Hamburg Residences: Internationales Haus der Autoren Graz, Cultural City Network Graz, Austria - Stiftung kunst:raum sylt quelle, Sylt, Germany Books: 2004 - Ecce Homo (introduction by Vladimir Birgus), Leica Gallery Prague, 2008 - Life in Blue (introduction by Jiri Siostrzonek), Brno, 2011 - Life in Blue (introduction by Jiri Patek & Jiri Siostrzonek), Heidelberg, Germany – 20 (introduction by Lukas Bartl), Brno, 2016 Presented by Clampart Gallery, New York.

© Rubi Lebovitch

My photographs deal with domestic scenes captured in straightforward images. The scenes can be divided in to two main categories: inanimate objects and human scenarios. Both categories are characterized by mystery, vagueness and absurdity. I create a twist in familiar sights and build new contexts, thus endowing the scene with new meaning. Mundane objects and domestic spaces are transformed into something strange and surprising. Like in surreal paintings, a new and impossible reality is created.

At times, my photographs can be seen as an illusion of the Theater of the Absurd, an illustration which takes place in the house. My images do not contain a clear-cut story or plot. The characters are inscrutable to the viewers and difficult to identify; their relationship with the world around them is senseless and they fail to communicate. Rationality is substituted by a twisted and exaggerated worldview. I employ multiplicity of objects, allowing the objects to grow stronger and take over reality; they occupy and control the space. In most of the photographs, the focus is on the objects, as such, they become the center of power, emphasizing loneliness and emptiness.

"Home Sweet Home" is a photographic project in which I clandestinely and in a quickly way work in the displays of some department stores, emulating privacy within them, questioning how the desires and needs of consumption in society are created

Rebeca Cordero was born in Mexico City on August 4, 1984, resides in the city of Saltillo Coahuila since 1990, attended the Master of Photographic Design at the Universidad Iberoamericana in León Guanajuato 2011, selected as an emerging artist at the BFOTO Festival of Spain 2018. Winner of the third place in Third Contemporary Photography Contest in Mexico, participating with this work in the collective exhibition FOCO MX in Mexico City, Selected Festival Portfolio 2016 and creditor of Honorable Mention in the same with the series Home sweet Home.

Her work as a photographer focuses on the exploration of the human being and his behavior, habits, customs, routines and way of acting.

© Ewa Bold

"Home Sweet Home" series was taken in the old house of Ewa’s grandparents In Sosnowiec (Poland), where she spent her childhood. The return, after a long absence, allowed them to look at the place from a distance, and into the past. Not much has changed in this house, since Ewa moved out with her parents, more than 15 years ago. The space and objects are very familiar, well known but, in the same time, strange. The place felt like it was not from “our times” but as Ewa grew up there, it’s still an integral part of her identity. There was noticeable overlap of generations. The authors decided to confront themselves with it in this series. They claimed that house. Partly by breaking some of the golden principles from childhood, e.g climbing the coal ovens, playing with crystal clocks or going to bed with dirty feet.

Superultraextra Duo art collective by Ewa Bold (b.1988, Sosnowiec, Poland) and Patryk Hadas (b. 1987, Katowice, Poland)

The duo’s name: Superultraextra isn’t about bragging. The authors observe the world that's always striving to make SUPER more EXTRA. They’re from a generation of SUPER offers, ULTRA promotions & EXTRA sales. They can call themselves “the kids of economic transformation time” in Poland. Mix of hate and love for the vision of the SUPER world created by mass media, visual language of commercials and pop culture is the basis on which Superultraextra was founded.

Ewe and Patryk both graduated from Academy of Fine Art in Cracow in Poland, where artistic paths have crossed. Ewa completed her Master Degree in animated film workshop in Graphic Art department in 2012. She received a scholarship from the polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage. Patryk graduated with a project “Super World” from interdisciplinary studio, Painting department in 2014. In their photography authors draw on experience with different artistic media – traditional and digital ones. They live and work in Berlin.

For my series, Wait Watchers, I set up a camera in a public area and photograph the scene as I perform mundane tasks while strangers pass by me. I then examine the images to see if any of the passersby had a critical or questioning element in their face or body language. I consider my photographs a social experiment and I reverse the gaze back on to the stranger and place the viewer in the position of being a witness to a moment in time. The project is a performative form of street photography.

I place the camera on a tripod and take hundreds of photographs. The resulting images capture the gazer in a microsecond moment where the shutter, the scene, my actions and their body language align and are frozen on the frame. I do not know what the people in my photographs are looking at or reacting to. I present the images to the  world to start a conversation about the gaze and how we use it to communicate our thoughts of others.

