Main exhibition “Street Value”

© Audrius Kriauciunas “PalmBoom” 2015 -2016

The Netherlands is surely no tropical land and most certainly not a natural habitat to a palm tree. Nevertheless, people around here do decorate their gardens with it. One can only wonder what are the reasons behind such a choice. Inspired by early colonial journeys of botanists, I myself went after the search of a palm tree in Dutch landscape. My intention as a photographer was to present these palms in the context of their growing environment, so the viewer could make his own interpretations. For this reason I employed rather objective way of photographing - keeping the distance from the subject and framing it in a way that it gives the most information of its habitat. I see this project as a continuation of my interest in mundane, everyday surroundings, which in today’s pace of living we take as granted and too obvious to question.

In his photographic practice Audrius Kriauciunas (b. 1986) contemplates the relation between place and function. We tend to dive into daily routine quite quickly and our immediate surrounding becomes too obvious to question it. Artificiality is a natural habitat of today’s society; places like schools, offices, hospitals or bedroom neighborhoods for that matter are all built to serve a function. By photographing a seemingly mundane places/spaces and presenting it to the viewer photographer invites to ponder upon our society and the ways it functions.

© Balder Olrik “System 2” 2015

The series “System 2” is an investigation of what we see when we see – and what we unconsciously choose not to see.

The title refers to the behavioral researcher and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s model for the perceptual systems of the brain: System 1 and System 2. The automatic System 1 has the function of quickly and directly giving us an idea of the context we are in – based on our earlier experiences. System 1 enables us to act intuitively and energy efficiently in the world. “That notice means ‘closed’ – I am familiar with the meaning of ‘closed’ – so I do not expend more thinking activity / energy on that shop”…The conscious, but much smaller System 2 comes into play when we encounter the unknown, deficient or complex. System 2, it is true, is much slower than System 1, but it has the ability to analyse, focus and create new knowledge that System 1 can use in future. “This chair looks very lopsided – let me see whether if it has other indications of abnormality that mean one should not sit on it.” By obstructing System 1’s automatic features I try to get us to look at what we overlook at first glance. When I took the pictures for the System 2 series, my keyword was "Nodak Moments". A "Kodak moment" is the obvious beautiful motif we typically point our camera at. A "Nodak moment is the opposite - Places we find to uninteresting to bother about. I did not specifically search for them because they are everywhere around us. So for half a year I practically shot everything saw on my way that I normally wouldn't shoot.

Out of that base of 20.000+ pictures, I chose a handful and removed all the "System 1 tags" that I subconsciously judged them by, to give them another chance of beeing seen.

Balder Olrik (b. 1966) raised by scientist parents in Copenhagen suburbs. (Mother: Environmental biology – Father: Thermodynamics, etc.) He attended the Royal Academy of Art in Denmark, as one of the youngest ever. Worked for 16 years as a visual artist, and was exhibited, close to, 100 times in both Europa & America. Despite being one of the most recognized young Danish artists at the time, in 1998 he decided to focus solely on making digital inventions, especially focused on predicting and understanding our subconsciously behavior and perception. Most acknowledged outcomes are probably GoViral & ProChords 16 years later, at the age of 48, he decided to combine the two obsessions of his life, art & behavioural science, and re-entered the public art scene with the solo exhibition “System 2” at Martin Asbaek Gallery (Denmark, 2016).

© Christopher Mavric “Leopard city” 2015-2017

2016 Documentary photographer Christopher Mavric takes portraits of Austrian women and men wearing their favourite leopard outfits in the streets. It is a fashion phenomenon that's becoming more and more visible in the streets of Austrian cities, throughout all age groups and broad levels of the population. A city leopard wants to be seen. She is a hunter and victim of hungry looks in the same person. The leopard skin was formerly a costly attribute of warriors, princes and movie stars. In the 1970's many rock stars like Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop discovered leather Jackets with linings of leopard skin as their favourite stage outfits. Later, in the 90's the leopard pattern was transformed into a fundamental component of trash and grunge culture. Remember the very last press photos of Kurt Cobain, that show him wearing his crinkled Leopard skin bathrobe, gazing through cheap sunglasses and holding a cigarette between his fingers with polished nails. Today, leopards and other big cats may not be hunted and killed for their beautiful skin anymore. But the famous leopard pattern is alive and is now printed on synthetic materials. It's available in different price ranges and qualities and therefore available to almost everybody. It still continues to irritate and has become a symbol for eccentric self-confidence for the old and the young alike. “Leopard City / Die Stadt der Leopardin” is a book-project in progress and will be released in 2017.

