Kickstarter campaign launches ahead of Inge Morath roadtrip

The Inge Morath Award has helped young women photographers for more than 10 years. Now a group of its past winners are getting together for a five-week roadtrip, following in the seminal photographer’s footsteps.

Nine female documentary photographers – Olivia Arthur, Jessica Dimmock, Kathryn Cook, Mimi Chakarova, Claudia Guadarrama, Claire Martin, Emily Schiffer, Ami Vitale, and Lurdes R Basoli – plan to travel together along the river Danube, making and exhibiting work as they go.

Danube Revisited – The Inge Morath Truck Project will see the women travel 2700km this summer, from the Black Forest in the south of Germany through ten countries, including Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, to the Black Sea.  The group hope to exhibit the work they create in a converted truck-cum-gallery, alongside images by Morath and from local women with whom they plan to collaborate along the way.

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“The idea behind the project is to take Inge’s work back to the area [in which it was created], to make our own work, and to engage with the women photographers we meet,” says Arthur, who won the award in 2007 for The Middle Distance, a project that looks at cultural differences between women who live on the border between Europe and Asia.

“I met three other winners [Basoli, Chen and Schiffer] during a group exhibition at Fotohof in Salzburg two years ago,” she continues. “We talked about doing a roadtrip together and discovered that Inge had made a trip along the Danube. After much discussion, we decided to embark on a trip of our own with as many of the other winners as possible. We’re all roughly the same age and have a good energy, so it was a case of ‘Let’s take this energy and do something with it’. The project is about engaging people and bringing them together.”

As part of the trip, which is supported by the Magnum Foundation, the photographers intend to hold night projections, artist talks, portfolio reviews and workshops to culturally engage with individuals and organisations along the route. They will also keep a blog, and take over Morath’s Instagram feed during their trip.

The final outcome will be an exhibition and documentary film, produced by Fundación Telefónica, and a book, published by Fotohof.

The group is hoping to raise $50,000 through Kickstarter, which will cover costs including air fares, food, petrol, truck conversion and daily operations on the road. Among the ‘rewards’ given to those who pledge their support are: limited edition prints by Inge Morath Award winners; original prints by Morath; and a handmade photobook featuring the photographer’s images and quotes.

Morath’s legacy lives on in the Inge Morath Foundation, which was established a year after her death in 2002 to preserve and promote her archive. Central to the foundation is the Inge Morath Award, a $5000 grant set up in her name to help women photographers under the age of 30 finish a long-term documentary project.

Danube Revisited is all about women working with women,” says Arthur. “There aren’t too many big projects that involve women… this is ambitious and unique. For us, it’s all about the journey and cultural exchange. Everyone has tons of energy, so it should be a great experience.”

www.danuberevisited.com

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