Eighteen by Natan Dvir

Although I grew up and spent most of my photographic career in Israel, I came to realize I did not truly know or understand its Arab society — over a fifth of the population consisting of hundreds of thousands of families who stayed within Israel's borders after it was established in 1948.

This large minority, which is currently experiencing a challenging identity crisis, has been somewhat forgotten amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a highly political environment, I became interested in the stories of these people living as a minority in a country defined by its majority's religion. I wish to confront and dispute the widespread misconceptions and stereotypes of the people within my own country who I was brought up to consider more as foes rather than as allies...

PHOTOGRAPH AND TEXT BY NATAN DVIR ON LENS CULTURE

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In praise of fog

© Fabio Scapaticci

Emerging Photographer Grant 2010

The 2010 Emerging Photographer Fund grant was awarded to DAVIDE MONTELEONE for his essay on the the Northern Caucasus.

"This project takes into account the regions in which these disputes are not over yet, or may be apparently concluded, as intermittent fires under the political rhetoric of normalization and pacification. I intend to investigate with without prejudices such reality, beginning with the daily life of people living in the Northern Caucasus, who never reached their coveted independence and are still suffering the ramifications of the Russian Empire during the colonial age. They are divided between the claim for independence and the pride for their diversity, economic subordination, the historical-political and mental affiliation, the condemnation to an eternal geographic position in a limbo limes, and the elaboration of a new post-soviet identity. My goal is to go further away from the bird’s eye view of the geopolitical analysis, gliding down to a low altitude to find the details of such a complex world, with the aim to give a new key to the present day Russian Caucasus"...

Emerging Photographer Grant 2010 Recipient