Christopher Mavric (b. 1985) is an Austrian documentary photographer based in Vienna. Apart from his own photography projects he works for newspapers, magazines and international companies. Since 2012 he is a teacher for creative darkroom technique in Graz / Austria, at the Academy of Applied Photography. His first street photography book "Wildfremd. Street Portraits from Graz and Vienna“ was published by "Fotohof edition" in 2015. (ISBN 978-3-902993-04-5). His works were selected for exhibitions in: Hamburg (Germany), Graz (Austria), Rotterdam (Nederlands), Vienna (Austria), Salzburg (Austria). In 2016 Christopher Mavric works will be exhibited at the Republic of Kugelmugel (Austria) and at the Gallery of Photography (Ireland).

© Iga Gozdowska “Boat song” 2014-2016

I was born in Łódź in 1983. The word Łódź translates to ‘boat’, and ‘Boat song’ tells the story of returning home, as in the oral tradition, but through photographic means. I left my country in 2007. This series of photographs is a personal record of a journey back to Łódź. In this work I focus on the alienation of returning home, trying to recall memories of places, which no longer look familiar. Having been away for nine years, I feel that the city has and has not changed. This distance and my return has made me wonder whether it is possible at all to truly come back, because home as I know it seems to no longer be there. In this series of photographs I observe changes the city has undergone and use them as a metaphor for personal transformation. In the light of the current political situation in the UK where I live now, this project has yet to take on new meaning. It shows how difficult coming back to the place of origin can be, even more so if the decision to return is dictated by the politics. Being away has influenced the way I now see the places where I grew up, therefore I keep questioning if I will ever find 'home'.

Iga Gozdowska (b. 1983) is a documentary photographer, focusing primarily on landscape. Informed by a background in environmental science and economics, her projects often explore the tension between the visual poetics of land and its industrial exploration. She studied BA in Professional Photography at Edinburgh College in the UK. Originally from Poland, now she lives and works in Scotland. Over the last three years she has exhibited in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London. She was a participant of the New Photographers Guild mentoring program at Street Level Photoworks in 2015/2016.

© Isabelle Riviere “On the Threshold” 2012 -2015

A European capital: Warsaw; a neighborhood: Praga, separated from the historical centre by the Vistula River. Almost central, yet on the margins, its edges are both precise and blurred. Its history is singular. The only neighborhood in Warsaw not destroyed during the war, it is also the only one that was not rebuilt afterwards, and was left on the sidelines of the real estate boom of the past two decades. The traces of time are everywhere to be seen, sedimented, as it were. Everything is still the same, yet everything is starting to be somewhat different, with the arrival of the metro. Nearly invisible variations have begun to surface. Everything is in suspension, between two moments, disappearance and revival. It is on this intermediary time/space, so authentically Warsovian and at the same time so mysteriously undefined, that I have chosen to focus. As I wander, landmarks are blurred, between strings of courtyards in ruin or industrial wastelands, where nature sometimes seems to take over again. The borders between the inside and outside worlds blend together in turn. Almost paradoxically, intimate spaces give way to open spaces, to be conquered. Deprivation becomes fertile ground for imagination, and reality, secondary. “On the threshold” sheds light on one of those interstitial urban areas in transition, as can be seen elsewhere, notably in Central and Eastern Europe. This threshold is triple. It is that of a neighborhood prior to change, that from which the stranger I am perceives this « just before », and that from which viewers are invited to invent for themselves, beyond the passive frame of the image, the life of a Praga as real as fictional.

Isabelle Riviere (b. 1972) is a French photographer based in Paris. After studying political science and foreign languages, she has lived and worked in several European countries, of which five years in Poland. She resumed recently a photographic path started in her teenage years and currently shares her time between international cooperation and photography. Her approach as an author is essentially intuitive and centred on a certain perception of reality, fields of possibility, memory and intimacy. Mostly interested in visual poetry, she revisits the apparent banality and immutability of everyday life, of the things that surround us but that we no longer pay attention to. The notion of passage between “hardly anymore” and “not yet” constitutes a recurring theme in her work.

