AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«In the last 70 years, Mongolia’s temperatures have climbed three times faster than the world’s average. Every year, summers and winters are becoming harsher. In 2017, the country saw the hottest summer in half a century, during which two thirds of the country were plagued by drought, while desertification has already turned a quarter of its land to desert. Without sufficient grass to eat, animals lack the fodder to survive the world’s coldest winter, when temperatures plunge below minus 40 degrees centigrade. Nomadic herders whose subsistence depends on their animals, are now forced to migrate to Ulaanbaatar’s overcrowded Ger districts, the areas of the capital where they are allowed to put up their yurts for the meanwhile until they are ready to go back home. Thousands of nomadic families arrive to the “New City” created for them. Finding a job while living in such a place with no sanitation, running water or central heating, has become an everyday struggle. During the winter, the cheapest way to keep warm is burning coal, however this constitutes 80% of Ulaanbaatar’s winter emissions, generating some of the worst air pollution on earth and most of them are looking to go back home.»

‘The fisherman, Paris 2021’

by Benedetta Ristori (Italy)

— taken in Paris, France

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«Les Choux de Créteil are part of the post-war brutalist architecture around the french capital. From 1968 onwards, a new urban center was developed in Créteil, France, with seven districts entrusted to different architects. The architect Gérard Grandval proposed an organic and brutalist project for the neighborhood near the courthouse: a group of round buildings lined with petal-shaped balconies that would be nicknamed the” City of the Cauliflowers” some years later. The “dahlia”, originally composed of social housing, was restructured and part of the apartments were then allocated to students. In the 2010s, the Manoïlesco architectural firm renovated the building to create 172 student rooms and 18 family apartments.»

‘Great Expectations‘

by Laura Roth (Austria)

— taken in Lanzarote, Spain

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«Taking the theme of islands as its starting point, the photo series “Great Expectations” traces a broad arc from paradisiacal expectations of island living to tourism in times of the climate crisis. How could island life – which we always associate with a relaxing place of longing – take place in the future? Through a careful look at absurdities, peculiarities and landscapes, a new approach to the island living in its rawness should be created. Islands are often small places, but with a big impact. In times of rapidly rising sea levels and increasing storms, islands are vulnerable. As new islands emerge, old one’s face drowning. A life of uncertainty on sinking paradises and the question about how Island live could take part in the future.»

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‘Kyiv: urban change‘

by Gianluca Cecere (Italy)

— taken in Kyiv, Ukraine

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«March 2022, Kyiv, Ukraine. Trenches, mines, cheval-de-frise and more rudimentary systems: obstacles and resources used to barricade themselves have changed the face of the urban spaces of the Ukrainian capital. Independence Square, the most important square in the city, but also minor streets, have become an obstacle course for pedestrians but above all for four-wheeled vehicles. The aim is obviously to obstacle the advance of the Russian enemy, but when you know this city as it was before, one cannot fail to be struck by this profound militarization that has changed the face of the city..»

‘Dovecote‘

by Dasha Sapranetskaya (Belarus)

— taken in Minsk, Belarus

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«At the end of the winter of 2020 in Belarus, when independent journalists were constantly detained and government increased the terror and mass repression still further, I was overcome by permanent anxiety. Every day I read the news, how riot policemen broke down the doors of someone, how someone was sentenced to years in prison. I came up with a therapy for myself in the form of walks in the urban areas of Minsk. I borrowed a medium format film camera and wandered around looking for old dovecotes. I loved those weird makeshift pigeon houses that fit so well into the urban landscape. Protest graffiti were often painted on them. I wanted to collect as many pictures as possible, because only older people are engaged in breeding pigeons. There are fewer of them every year, as well as dovecotes. I have tried to preserve these strange buildings as an archive of the time that is passing.»

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‘The Spread of Over Development‘

by Therese Debono (Malta)

— taken in Qawra, Malta

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«Blank is a research project that highlights the nondescript buildings that are currently taking over the island of Malta. In a quest to build fast and sell faster, few architects and contractors are genuinely interested in preserving buildings, keeping with the narrative and context of a place. Plenty of buildings are crowding the peripheries of towns and villages to the point that there is barely any space between one location and another. Blank is a visual study that seeks to offer the public a voice in an effort to protest against these boring structures that make people feel empty. It is a protest against the massive edifices that are suffocating the village and town cores, taking over heritage at such a rapid pace that in a few years’ time, Malta’s characteristic architecture will become obsolete. The photo depicts a shot of the many third-party blank walls which are dominating the skylines and littering the streets on the island of Malta. The white blank walls represent the narrow-minded people that cannot see the repercussions that this unregulated development is having on the country. The project is still in works in progress state.»

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‘Halfeti’s Delights‘

by Ralph Gräf (Germany)

— taken in Jeserig, Germany

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«This photo belongs to my conceptual book project «Brandenburg Unplugged». It was taken at dusk in a small village in rural Brandenburg called Jeserig. The girl in front was hiding from her parents, who were still waiting inside the booth to get their kebab.

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‘The urban playground‘

by Mithail Afrige Chowdhury

— taken in Dhaka, Bangladesh

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«Young people playing cricket on a rooftop at Dhaka, Bangladesh. The total area of Dhaka city is 306.4 square kilometers with approximately 18 million residents. And 48 per cent of this population is children below 18. Unfortunately, for this huge number of children there are only 148 playgrounds and 27 parks. There are no parks for the children to play within several blocks radius from where I live. Moreover, most of the playgrounds don’t even have touch of nature, let alone having proper arrangements for playing.»

‘Alternative landscape‘

by Ghazaleh Yazdanparast Tehrani

— taken in Karaj, Iran

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

Ghazaleh Yazdanparast Tehrani draws inspiration from capturing the true face of cities and urban landscapes. She was born in Mashhad and lived in Tehran to pursue her passion of discovering cities through her camera. She studied graphic design and graduated with a master’s degree in visual communication from the Fine Art University of Tehran. Later, Ghazaleh and her husband and established the Nimkat Studio, which was established for architectural photography. Now she devotes herself entirely to visual Art of photography.

‘WHSD‘

by Toma Gerzha (The Netherlands)

— taken in Saint Petersburg, Russia

AUTHOR’S COMMENT ↓

«The Western High-Speed Diameter (Saint Petersburg) is the most popular road in Russia with more than 380,000 payments per day. During the construction of the WHSD, the old districts of Saint Petersburg were built up. These neighbourhoods were subsequently resettled, but the buildings have still not been demolished eight years later. This is how, for example, a ghetto was formed on Kanonersky Island.»

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