All posts tagged: Nadav Kander

Federico Borella wins Photographer of the Year

Federico Borella has been named Photographer of the Year at the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards, winning the $25,000 prize for his series Five Degrees – a look at male suicide in the farming community of Tamil Nadu, Southern India, which is facing its worst drought in 140 years. The Italian photographer’s work takes its lead from a Berkeley University study, which found a correlation between climate change and increased suicide rates among Indian farmers, and explores the impact of both via images of the farming landscape, mementoes of the farmers, and portraits of their survivors.

“As global warming changes the face of life ever more rapidly – particularly in developing and underdeveloped nations – the work of artists such as Borella becomes ever more needed,” commented Mike Trow, chair of the professional jury. He added that this year’s submissions “provoked a lot of debate and interest amongst the jury” with works “pushing the boundaries of photography and challenging the perceptions and expectations the audience”.

2019-04-30T10:01:38+01:00

Photo London: ‘We might begin to see 3D printing and augmented reality become collectible’

Sarah Roberts

First established in 1970 by Angela Flowers in London’s West End, Flowers Gallery now has two central London locations – one in Mayfair and another in Shoreditch, along with a space in New York. The gallery currently represents 48 international artists working across a wide range of media. Flowers Gallery has been recognised for its engagement with important socio-cultural, political and environmental themes. We spoke to Director of the Photography Department, Chris Littlewood, about the artists’ work he is bringing to Photo London later this month, which include an array of well-known names such as Edward Burtynsky and Nadav Kander. Littlewood has also helped predict a number of future trends, from experimental installation techniques, to elements like 3D printing and augmented realities. What excites you the most about exhibiting your artists at Photo London? It’s always exciting to present at fairs, especially if the work is fresh and audiences are engaging with it for the first time. If someone appreciates an artist’s work the same way I do, an amazing energy can come out of …

2018-05-15T13:18:13+01:00

Awards: Five finalists for the ING Unseen Talent Award 2017

Diane Smyth

The ING Unseen Talent Award is one of the most generous prizes out there for young photographers, with a €10,000 fund to make new work up for grabs, plus mentoring from Nadav Kander and a group show at Unseen Amsterdam for all the finalists. This year, the five shortlisted artists are: Alexandra Lethbridge (b. 1987, UK); Tom Callemin (b. 1991, Belgium); Andrea Grützner (b. 1984, Germany); Robin Lopvet (b. 1990, France); and Stefanie Moshammer (b. 1988, Austria).

2017-07-18T15:25:00+01:00

How do you speak Nadav Kander? The man himself on mastering your creative language

British Journal of Photography

British Journal of Photography caught up with Nadav Kander ahead of his appearance at The Photography Show 2017 in Birmingham. Conversation quickly turned to his recent much debated image of Donald Trump. Normally when Nadav Kander turns up to shoot a portrait, the only thing he’s thought through beforehand is the lighting. But Donald Trump was different. “I was really divided about how I should do it – how to do this TIME cover justice without putting my political views out there,” he says of his commission to photograph the US president for TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year cover. “If you photograph properly, you’re talking about a coming together of two histories. A person of 70, who’s had a life of 70 years, and a person of 54, who’s had a life of 54 years. As soon as politics comes in, you change things. It’s difficult to exclude that but you need to if you’re making a mature portrait that’s going to have any lasting effect.” What inspires him about photography has evolved with …

2019-03-28T16:47:02+01:00

Nadav Kander on Secret Nuclear Missile-testing Sites

Gemma Padley

“The Geiger counters chattered away on our belts, keeping us from the worst of the invisible dangers,” writes Nadav Kander in his new monograph, Dust. Kander is describing his three-year study of secret Soviet towns, once home to nuclear missile-testing sites, now radioactive landscapes. As Kander explains in the accompanying text to the book (published by Hatje Cantz, priced at £60), it was while researching cities in Russia for a project that he came across the two so-called ‘closed’ towns located on the Russian- Kazakhstan border. Kurchatov, in north-east Kazakhstan, was home to The Polygon, a key nuclear testing site in the Soviet Union until 1989, and the closed missile testing town of Priozersk, formerly known as Moscow 10, which never appeared on official maps. As a result, both were largely unknown until the advent of Google Earth. “I was told these towns were mostly destroyed,” writes Kander. “As with many secrets in life, this inspired my wish to know more.” So began a journey that saw the London-based photographer travel from east Kazakhstan to …

2016-04-08T15:47:43+01:00

Nadav Kander’s Dust: “Empty landscapes of invisible dangers”

Tom Seymour

Priozersk (formally known as ‘Moscow 10’) and Kurchatov are closed cities, restricted military zones, concealed and not shown on maps until they were ‘discovered’ by Google Earth. Enlisted to the pursuits of science and war, the sites were utilized for the covert testing of atomic and long distance weapons. Falsely claimed as uninhabited, the cities, along with nearby testing site ‘The Polygon’, set the stage for one of the most cynical experiments ever undertaken. Scientists watched and silently documented the horrifying effects of radiation and pollution on the local population and livestock. Demolished to preserve their military secrets, the areas now consist predominantly of the ruinous architecture and desolate landscapes featured in Kander’s haunting photographs. A result of the Cold War and of the relentless quest for nuclear armaments, the ruins stand as accidental monuments to the melancholic, dark and destructive side of human nature. Kander’s photographs, as such, portray such settings as stake facts. Yet they have, in their shape and locale, a distinct poeticism, as if secrets exist in the silence of the …

2016-04-08T15:48:59+01:00

BJP Staff