© Jan Dirk van der Burg & Gijs van der Berg “Pruning & Prosperity” 2016

The 33.883 square kilometers of land that make up the Netherlands are not nearly enough to share among 17 Million people. Let alone with nature. Functional infrastructure and green beautification try hard to coexist neatly side by side, but often live in conflict with each other. Jan Dirk van der Burg and Gijs van den Berg report from the frontline of these tensions between man and nature.

This serie is a collaboration between Photographers Gijs van der Berg and Jan Dirk van der Burg. Jan Dirk van der Burg (b.1978) is a photographer and film maker. In his book „Desire Lines” he documented paths through cities, designed by pedestrians instead of landscape architects. He was awarded a Dutch Silver Camera Award in 2012 and has exhibited his work at FOAM Amsterdam and the Naarden Photo Festival. In 2015 he gained national press attention with the publication of his project ‘Tweetbundels’.

Gijs van den Berg (b. 1983) is a visual artist. Both during and outside his working hours as an art director at communications agency KesselsKramer, his works spans film, photography and graphic design. In 2015 he  photographed ‘Gewoon Koffie’, a project on disappearing traditional coffee houses in Amsterdam and exhibited his ‘TV Toes’ at the Malmö Fotobiennal.

© Marta Rybicka "Under" 2015-2016

This is a story about people who travel. In other words, passengers: temporary inhabitants of a transient space, moving an mass, yet each one an individual with their own concerns in life and their own story. I travel a lot. And as I sit there, the view out of the window changing, I wonder about the people around me. Why are they travelling? What is their destination? Who are they on their way to meet? Who are they? I choose to explore these aspects without asking them directly.  To that end, I observe people on public transport – especially trains – waiting for those unique moments when they exhibit the affectations and personal gestures that reveal something about them, and open a window into their hidden lives. In particular, this project focuses on Warsaw’s underground metro system. This is a good place to explore such ideas, as it allows me to observe people for longer than when just passing them by on the street. They’re having a break during the day; enjoying a moment of privacy in a public space. It’s their secret little room in the crowd. I get to see them in the most natural moment in the city, absorbed in their own lives. The photographic style I’ve chosen enables me to hide the superfluous details of the public space and focus on the human details and sensitivities. So far I’ve spent two years capturing such moments and I’m still always on the lookout for untold stories about ordinary people in public places.

Marta Rybicka (b. 1982) Self-taught documentary photographer, born in Brzesko near Krakow, now based in Warsaw, Poland. Graduate of the Krakow University of Economics where she studied International Relations and also a graduate of the Warsaw National Defence Academy. Double finalist in the III Leica Street Photo Contest (2013) and the finalist in the DEBUTS 2016. She has also taken part in all three editions of EASTREET (2013, 2014, 2015) – an international exhibition of street photography from Eastern Europe. She is a freelance photographer who cooperates with one of the largest Polish photo agencies – Forum Agency. Her career began when she documented the effects of an earthquake in Haiti and a flood in Poland. She is currently focused on personal topics related to life and working conditions in Poland, India and Sudan and is also covering the current refugee crises. Member of UN-POSED street photography collective and 14&15 mobile photographers collective.

© Marton Kallai “Community gardens Budapest” 2015

Travelling a lot among villages in the Hungarian countryside, Marton Kallai experienced that less and less people use their backyard for vegetable and fruit productions, they go to nearby supermarkets instead. Marton felt it as a paradox that at the same time the number of community gardens is growing in Budapest, with very passionate people owning a piece of land in the concrete jungle. What makes food production disappear in the village, in it's original place and what makes urban people become gardeners. Of course a community garden is way beyond just food production. It is a place for common feeling, closer to nature. As Hungary was very much an agricultural country, this memory still lives on in people's mind, even after the forced urbanization of the socialist times. Many families were offered better life in cities, but their childhood memories still live on in nowadays blockhouses. This romantic feeling drives people to community gardening but it would be difficult to describe the individual motivation. However the number of gardens is quickly raising and it is changing the cityscape. Abandoned places, out of use facilities turn to a place of social activity and production. Even empty plots are perfect for some vegetables if there is enough willpower to bring life among the bricks.

