This series of images accompanied by text is part of a larger installation called “Je suis la frontière” (I am the border) which encompasses a growing archive of audio and visual documents that explore the complexity of living in the US – Mexico borderland. The whole archive constitutes a personal cartography of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, two cities that are at the same contiguous but divided by four international bridges. In her work, Vera seeks to challenge the limited and biased information that the media gives us about certain places in the world. She believes in approaching those places by listening to individuals, following their steps, and walking on the streets. She thus hopes to create a personal cartography of a place and to give presence to the voices and life stories behind the sometimes overwhelming statistics.

Selected by Marta Daho on July 27, 2010

The body images in this series related to a desire to reach intimacy and to the anxiety of unfulfilled intimacy. I employed a digital scanner as the camera in this series. I constructed life-size full body images of myself by scanning/photographing my body, section by section. Eighteen to twenty-four segmented images are used for each full body image. Scanner technology is normally used to reproduce. I used it to attempt to reveal my intimate self. Ironically, I saw the glass of the scanner as a symbolic barrier; no matter how accurately I express myself, there is always a barrier between others and me. Historically, patriarchal views dominate the representation of woman. Having lived in both the United States and China, I have been exposed to many rigid stereotypes about Chinese women in the popular imagination and everyday language. I cannot see myself as represented accurately in these ideas, but they are constantly projected on me by others. It is therefore important for me to be able to control my own image as a Chinese woman and to confirm my existence by making it public.

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 14, 2010

Catherine Leutenegger: “The last decade was marked by an explosion of digital camera sales and a sharp drop in the sales of film, prints and film processing to professionals as well as the general public. This decrease in the traditional photography business led to the closing or restructuring of many photo-processing labs. The most striking example of that is the giant Kodak: the biggest manufacturer of film worldwide. In an effort to reduce costs, Kodak accompanied its shift toward digital products with an important series of layoffs and facilities closures worldwide. In the way to understand better the consequences of such a singular mutation, I decided to visit and document the headquarters of the Eastman Kodak Company located in Rochester, USA.”

Selected by Nathalie Herschdorfer on June 6, 2010

“There’s something wonderful about seeing an object that you never even consider – an everyday, plastic bag – turned into something beautiful and poetic, but that’s what Ira has done, with his “Plastic Bags” series. That’s one of the great objectives of art, for me – to make you reconsider the ordinary in the light of the extraordinary.”

Selected by Recommending Viewer on May 24, 2010

Yagi’s documentation of the Eskimo and Aleut is beautiful to look at. He works in a manner that has completely disappeared in my part of the world, photographing on 8 by 10 inch sheet film – the size of a magazine page – and printing them on hand coated paper. This method is a perfect mirror for the subject matter of this work, the disappearing cultures of the Northern native people. It results in a body of work that is both beautiful and sad to look at, as it underlines the fact that the developments described in Yagi’s project statement are irreversible and picking up speed. Viewing these photographs feels like looking at the past, while, in fact, we are looking at a disappearing present.

Selected by Recommending Viewer on May 22, 2010

The seeds of the Mum project were planted when I injured both my hands, and was forced into a different sort of homecoming, retreating to my childhood home in North Texas to recuperate. While trying to fill my time with something other than learning to open doors with my feet, strains of the high school marching band lured me to my alma mater’s Homecoming Game. Confronted by stands packed with cheering Mum devotees, I immediately realized an opportunity to not only reconnect with the optimism and energy of my own teenage mythology, but to deconstruct and document the Mum praxis.

Selected by Recommending Viewer on May 19, 2010

Kim Kauffman’s Florilegium series challenges our understanding of how a photograph is made, and indeed, the very definition of what constitutes a photograph. This work is made without a camera. It hearkens back to the cameraless sun prints of William Henry Fox-Talbot and Anna Atkins, to the photograms of Man Ray and the abstract color studies of Henry Holmes Smith. And, yet it is also a pure product of the digital age. Each plant piece is scanned. Kauffman catalogues and stores thousands of individual scans in her electronic image library. It is after this step that the magic begins.

Selected by Recommending Viewer on May 14, 2010

Bliss Street, is inhabited by 6 women and one man; first comes Alba, my grandmother, who in her 104th year is the healthiest and sharpest person at the house, then there is Olga, her daughter and official owner who is 71 and lives through the eyes of her mother, through her memories of her life in Colorado and the stories that her walls tell. She spends her time organizing a room that does not want to be organized. Teo (54), her brother is the youngest son of Alba, he has been struggling with diabetes for decades; he spends a lot of time in solitude.

Selected by Diederik Meijer on April 30, 2010

Touching Strangers is an ongoing photographic project stemming from my interest in the dynamics of group portraiture. The premise of this work is simple: I meet two or more people on the street who are strangers to each other, and to me. I ask them if they will pose for a photograph together with the stipulation that they must touch each other in some manner. Frequently, I instruct or coach the subjects how to touch. Just as often, I let their tentative physical exploration play out before my camera with no interference.

Selected by Diederik Meijer on April 29, 2010

I began shooting ‘Days with my father’ about a year after my mother died. The purpose became clearer, as time progressed. It was to make a still film. An abstract assortment of linked recollections. My father’s stories, and how he told them. His eyes, when he was going to say something funny. His white hair, in the afternoon sun. I wanted to remember the personality that shone through the haze of his fading memory. And I wanted to revel in his humor, that had remained hidden for years in the strong shadow of parenthood. I wanted to record all of this, before he died. To document the love between us, and by reflection, the love we both had for my mother.

Selected by Hannamari Shakya on April 21, 2010