![]() ![]() “Effigies, deities, and creatures that live in the woods: these are all part of the mysterious dual worlds that are created in On The Land An Oak Will Grow. An invitation into a new, eerily beautiful and endlessly fascinating place. It is meant as an escape from the reality of the modern world – the pace, politics, consumerism - and its emphasis on the surface can which be wearing. Paula G Vidal, Paul Hermes, Maria Castagna, Jasper White, Matthias Schneck, Aleksei Kazantsev, Jakub Cervenka, Ole Marius Joergensen, Tomas Urbelionis, Lorenzo Palombini, June Korea, Henriette Ebbesen, Andy N Smith, Paul Shiakallis, Ebony Finck, Benjamin Boshart, Viktoria Sorochinski.Seeking to push the boundaries of their usual solo work, Woide and Fairfax-Woods created performances in nature, distorting the natural world around them into an imaginary realm. Its culmination into a photographic ‘still life’ image as a way to observe transformation of matter over time and to capture the fading away of ephemeral objects is really interesting.” – Lorenzo Vitturi OTHER WINNING PHOTOGRAPHERS: “It’s great to see an image that contains a process and an obsession for the act of looking. Is it staged? What was happening there? The lack of answers generate an atmosphere of tension and unknown.” – Lorenzo Vitturi THIRD PRIZE: EINAR SIRA There’s a satisfying equilibrium between fiction and reality: a well pondered mise en scene, which keeps the viewer in a state of uncertainty. The composition is classical, elegant and balanced. “It’s good to see the ‘still life’ used as a way to reflect on the decline of the ‘American dream’ and to take a moment to reflect on social changes. However, these small imperfections are what make the image more organic.” – Lorenzo Vitturi What could be improved? Some compositional details could be adjusted, such as the off-horizontal landscape lines. ![]() Indeed, the absence of human presence evokes an uncanny atmosphere, making the representation stand between the calm of nature and the chaos of populations in constant motion. It is interesting to see that the image attempts to picture a social condition crucial to today without being too literal: discarding a photojournalistic approach and adopting instead a non-figurative one. “This image appears quintessentially contemporary: aesthetically, the ‘still life’ turns into an installation in a ‘natural’ environment, whilst conceptually it serves as a metaphor to approach a problematic social issue, emblematic of today’s society. Thus, to narrow it down I am looking for those images that through ‘still life’ are able to represent a specific social issue or that embody a specific working process.” – Lorenzo Vitturi FIRST PRIZE: DEMETRIS KOILALOUS In addition, although the theme of ‘still life’ is a quite a specific section of the visual arts, it can also be interpreted incredibly broadly. ![]() In my working process for example, the image is the final result of a long process of searching and experimentation. “I have decided to look not only for images presenting a strong aesthetic, pleasant to the eye, but for images that represent either an idea or a wider research process.
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