Marton Kallai (1982) is a documentary photographer living in Budapest, Hungary. After graduation he studied photography and sociology in the "ELTE" University Budapest. He has been working as a photographer since 2006. He focuses on documentary photo essays with a special interest in nature and environment. Marton was chosen for the Magnum photography workshop in Budapest in 2014. He won 4 awards at the Hungarian press photo contest. His project: Community Gardens Budapest was created for the József Pécsi Photography Grant. A series of these images has won 3rd prize at the 73rd POYi Feature Picture Story - Newspaper category. He is a staff photographer of one of the biggest weekly magazines in Hungary.

© Massimo Branca “Inside Outside Under Bucharest”

A hole in the ground. A border between two parallel universes.

When we first visited their subterranean house in Bucharest city centre, we never expected that, over time, we would become part of their family. Children, aged up to forty years, were the street tribe of Gara de Nord. Trained by violence, they have learned to growl in order to be heard. Many of them, growing up without parents and in social exclusion, bear the marks of early-discovered drug-addiction, disease and prison. With a few rules, easily misunderstood by the ‘civilized’ world, they managed to found a small community opposed to the society above ground. As if they were natives of the street, they sought survival through the resources that were available to them. The leading figure of the group, a charismatic and experienced man called Bruce Lee, spent the last years trying to provide a comfortable house to stay in. But spring 2014 brought overwhelming exposure to the Gara de Nord story: it repeatedly appeared in local and international media, with reports focusing mainly on drugs abuse. As one result, in July 2015, local authorities arrested Bruce Lee and many others. Accused of organized crime and drug trafficking, they were sentenced to 10-20 years in prison. For two years we lived on the streets of Bucharest with one of the most marginalized communities in Europe. During this prolonged stay, our own identity became increasingly blurred. The boundaries between us gradually disintegrated, paving the way for a new and clearer understanding. We witnessed a complex reality, in which illegality and drugs were largely the side effects of a process of adaptation to growing marginalisation. With this work we would like to enable our audience to imagine what underground life was like, without their eyes being clouded by pity, judgement or fear, and make them part of a personal encounter.

Massimo Branca (b. 1985) is an independent photographer. Graduated in Anthropology, his interest focus in the relationship between humans’ lifestyles and cultural environments. In 2009 he co-founded “Collettivo Fotosocial”, Italia association that uses visual storytelling to spread awareness and produce positive social change. In 2013 he started a long-term research project about underground life in Bucharest: since then he has been living in a surreal environment, experiencing himself some effects of social exclusion. He uses photography as a medium to connect with people and give the public a chance to engage meaningfully. In 2015 he was selected Emerging Talent by Getty Images. He received awards such as: Photocrati Fund for Humanitarian Photography (Top Finalist 2014); Magnum Photos / IdeasTap: 30 Under 30s (Winner 2015); Lucie Emerging Scholarship (Shortlisted 2015); Gomma Photography Grant, (Second Place 2016); Lumix Hannover Festival Public Choice (Winner 2016), etc.

© Mateusz Jaźwiecki “10th of April” 2015 – 2016

On 10 April 2010 in tragic plane crash in Russia President of Poland Lech Kaczynski has died along with 95 other top government officials. By many it is considered to be the nation's worst disaster since World War Two. After the tragedy several hypothesis surfaced as of reasons of the crash, one of them even claims that the crash had been in fact political assassination plotted by both Russian and Polish government officials. The event resulted in huge polarization of Polish society and it is believed to play prominent role in Polish politics for many years to come. Thousands of people gather in front of Presidential Palace in Warsaw each year to commemorate the crash and pay tribute to the victims. The photographs tell the story of the ordinary people of all age, different social layers, and coming from all kinds of backgrounds gathered in one place, one day each year. I had decided to focus on individuals in order to construct collective picture of the event. This way the project offers a glimpse into Polish society in untraditional and unexpected way.