Part performer, part artist, part provocateur, part spectator, Haley Morris-Cafiero explores the act of reflection in her photography. Morris-Cafiero’s photographs have been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, and have been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines and online including Le Monde, New York Magazine and Salon. Born in Atlanta, she is a graduate of the University of North Florida, where she earned a BA in Photography and a BFA in Ceramics in 1999. Nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2014 and a 2016 Fulbright finalist, Morris-Cafiero holds a MFA from the University of Arizona in Art. The Magenta Foundation published her monograph, The Watchers, in 2015.

They come from Kosovo, Romania, Albania, Turkey or Bulgaria fleeing their country for political or economic reasons. Some are real families, some are constructed by organized crime. Begging in the French capital comes in many forms: some are in legitimate need of a roof, food, warm clothes and human consideration; others just want your money and have formed a culture based on tough, ruthless survival. In both cases, human beings are spending their days and nights on the streets of Paris huddling under threadbare blankets on dirty mattresses. This is not a new phenomenon; there have always been beggars, but children were always left out. Tens of thousands of people pass by these “human tableau” every day, unconcerned by this “spectacle.” Social misery can be perceived in many ways. I chose to focus on families and show the faces of these men, women and children that we don’t want to see, and make them less invisible.

Vladimir Antaki was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1980. He grew up in Paris and studied art history and film studies at La Sorbonne. In 2003, Antaki moved to Montreal, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual and media arts from UQÀM in 2007.

Antaki specializes in intimate portraits and stories with an uncanny ability to get to his subjectsʼ core. For his series, The Guardians, Antaki traveled across Europe, the Middle East and America, photographing shopkeepers or “Guardians.” These Guardians are keepers of what Antaki terms “urban temples,” unique spaces which, in an age of cookie-cutter, corporate shops, hearken back to an earlier time and mode of urban life. Antaki creates visually arresting portraits of the Guardians in their urban temples that make the viewer connect to the beauty of these often forgotten spaces. Antaki believes that these temples are the heart and soul of every city; they are what give the urban centre its uniqueness in time and place.

The Most Beautiful Nuclear Power Plants in Europe deals with an actual topic: how to produce energy with as little harm for the environment as possible. Nuclear power is seen as one solution, but at what price? The series shows power stations in a landscape - in a landscape with contradictions. The Most Beautiful Nuclear Power Plants in Europe is a photo series that examines power stations in the landscape from an aesthetic point of view. The main standpoint of this project is the relationship between human and nature. The contrast between the beautiful sceneries and the pompous absurdity of the power plant architecture rising from the landscape creates some visible tension in the images, not to mention industrial romanticism. Due to the risks, the power plants are not built in direct contact with large centres of population but within a “compromise distance”. However, in densely populated Western and Central Europe this means that the stations are located on an inhabited and farmed rural area, in scenic and idyllic places. For security measures most often there should not be permanent habitation in the closest proximity of the plants, but often there may be a natural park or a nature reserve. For the people living in the vicinity the plants often have become invisible, whereas for the people visiting the area a plant is absurdly visible – often a surprising, scary or fascinating sight sticking out of the environment. The prevention of climate change forces us to search for new ways of producing energy with as little carbon dioxide emissions as possible. In Finland the third reactor of Olkiluoto nuclear power plant is under construction for 14 years now and there are intentions of constructing a new station in Pyhäjoki, Northern Finland. Spain and Italy have discontinued construction of several plants due to political and environmental controversy. Germany, for instance, has decided to end the use of nuclear power by the year 2022, rushing the closure after the Fukushima accident in Japan. As other countries seem to abandon the atomic era, Finland, France and Slovakia are currently the only European countries to construct more nuclear power. Colour photographs (pigment print), framed, 100 x 100 cm. Current exhibition series consists of 11 prints, but I have photographed over 40 nuclear power plants in 12 European countries.

Lasse Lecklin (b. 1982) is a Finnish photographer from Helsinki. Identity of a place, constructed environment and the connection of human being to the nature are in the core of his interest. His mediums are photography and video, and he works often on the field between documentary and conceptual art. Seriality and precision are distinctive for his work. Master of Arts in photography in 2015 from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Lecklin has previously also studied photojournalism at Tampere University, photography in Konstfack College of Arts and Crafts in Stockholm and in the School of Visual Arts in New York, and fine arts at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Lasse Lecklin’s first solo shows took place in 2012. His works have been displayed at several group exhibitions and festivals in Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

As far back as in the 1930s, during the times of the Great Depression in the United States, a group of photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Jack Delano, led by Roy Stryker, Head of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), kept restlessly recording views which were soon destined to fade into obscurity. The continuous migration of people moving around in search of easier conditions of life was relentlessly changing the demographical map of the States: homesteads, villages, small towns were disappearing right before the eyes. All this was photographed and put into extensive archives – the effort of those photographers proved not to have been in vain.

