The Calvert Journal Have Announced the Finalists of The New East Photo Prize 2020

Marina Istomina (Russia) – Suffocation
Suffocation confronts the media’s erasure of human tampering that led to the disaster: the legislators, ministers, hunters, foresters, firefighters and criminal groups leaders involved in the event.

This year marks the third edition of the competition, which celebrates contemporary photography from eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia, and central Asia. The shortlist includes 11 photographers from Albania, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

More: The Calvert Journal h/t: guardian

Marina Istomina (Russia) – Suffocation

András Ladocsi (Hungary) – Swallow
Swallow is a personal project about Ladocsi’s swimming years that evokes a deep sense of warmth and community, and relives experiences the photographer did not notice the first time around.

Agnieszka Sejud (Poland) – Hoax
Hoax is a story of excess, where images of religious iconography collide with anxieties over pollution levels, and human greed is represented by plastic waste that spills out in magnificent acid colours.

Lilith Matevosyan (Georgia) – I Had Left My Home Early in the Morning
Matevosyan’s project began as an attempt to explore what it was that made her miss Georgia the most. Piecing together her childhood memories, family archives, and recent portraits.

Tomasz Liboska (Poland) – Turn Around
Liboska lives in Chorzów in Upper-Silesia, and for the last 10 years has been documenting this once-prosperous industrial region of Poland as it searches for a new identity.

Hassan Kurbanbaev (Uzbekistan) – Logomania: Owning the World at Half Price
Owning the World at Half Price examines Uzbekistan’s obsession with western luxury brands through staged photos featuring counterfeit Chanel and Gucci products — and asks whether this is part of a larger crisis of self-identification.

Justyna Górniak (Poland) – Haytarma
Haytarma tells the story of the tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars — a Muslim ethnic minority indigenous to the Crimean peninsula — who had to leave their homes after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

János R Szabó (Hungary) – Stories along the Öreg-Túr River
In this project, the river is as much of a storyteller as Szabó: collecting and connecting memories that reveal something of the livelihoods, professions, enjoyments, and hardships of the people who live along it.

Igor Elukov (Russia) – The Book of Miracles
The wintry landscapes in The Book of Miracles are recognisable of Elukov’s earlier work, only this time around, the artist delves into the supernatural — to explore the fragility of life.

Ilir Tsouko (Albania) – Starting Over: From the Donbass to Chernobyl
Tsouko covers social and political issues, with an emphasis on migration stories, collaborating with international NGOs and foundations such as MSF, Mission Lifeline, and Border Violence Monitoring. Starting Over centres on the millions of people displaced by the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine who have been forced to resettle in villages around the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Alexey Vasilyev (Russia) – Sakhawood
Twins Semyon and Stepan starred in the fairy tale The Old Beyberikeen in the roles of mythical creatures living in the swamps – dulgancha. It is their first experience of participation in cinema.