Mateusz Jaźwiecki (b. 1986, Poland) – self-taught documentary photographer, currently based in Warsaw. He has been working as a photojournalist in Poland and abroad. For extensive period of time he has been living in Afghanistan where he was working on documenting everyday life of people in this war torn country. Since then, his practice evolved into more documentary and conceptual direction. After coming back to Poland he had spent his time working on long term projects which are aimed to capture changes in identity as of what it means to be Polish nowadays. It involves working around issues like nationalism, patriotism, attitude toward foreigners and refugees, religion, history and tradition. Due to the background he is able to look at his motherland through the fresh eyes. The photographer is interested in documenting social issues and in exploring slow pacing culture changes. He loves to travel, meet new people, learn from them and sometimes even photograph them.

© Mathieu Nonnenmacher "High Journey" (2014 - 2016)

During 2 years, I travel by hitchhiking around the world. Always looking for places who can give me a different point of view on the city, this journey took me to the top of many structures. On the top of a skyscraper one day, climbing a bridge another day, these different adventures gives me the opportunity to take the time to observe the city from his center. Hide from everybody like a fugitive, I was just a dreamer who climb an urban mountain.

In these pictures, you can find some moments of this journey. Sometimes in Europe, sometimes in Asia or in America, all this pictures have something in common: the freedom. The freedom to reach this point that look impossible to reach. Often by night, when cats are the only one to live or, sometimes, during the day, when everybody is busy, we go. Quiet, eyes and ears full open, we were slowly, step by step, go on our final goal: The very top of the structure.

Why? Why try to be on the edge? So close of the death, where only one wrong movement can kill you? For the same reason than people explore cave, climb the Everest or go in the middle of the jungle find a possible antic ruin. Because I’m a dreamer. Because I want to feel the city. Because I want to know the city, all aspect of it. Because I’m free.

Mathieu Nonnenmacher (b. 1989) alias MonsieurKurtis, self-taught travel photographer, born in Metz in France, now based in Paris, France. Graduate of the ISCOM where he studied Communication, he worked in the video games industry before to become freelance photographer. He works particularly on industrial, historical and natural heritage. He's interest by the unseen and do everything to reach places where just few people go. Between May 2014 and June 2016, he travel around the world by hitchhiking. After 7 years behind a camera, he exhibits for the first time his work in Kaunas Photo.

© Norman Behrendt “Morning has not dawned yet” 2015

After 50 years of soviet domination, Lithuania was the first soviet republic who declared itself independent and became a sovereign state. A long lasting period of oppression on Lithuania`s history and national identity have shaped the country, its resources, its economic system and its people. After gaining independence, Lithuania is in a constant process of transformation. By processes of detachment on the one side and bonding processes on the other, Lithuania, similar to other post-soviet countries, is in search of its own lost identity and its political role in a united Europe. I remember Lithuania as a country with plenty of wild apple trees, dozens of small sized mature apples hanging on crowded branches and as a quiet laid-back place. The streets were not crowded, people were not in a rush. I was interested in the "here and now". I wonder where does Lithuania as a post-communist state position itself in Europe today? Which traces the past has left and what role the European Union plays in terms of the country's future? Seeking for the places and situations which express to me an idea or a feeling of the present-day Lithuania, I had the feeling as if a long awaited moment has not happened yet. A hunch of not sleeping anymore, but to dwell on a dreamy mode, turning from one side to the other, waiting to get up with the first rays of the sun which bring back the warmth and the colour to shapes that were grey at dawn. The title Morning has not dawned yet is taken from a traditional vocal folk music song, a Lithuanian Daino. These traditional Dainos are commonly known by Lithuanians and form a basic part of Lithuanian identity. Moreover, the history of the Baltic states reveals one world known event „The Singing Revolution“ - a national and nonviolent movement in the Baltic States between 1987 to 1991, where unarmed Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought for their countries freedom and independence in face of the soviet occupation by singing songs.

Norman Behrendt (Berlin, Germany 1981) is a German photographer, living and working in Berlin. He studied graphic design and photography at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam under Prof. Wiebke Loeper and Jan Stradtmann and is best-known for his non-conventional portraits of the Berlin’s graffiti artists. In 2012 he majors in Photography with his long-term project ‘burning down the house’. Burning down the house won the first prize at the Fotobook Dummy Award 2013 in Kassel and got also an appreciation at the ’10th Aenne-Biermann-Prize’ for contemporary German photography in Gera in 2013. In January 2015 it got published by seltmann+söhne and within a few months the book got sold out. Norman Behrendt’s images have been exhibited in several group and solo shows, and international photography festivals across Europe, in Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Lithuania and Ireland.

