FIFTH WINNER OF RPS WALL GRANT – Grozny: Nine Cities

After much consideration, we are pleased to announce that a proposal submitted by Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko has been selected as a grantee of Reminders Photography Stronghold Wall Grant (2013 December deadline proposals reviewed by Marie Lelievre, Svetlana Bachevanova, Marc Prust and Eliseo Barbàra). We are now scheduling the exhibition in August. We will keep you updated with more details soon.

5TH RPS WALL GRANTEE ©OLGA KRAVETS

5TH RPS WALL GRANTEE ©MARINA MORINA

5TH RPS WALL GRANTEE ©OKSANA YUSHKO

Olga Kravets, Maria Morina and Oksana Yushko began working on their Grozny: Nine Cities Project in the fall of 2009, shortly after they founded Verso Images, a collective of emerging photographers interested in social change in the former USSR. The photographers decided to join efforts to produce a joint project on Chechnya, delivering three different views to an audience on the complex subject of the aftermath of the two Chechen wars. With each unique individual knowledge and style, they would be able to create large-scale, multi-platform project. The photographers shoot both 35 mm digital and 6×6 film formats while also recording audio and video.

Kravets worked in radio and print before moving on to photography and defines herself as a lens-based artist and journalist at large, producing installations and films as well as working on editorial assignments. Kravets is a winner of the PDN Photo Annual 2012 Student Award with her Uhvatio Maglu project, Chevening Scholarship for her MA at the University of the Arts London, and was also a nominee of the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in 2011 and 2012.

Morina is currently working on several art photo and video projects in the Ukraine, as well as developing innovative solutions for photography. Morina had her 5.5 minutes documentary film on Nizhny Tagil youth selected for TheRencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid 2011/12 and won Honorable Mention in the 2012 International Photography Awards annual competition.

Yushko stays dedicated to classic photojournalism, constantly producing photo-essays and magazine photo-reportages, which make their way into galleries and festivals. Yushko was a 2010 finalist of Conscientious Portfolio Competition with her personal project Kenozero dreams, which was also part of 2012 3d Copenhagen Photo Festival and 9th International Photo Festival BackLight2011, among others.

Awards

– Shortlisted for Anthropographia Human Rights Through Visual Storytelling Awards, 2012
– Winner in the Multimedia Category of the Alexander Efremov Report Photography Competition, Tyumen,
Russia, 2012
– Shortlisted for the Voies Off Prize, 2012
– Winner of the PDN Photo-Annual Contest / multimedia category, 2012
– Nominee for Moving Image Award / Peopleʼs Choice, 2011
– Finalists of The Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation for International Photography Grant, 2011
– Grand Prize Winner in the Multimedia Category of the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards, 2011
– Finalists of The Aftermath Project Grant, 2010

Screenings and festivals
– Athens Photo Festival, Greece, 2012
– Les Recontres dʼArles, 2012
– Ojo de Pez Photomeeting Barcelona, 2012
– Tbilisi Photo Festival, 2012
– First Biennale of Photography of Lima, 2012
– Palm Springs Photo Festival, USA, 2011
– International Bursa Photo Festival, Bursa, Turkey, 2011″