A somehow different (thought the outcome is quite similar) process is ongoing in the present-day Lithuania too. Neither in the scope nor the conditions of life should those two situations be compared, though something still prompts us to look for similarities.

Just within the last decade, this continuous migration has caused the population of Lithuania to shrink by almost one sixth. Towns that have usurped the whole economics and are sucking out young people to the cities, inappropriate lifestyle often adopted by the young rural generation – those who are still here – all this is inexorably changing our country. Just one question inevitably arises: for how long will our forests and valleys be adorned by views of homesteads and villages – places where a totally different understanding of time and closeness still exists? For how long will there still be found places where an unexpected visitor is met like a close relative and every passer-by is greeted with a heartfelt ‘hello’?

Every time a thought like that crosses my mind, I, as a photographer, am driven by an instinct to hurry and turn those symbols and places into something more than just memories in the stories of future grandparents. Though a recorded image is incapable of reviving what has been lost, it still lets us remember something that perhaps once, while speeding by, momentarily caught our eye at the roadside. Maybe this monument to the Lithuanian countryside will evoke some sentimentality from the viewer and touch those deeply hidden corners in the memory which we, seemingly inadvertently, have closed up, being used to accept what can be gone very quickly.

Tadas Kazakevičius, 34-year-old Lithuanian representative of documentary photography, living in Vilnius, Lithuania. Though professionally I work and specialize in graphic design with diploma in architecture, half of my time I devote to and breathe in documentary photography. I have already been in photography for about ten years, with the last eight of them being committed to individuals and their stories, as the principal subject of my photography. I am a devotee of traditional film photography and prefer using medium format film cameras.

Currently I am working on several themes simultaneously. After spending five years in the United Kingdom, for the last six years I have been living back in my native country, where I am particularly interested in social aspect of people living here. Along with other photo ideas, since 2014 I have been developing my new continuous series ‘Soon to be Gone’ that records the vanishing of the rural culture in Lithuania. Last year series was picked as Juror's Pick in LensCulture Exposure Awards 2017 and one of the images from series was shortlisted in Sony World Photography Awards 2017 in Open Portraits category and chosen as a national choice. Series ‘Soon to be Gone’ were featured in numerous photography platforms in USA, UK, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Hungary and others. In the end of 2017 year 3 of images from series were included into The Royal Photographic Society 160 exhibition and in start of 2018 I was picked as a finalist in ZEISS Photography Awards 2018 with same series.

„What Orwell failed to predict is that we'd buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching.“ Likes, Follower and reposts are todays indicators for social success. There seems to be no niche - as controversial or problematic it may seem - that does not find its thunderous digital applause in social networks. Short-lived ideals of beauty, excessive sexuality and boundless self-optimization are being celebrated in a postprivate publicity for the sake of self-appreciation. Vices of the past have become today´s leitmotivs. But Instagram is not only the sink of iniquity for a generation of hedonists and narcissists that celebrate excess on the pyre of morality. Just as much it is a place where others devaluate themselves in the hope of catching empathy that the real world does not offer them in their life. On their relentless quest for meaning and purpose, more and more young people adapt to a self-imposed identity that often ruthlessly affects their self in everyday life. The new public self-disclosure and urge to communicate break with the traditional concept of privacy. Everyone wants to stand out, be seen or be of importance and thus often meanders between excentric and conformistic ideals under constant observation of their followers. Everything seems to be possible between gaudily coloured escapism and pale-grey tristesse, Thighgap and gender gap, unicorns and woodchip wallpaper as long as there is a picture that proves it.

Born in Germany in 1982, I started my professional carrer as a video editor in the age of 21 after a time of extensive journeys. In 2007, I dared to take a step backwards from motion pictures to still images and started to study at the University of Applied Sciences in Hanover, Germany. Following the tradition of humanistic photojournalism, I feel strongly committed to Concerned photography and express my respect and empathy through this powerful medium. As good images take time and understanding I work intensively on deeper-perspective projects. Being often located in microcosms or social niches, my work keeps an eye on the wider context and allows the beholder to draw a conclusion to his own life.