© Torsten Schumann “For tomorrow” 2011 – 2016

I am interested in what people do in the urban environment and on the street. "For Tomorrow" (2011 - 2016) is a series of photographs of street objects as I found them.

Besides finding the unexpected beauty in the everyday, I am also fascinated by the mostly inconspicuous and often overlooked things I encounter on my urban journeys. Some of the colorful objects I photograph seem to have a life of their own. Taking photographs of urban scenes and of the little, perhaps incidental inventions tends to stir my imagination about the story behind the scene.  What is the intention of the things people have created, combined or changed? I try to approach this question by asking myself: Do we make things in the expectation of recognition or because we feel satisfied? Do we think we can improve life by creating things? Or do we carefully keep artefacts out of fear of transiency? Maybe we create and change objects simply because we have always liked doing so. Or do we want to leave a small reminder "For Tomorrow"? I like to explore and see if the details of things can tell something about the people who made them and if the traces of their creation can be seen in a regional, temporal and therefore social context. Although I do appreciate it if a more or less smiling mystery remains.

Torsten Schumann was born in Dresden in 1975. He studied at Lichtblick School, Cologne and BerlinPhotoworkshops. In 2015, Torsten Schumann's works were shown at the Festival Circulation(s) in Paris, at the exhibition Context 2015 by the Filter Photo Festival Gallery in Chicago, and at the International Print Exhibition by the Royal Photographic Society in London. He received the Arte Laguna Prize in Venice in 2012, the Berliner Liste Award in 2014, and the OPUS Kulturmagazin award in 2015. Schumann's works are represented in international collections such as the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection. Torsten Schumann currently lives and works in Berlin.

© Virgilio Ferreira “Daily Pilgrims”

The “Daily Pilgrims” project was developed in major Asia metropolises, where territory and behaviour are changing fast. My aim was to create a symbolic tension between the subject and the setting, and conjure up the feelings of solitude and alienation that are products of the modern city living, stimulated by a social demand for representation and invention of several possible selves.

“Today we experience the modern anguishes of the search for identity. This is the contemporary myth”, wrote once Jean Claude Kaufmann. These out-of-focus portraits seems to be in dialogue with this viewpoint, where anonymous human figures become a distorted body of forms and colours. It is this information deficit that makes the portrayed stand out, mystifying and demystifying the frames of identity and memory.

As Natasha Christia wrote: “Ferreira’s images operate literally as an obstacle fence for the eye. We are never able to figure out what is out there: between us and the subject there is no room for any identifiable “Other” or for any spatial contextualization in sociopolitical terms. It transmits the “aura” of a “palpable” human truth blurred by globalization and multiculturalism”.

Virgílio Ferreira is a Portuguese photographer. He has completed an MA in Photography at the University of Brighton in UK, 2012; a Cinematography Course at the International School of Cinema, La Habana, 2005; and a Photography Course at the École des Arts et Métiers de L’Image 21, Paris, 1995. His work has been widely exhibited in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and South East Asia. Some of the most significant exhibitions have taken place at Flowers Gallery, (London); Hamburg Triennial of Photography; The Portuguese Centre of Photography; Galerie Madé (Paris); Unseen Photo Fair (Amsterdam); Photo LA, and Photo Miami (U.S.A.),etc. To date he released four projects in books entitled, "Passages", “Being and Becoming”, “Daily Pilgrims”, "We and The Others" and "Rainbow". He has also had work featured in international magazines, blogs, and online magazines such as  European Photography; 1000 Words Photography; The Guardian UK; Lens Culture; Hey, Hot Shot; Katalog-Museum for Fotokunst Brandts; Eye Curious; Mrs Deane; Heading East and Artephotographica. He has been awarded several prizes, most recently the1000 Words Award for European Photographers (2012), but also the Dst International Photography Prize, Encontros da Imagem, Portugal, (2010), etc. Ferreira's work is held in public collections, including The Portuguese Centre of Photography; the Hahnemuhle Anniversary Collection, Germany; the Southeast Museum of Photography, USA; the National Collection of Photography, Portugal; Lodz Art Center, Poland and the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

