Explore Stories

BJP

Ryo Minemizu’s Jewels in the Night Sea

“Plankton are intriguing and beautiful creatures,” says Japanese photographer Ryo Minemizu. “They symbolise how precious life is by their tiny existence.”

He’s been shooting plankton for 20 years, spending between two and eight hours underwater everyday recording the tiny creatures, which can be plants, animals, or other types of organism. Drifting in the ocean, unable to swim against the current, plankton are the most abundant life form on earth after bacteria, but measuring 2mm-40mm in size, are invisible to the naked eye. Minemizu has registered his own technique to photograph them, which he’s called Black Water Dive, and which involves setting a stage underwater using flashes and other forms of lighting.

16 August 2018

Photographer Shahidul Alam jailed for comments on Bangladeshi government corruption

Photographer Shahidul Alam has been imprisoned by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court for spreading “false and harmful information” against the government after remaining in police custody for seven days.

He was placed before authorities around 3pm on Sunday 12 August, and charged under section 57 of the Information and Communications Technology Act, Moshiur Rahman, deputy commissioner of police, told the Bangladeshi title The Daily Star. His lawyer and his family members were not informed about the court hearing. 

In a letter submitted by investigating officer Mr Arman Ali, the 63-year-old was accused of giving “false and harmful information through Al-Jazeera, various electronic media, and his Facebook timeline, which led to deterioration of the law and order situation in the country, and created fear and terror in the minds of the public”.

15 August 2018

Tracing the collective history of North Korea

“There is a term to describe the cultural ache that Koreans go through: Han. A complex intermingling of historical, collective and personal sorrow, acceptance of a bitter present, and a hope of a better future.” Introduced to the term by a North Korean defector, Herman Rahman decided to adopt it as the framing concept for his project of the same name.

Han traces the collective history of the notoriously closed regime of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, relying largely on archival imagery and found text to probe at the borders of a near-impenetrable subject. The work is an interrogation, not only of the secrecy of the North Korean state, but also of the nature of photography itself.

14 August 2018

Tom Roche: Black Blood

Growing up, photographer Tom Roche learned about his Romani Gypsy heritage only through fragmentary stories and speculation. “My great, great uncle was stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake because he owed money for land,” says Roche, a recent University of the West of England graduate. “Then I had one aunt, aunt Liz, who used to pick crops, one aunt that made baskets, and another who sold pegs – or so I’m told; I don’t have any images, records, or concrete facts of my ancestors.”

14 August 2018

Women’s Perspectives star in this year’s Organ Vida

“In the EU today, we take women’s rights for granted,” says Marina Paulenka, director of Organ Vida, a three-week international photography event held annually in Zagreb. Founded in 2008, the festival has always been driven by political context, and this year, for its 10th edition, its all-female team have chosen to emphasise female-identifying perspectives from around the globe.

“In a time of post-capitalist global turmoil, technological advancements, with the strengthening of rightwing extremism, the growing influence of religion that limits women’s rights again, and the semblance of democracy in the 21st century, we are facing a situation in which women must fight anew for the rights that had been won long ago,” Paulenka insists.

13 August 2018

Peter Kennard among creatives reclaiming their artwork from London’s Design Museum

Photomontage artist Peter Kennard is among 40 artists who have demanded their work be removed from London’s Design Museum after discovering the institution had hosted a private event associated with the arms trade. The museum complied with the requests to return work by 01 August, but defended its curatorial independence from its need to raise funds and sponsorships.

In an open letter, the artists said that they are “appalled” that the London institution arranged for Italian aerospace company Leonardo to hold an event on 17 July, during the Farnborough International Airshow. A demonstration outside the museum also took place on the same day (02 August) in which several artists arrived to collect their works.

10 August 2018

Thai New Wave Photography: Multiple Planes

Photography is generally accepted as a medium representing reality or the idea of that revealing what you see before you, onto a two-dimensional plane. Multiple Planes, an exhibition organised by Thai New Wave Photography, uses its platform to construct works, in terms of its materials, processes and notions, that relate to photography through atypical dimensions. “It’s a place where you can expect to see inventive works,” says curator Mary Pansanga.

9 August 2018

Vice: The Privacy and Perception Issue

As the apps we use become a bigger part of our daily routines, the line between our digital and real lives is increasingly blurred. “But there’s a tension point where privacy comes in which makes everything even more complicated,” says VICE editor in chief Ellis Jones. How much of ourselves do we share publicly and how do we decide which pieces to share? Which labels do we use to describe ourselves? And how do we avoid others imposing labels onto us? These are a few of the questions posed in “The Privacy and Perception Issue”, VICE’s annual photography magazine.

9 August 2018

Shahidul Alam arrested for “provocative comments” in wake of Bangladesh protests

Shahidul Alam, one of the world’s leading figures in photography, and a social activist who has been a harsh critic of the government in his native Bangladesh, has been arrested in Dhaka for making “provocative comments” following mass protests that have brought parts of the country to a standstill over the past week.

According to his partner, Rahnuma Ahmed, at least 30 plainclothes officers entered his home in the capital at around 10pm on Sunday, and sped him away in a car. He was officially arrested  the next day. Alam had posted videos on Facebook and was interviewed by Qatar-based television station Al-Jazeera about the protests, which he said stemmed from anger about widespread government corruption, and not just the bus accident that initially sparked them.

6 August 2018

Q&A: Jason Fulford, photographer, book-maker, and educator

In adopting the photobook as his primary medium, using complex sequences as well as free ranging associations to create what’s been described as ‘open metaphors’, Jason Fulford is more interested in questions than answers. He invites readers to become active participants in his work, presenting an open enquiry in which the various interconnecting layers are often cryptic and complex, and the meaning is less important than the experience of looking and thinking.

3 August 2018