Photographer Conchi Martínez made her artist residency at the end of May. She created the work called “KAUNOPOLY”. The inspiration for it came from the game “Monopoly” which is well known to everybody. Conchi Martínez applied to KAUNAS PHOTO festival open call with the work „Barcepoly“. Mindaugas Kavaliauskas director of KAUNAS PHOTO festival tried to play that game in one of the squares of Europe cities. He liked it and invited photographer to create something similar in Kaunas.

Monopoly, my childhood star game, was created by Elizabeth Maggie at the beginning of the XX Century in the United States, and soon after became worldwide popular in a great quantity of different versions. As its name suggests, the objective is creating a monopoly by owning the whole of the properties that appear on the board. Players move their own game tokens by turns, depending on dice scoring, and fall in pieces of land that they can buy and construct or, in case they already have an owner, paying him for the simple fact of passing through. From the beginning, I found a great similarity with the present situation in the world.

Using this game as a pattern, I created Barcepoly, a new version of its Barcelona edition, replacing the correspondent squares by photographs of the different places that appear in the game, with the intention of making a portrait of the city that reflected how changes that it’s experimenting day-to-day coexist with formerly remnants.

This work was the winner of the Young curators award at Photolux Festival that took place in Lucca in December 2017, where it had been exhibited as an artistic installation. That was an excellent opportunity for the project to be seen by a lot of people, including Mindaugas Kavaliuskas, the Kaunas Photo Festival director, who believed in it and thought it could be carried out again in Kaunas.

And this was the starting point of Kaunopoly. I was invited by him to an artistic residence in order to create a Kaunas version of the project. It has been a huge challenge for me because, unlike Barcelona where I’ve been living since I was a child, I didn’t know Kaunas nor another Lithuanian city before, so I’ve had to make a deep research before and after the eleven days residence in order to seek all the information I needed. The idea is that the final version of the project had the Kaunopoly game format.

At the board of “KAUNOPOLY” will be seen not official and the most impressive places of Kaunas city. The aim of the author was to reveal the portrait of Kaunas and it’s historical and daily details, this is why she had a huge help from the locals volunteers: Simona Savickaitė, Ed Caroll, Raimonda Šiudeikytė, Indrė Mačiulytė, Kamilė Riaubaitė, Stefanija Paulauskaitė.

Conchi Martínez was born in Soria in 1963. Shortly after, her family moved to Barcelona and it’s there where she has taken roots and lived since then. It was not until 1996 that she was given a reflex camera as a present. That was her starting point to be passionately fond of photography. At this moment Conchi was already deeply attracted by it, but it was more as a spectator than as an executor. When artist came into contact with B/W laboratory, she discovered the magic of the developing process and the experimentation with ancient techniques, that still astonishes photographer nowadays, and to which she keeps on devoting part of her energies. Conchi Martínez enjoy taking photos if she has a clear reason to begin to do it, an idea or subject to develop, when she goes out with the intention to take them. Taking photos compulsively doesn’t motivate her at all; Photographer not one of these people who usually pick up the camera, and lesser from the spread of the huge range of electronic devices with which people tend to bombard us with images at present.

Crossing Europe is a photo project where I traveled 42 European Countries and took pictures in each Capital City: of people crossing the street on busy intersections.

And did I really capture what was typically Dublin? Or Athens? Reykjavik or Ankara? After all, my observations were only moments in time. Was it a normal working day or holiday time? Even the sun shining or the rain falling could make a great difference. Moreover, I was only a visitor, passing through.

I came to realize that Europe is more than just an area of land or a financial agreement. But what will Europe’s future be? Do we cherish what unites us or do we focus on what divides us?

Europe as an idea could be realized, but it will require a great deal of effort. It will not be achieved overnight. It will require interest and real concern. We must meet the other with empathy. And when we go abroad, we need to keep an open mind and not bother too much about giving up some of the customs of home. Only then may we learn to truly appreciate the beautiful diversity of Europe’s countries and ways of life. I know I would be sorry to see this diversity disappear for the sake of commercial gain.

Crossing Europe I discovered that even by watching people traverse the street we may find that what makes us Europeans together is as much our similarities as our differences.

Poike Stomps, (b. 1977), the Netherlands, graduated in photography BDES (2006) at HKU Academy of Art Utrecht. Now working as a social documentary photographer in Amsterdam, exploring human behavior/ interaction, doing long-term projects and assignments. He works in the fields of portrait, documentary, reportage and art photography.