© Werner Mansholt “In the Flesh” 2011 -2015

The streets are the stage for daily life; members of the public are actors in a love story, drama, comedy or tragedy, opera or ballet. But they could be the audience as well, observing the scene just like we are. The urban surroundings are the stage settings. Werner Mansholt takes pictures on the streets around the world. He prefers always seeing people being themselves and living completely in the moment, unaware of the camera. His photographs are candid, authentic and believable. Orchestrating a scene is very difficult and he loves the process of searching and finding such moments for a great picture. Capturing the essential and humanistic moment with the lens, the actions in the drawing, the colours and the shapes gives him a feeling of happiness. Just as Guy Le Querrec (Magnum Photos) says: „Photography is always a convergence of circumstances, a rendezvous with luck".

Werner Mansholt (b. 1949) is a German photographer, based in Darmstadt. After studying law and political sciences he worked as a labor lawyer. But his passion was photography and he worked in workshops with well-known photographers: Anders Petersen, Arno R. Minkkinen, Anja Niedringhaus, Martino Marangoni, etc. His work has been exhibited in Kaunas (Lithuania), Teplice/Prague (Czech Republic), Plock (Poland), Tbilisi (Georgia), Helsinki (Finland) and Germany (Berlin, Hamburg, Darmstadt, Cologne etc.) and was internationally published (DIE ZEIT Zeit-online.de, LFI LEICA FOTOGRAFIE INTERNATIONAL, L’Oeil de la Photographie – The Eye of Photography, Fotografia Magazine, DOC-Photomagazine, SHOTS Magazine, Life Force Magazine, etc.). In 2013 he published the book „Besuch bei Detlef Kraft“.

Photographer got lot of awards and nominations, such as: Finalist Grand Fotofestiwal LODZ (Poland) 2015; Honorable Mention MIFA (Moscow International Foto Awards) PRO 2014; Honorable Mention PhotoAnnualAwards Prague (Czech Republic) 2014; Honorable Mention IPA Lucie-Award PRO, Los Angeles (USA) 2013; Shortlist International Fotofestival Schömberg (Germany) 2013; Shortlist Tbilisi Kolga-Festival (Georgia), 2012, Honorable Mention Lucie-Award, Los Angeles (USA) 2008; Honorable Mention, Prix de la Photographie, Paris (France) 2007.

© Mindaugas Kavaliauskas "Travel'AIR. SPOT"

Admiration for aviation has been around ever since very first flying machines took to the air. Many people raised in the second half of the 20^th century remember a Sunday ritual of being taken by their parents to the neighbourhood of the airport to watch airplanes. Today the airplane watching is even more versatile. Some cities install carparks, parks and leisure zones next to the landing strips so that people can admire the arriving and departing planes, while some airport surroundings offer challenging safari experiences before those passionate of aviation get their desired views available.

“Spot” series is an exploration of places where regular life and aviation views meet and a visual study of ways people celebrate the view of the airplane. Some people come to those spots to take pictures, some even meticulously record the numbers of the captured aircraft, some enjoy their leisure with an aviation view, would that be sports, games, food. Some come to view farewell to their close ones taking flights to distant destinations, some view airplanes to feel more at home when they're away, while others search the thrill of the closest landings they can experience.

“Travel'AIR” project is about the human experience of air travel, started in 2005 and continued until present.

Mindaugas Kavaliauskas (b. 1974, Lithuanian), studied Art History and Photography in Lithuania (1992-97, 2000), France (1997-98) and Switzerland (2000-01). His interest in documentary photography lead to creation of his signature work "Portrait of Kražiai" (2001-03), exhibited in Europe and beyond. It focuses on a Lithuanian village struggling with socio-economic transitions. After founding KAUNAS PHOTO festival, less time for personal creation was left. A subject, suiting his frequent flyer's lifestyle and ignored by most photographers emerged - air travel, human experience of which he has been exploring since 2009 until present, focusing on narrower subjects related to experiences of aviation.

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