At a loss for inspiration on her last trip home to South Africa, London-based Thijs turned her camera upon her family, and so emerged her project Safe House. ‘In order to examine the foundations of my family, I wanted to photograph my father, who has recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.’ The resulting images are a moving visual meditation on the changing dynamics of their relationship. Dream collaborator: Antoine d’Agata.
Through the lens of the cutting-edge graduate camera wielders, portrait makers and digital mavericks, as captured by our Photography desk.
‘It’s hard to truly understand where you’re from until you’ve left,’ India-raised and Canada-based Babbar says. After five years away from home, Babbar embarked upon an epic photographic odyssey to unravel the nuances of his identity through the people and places that had shaped his understanding of it. Each of his images is a tableau: the ‘postures, interiors and clothing all offering clues’ to the relationship between sitters. Dream collaborator: Greta Gerwig.
Taking its name from a necklace made by his grandmother, Shlyk’s vibrant series The Appleseed Necklace nods to the creativity and resourcefulness of the people in his home country, Belarus, during the post-Soviet era. Dream collaborator: ‘A creative person sensitive to the environment.’
Planas won gold at Sweden’s Golden Girl boxing championship in 2018 and, over time, the transformative process of her training made its way into her art, which captures both the vulnerability of self-care rituals and ‘the strength and brutality of the fight’. Dream collaborator: Rrose Sélavy.
Slovakia-born and UK-based, Červeňová was particularly shocked by the EU referendum result. Her project June is a photographic diary featuring evocative images representing the ‘ruptures and wounds’ she felt in the lives of those around her. Dream collaborator: ‘My friend Juillet, a poet.’
