Sue Polschikova (Academy of Documentary and Art Photography "Fotografika")
Gold | Interpretive Eye
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In the history of European culture, there are two existent point of views on the human body, the "Soma" - the body without any clear boundaries between the external and internal and, the "Corpus" - social and culturally fixed, legally limited body. A modern person is able to overcome the boundaries of the biological body, creating his own "body mask". In my series, I tried to create a new "body mask", connecting the human body with the objects of the surrounding natural and animal world. I wanted to explore, through this connection, their complementarity and mutual influence. To ask myself a question, "Where is the borderline between harmony in interaction and the pathological influence of one on the other? What grows from what? Who determines whom?" In my photographs, the combination of the physical and the natural gives a certain third dimension - something completely new, the "Other", appears. And by taking a good look at him, we can find the answers to these questions.
Anna Miroshnichenko (DocDocDoc)
Silver | Interpretive Eye
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After the death of a person, things and memories remain from him. I've been renting in the room where Gran used to live for a year. Last summer, she passed away and I had to sort out all her things, many of which I didn't even know existed. I made portraits with objects I didn't understand, old sets, cracked plates and saucers, eggshells, rusty nails, hammers, worn coats, or just dried flowers. I fixed myself in my memory. Therefore, my visual language is rather poor and monotonous-portraits. I did them even with a kind of manic addiction, without analyzing or putting any original goal or idea into this process. I wanted to fix myself... for memory. So that no one will forget me when my room becomes empty. BA lived for things, and I transform these things into memory. I want to shout that I am, even when I disappear without a trace, like BA…
Gabe Williamson (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Bronze | Interpretive Eye
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Overgrowth resembling a crucifix.
Colton Rothwell (University of Montana)
Award of Excellence | Interpretive Eye
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South of the rapidly growing city of Boise, Idaho the earth becomes flat and dry. One of the only roads, dotted with power lines in harmony with John Gast's American Progress, leads to and from Swan Falls Hydroelectric Dam. It is in this in between space that young people from both urban and rural backgrounds seek solace and escape. This area is their shooting range, their first kiss, and where their identity with the American west first becomes their own. The two road signs I photographed on 120mm film are proof that this type of coming of age still exists.
Lauren Santucci (Ohio University)
Award of Excellence | Interpretive Eye
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Mick, Denise Andrews' pet goose, recieves an x-ray of his facial tumor before being euthanized at the Harrison County Veterinary Clinic in Cynthiana, Kentucky.