PROJECT: MAJULI

The day has arrived!! We finally have the very first project that will receive the Carmencita Grant in partnership with Kodak Professional Europe! As you may know from our previous post, the grant supports the selected artist with up to 50 rolls of any stock of their choice from Kodak and the developing & scanning costs of those, at any resolution desired.

We have to admit, it’s been a really really hard decision to make, the selection process was meticulous and that’s why it took us so long to consider all the entries received. First of all, we need to thank each and every participant cause the quality of the overall submissions was mindblowing! More +30 entries from more than 11 different countries that made us there is room for more grants to come!

All the possible factors were taken into consideration, the topic, the quality of the work, the involvement, the impact, the trajectory of the project, and the courage that it takes to complete. A jaw-dropping level of the images was also taken into consideration as we believe this is a major key factor along the body of work consistency and storytelling to make the project really succeed!

With all that in mind, and using some good old democracy, it’s was great to see that both the grant jury from @carmencitalab and the grant jury from @kodakprofessional_europe agreed in most of the core values that made András Zoltai the well-deserved winner of the Carmencita Grant of Spring 2020! Our most sincere congratulations.

PREVIOUS WORKS: ARMENIAN BOXERS

 

András Zoltai (1990) is a freelance documentary photographer living in Budapest, Hungary. It’s present in his photographs the concern as a photographer to be able to blend into the scene and tell the hidden stories for the vast majority of society with overflowing humanity while portraying social topics in a very respectful way, squeezing the maximum narrative power of his camera.

András’ work for this scholarship is based on Majuli, the largest inhabited river island in the world, where we see how its inhabitants enter conflict with the monsoon and its erosion of the island every year. This immediately grabbed our attention, although there has been a ton of photographic work done in India already, this was proposing another approach away from the colorful festivals and focusing on the raw living conditions of those away from the spotlight.

One of the most important things that we take a look into is previous work, this provides a lot of inside on the artist, and when we saw the project made in Armenia we were just blown away. András blends into the walls of a boxing school in Armenia where he explores the relevance of sport in the society of this country. The way the images are executed is outstanding and we have to say, all selection is done judging only the images, and narrative provided for the project, no age, no CV, no followers are taken into consideration. When seeing the images, honestly, we were wondering if they were really taken back in the 70s for Magnum or Life magazine, we were truly mesmerized by them. It was hard to believe that the images were only taken a few years ago (on Portra film of course) but the approach, the treatment of the color was extremely interesting.

We can only express our most sincere gratitude to all those people who have participated, in Kodak Professional Europe for joining in this wild idea and all those who supported this adventure spreading the word and cheering for us. Muchas gracias! Only 1 Grant was available for now but we will open for new submissions in autumn and we can’t wait to see what projects come up!!