He creates series exposing the way we handle death, about multicultural street life in Utrecht, on life on The Faroe Islands, or life with dementia. Last 12 years he captured the life with his father. Besides his personal work, he hits his camera at shadows of passing airplanes trying to catch the impact the phenomenon may have on people and animals. And he observes people crossing the street in his 42 European Capital Crossings project.

In November 2015 his first Crossing Europe was presented at Paris Photo.

Result of an artistic residency at KAUNAS PHOTO festival

Each city or area is often surrounded by abundance of legends and myths. One of the legends of the city of Kaunas is a testimony of Lithuanian’s re-emigration of the beginning of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the emigration from Lithuania, people were leaving the entire villages. Sometimes they were cheated by the organizers of the tour and were pushed off not to North America but South America. Another story states that Lithuanians traveling below the Equator chose Brazil because the United States in 1908 limited the flow of immigrants. So in Žaliakalnis there was a small area named Brazilka when all its inhabitants abandoned their lives so poorly, and were better off across the Atlantic, they found themselves in Brazil. However sources say that the origin of the Brazilian place name came with the inhabitants - those who came to South American coffee plantations and returned to their homeland. They did not have the property and raised the area just in the bare fields, and just next to the quarterline of an area of similar fate called Argentinka. Deeper into the archive drawer, it was precisely Brazilka, that was associated with their "land of dreams" not only from the etymological, but also from the point of view of layered urban structure.

Recently, the district of Brazika has been changing very rapidly: old, new or modern apartments are changing old buildings and apartments. Together with changing urbanism, residents, younger generation, the sensation of Brazilka's myth began to disappear in the old district of Kaunas. Italian artist Emanuela Colombo was invited for an artictic residence by KAUNAS PHOTO festival to document this part of Žaliakalnis: Jonava, Varniai, Žemaičių streets and Savanorių avenue, a part of the district. In creating romantic images, portraiture of the people, or unexpected contrasts on everyday streets, the artist, in collaboration with the locals, created remarkable shots and returned to memory and memorized the remaining fragments of Brazilka, reminding of the history of the city and our continuous changes.

After graduating in Communication Sciences at IULM in Milan, Emanuela Colombo worked for almost 10 years in purchasing department of several companies in the area. Finally, she realized that it was not for her and decided to dedicate herself to her passion, photography. In 2007 Emanuela attended a Master in “Photography and Visual Design” at NABA in Milan. Since the beginning of 2007 she works with several NGOs to produce reportages, stories about their activities in Italy and abroad. Photographer published her work on Italian and foreign magazines.

I do not remember the day when I did not feel like Lithuanian. And when I have to answer the question of where my surname originates, when I have to explain that Lithuania, a country that is about 11,000 kilometers and whose traditions are influenced, I eat potatoes with gregarious dinner, have friends whose names are difficult to pronounce, and the Lithuanian roots that bind us together to dance national dances in early youth. I felt Lithuanian and during the holidays in scout camps, where Lithuanian songs sounded in the evenings, although they spoke in languages that I have not learned so far. My personality was formed by these small details with each Freedom Memorandum, with whirlwinds, while singing at the National Cathedral, or looking at a raised Lithuanian flag near the Brazilian, grandparents' house. I am Brazilian. And I am Lithuanian. I actively participated in the life of the Lithuanian community and only recently I understood the importance of the activities of the Lithuanian community and the presence of the Lithuanian district in a large city like Sao Paulo. Then the idea of this project was born. I do not want to restore historical memories, but I want to commemorate the current community, which in 2016 mentions the 90th anniversary of the immigration of Lithuanians into Brazil and, apart from the geopolitical differences, the traditions are maintained in the course of the change of generations. My goal is to perpetuate a community whose existence is supported by the 3rd or even 4th generation Lithuanian descendants. The photos of the moments are pictured in the 2015-2016 events in the district of Vila Zelina. It is only part of the reflection of the commitment of the members of the community, as well as the gratitude of those who support this community alive and active, and introduce the Brazilians to Lithuanian traditions and culture through the appearances of local dances and choirs and the presentation of Lithuanian culinary delights.

Ieva Martinaitis Ferreira - photographer since 2010, Graduated in Bachelor of Photography in 2013 – SENAC – São Paulo – Brazil Collective exhibitions 2010 – Cidade Gigante e Intimista – Metro de São Paulo 2012 – Cru – Magrelas 2015- Eu amo Vila Prudente – Shopping Central Plaza 2016 - Eu amo Vila Prudente – Shopping Central Plaza 2017 - Eu amo Vila Prudente – Shopping Central Plaza 2017 – UNIMÍDIA – UNICAMP – Solo Exhibition 2017 – 11000 KM – Metro de São paulo