Category: Photography

Kazakhstan-based Nravil Architects value simplicity. For their ‘White Line’ house, the primary focus was to create a project with minimal harm caused to the natural environment–in this case, a rural landscape in the city of Almaty.

‘White Line’ is a concrete-framed structure that sits on stilts, in a site that required little excavation. With a white exterior of non-repetitive angular shapes, the house provides a striking visual tension with its surrounding environment. Despite this, ‘White Line’ retains a sense of familiarity to the landscape, through the presence of reflective panoramic windows that mirror the surrounding trees and skyline. This relates to the simultaneous severity and unity that can be perceived in the project, extended through the continuity of white through the interior. As Nravil Architects explain, the balcony offers a perfect setting to enjoy fresh air and a panoramic view of the horizon. Through such features, ‘White Line’ indulges its residents in an experience of complete openness and privacy with nature.

All images © Mussabekova Ulbossyn

Hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, photographer Jordie Oetken incorporates her background in painting and sculpture into her evocative photographic vocabulary.

From still lifes and landscapes to abstract compositions and crops of graceful intertwined limbs, the forms represented in Oetken’s works take on a sculptural nature. Fluid and dynamic, her works explore the tension between opposing forces, desires and directions. “The photographic frame plays an essential role in this body of work, intentionally using its containment to heighten each happening,” the photographer explains. “Female limbs cross in and out of the image; hands graze the edge, though each figure’s face always remains just out of view— affording closeness while maintaining distance.” Oetken will obtain an MFA in photography from UCLA in 2017.

Marseilles-based architects Bonte & Mogozzi designed “Villa Kget”, a wood cabin offering sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea. 

Perched upon a hilltop site formerly occupied by an old shed, the 225 square meter villa sits on stilts so as to respect its surrounding environment of lush greenery, including fig, eucalyptus and viburnum trees. A vertical structure fronted by vertical larches, Kget was built on two levels connected by a concrete staircase. The garden level comprises a bathroom and two bedrooms, whilst the ground floor hosts the living room and kitchen. A large terrace and generous bay windows offer breathtaking views out over the Mediterranean sea and its changing temperament throughout the day.

Brooklyn-based photographer Haruka Sakaguchi of The Denizen Co, whose exquisite work we’ve previously featured on iGNANT, takes us with her on her latest journey to the Salton Sea, a lake located in the so-called Californian badlands. In her own words, Sakaguchi tells us the story of her road trip, and almost makes us feel like we too were there.

“The 7’o clock haze sets in. There is no distinction between sky and ocean – just the pale purplish pink tide rippling out into the horizon. It is deafeningly quiet, aside from the gentle ebbing of water and the occasional crunch of a thousand delicate tilapia skeletons before my feet.

The Salton Sea is a vast saline lake located in the Californian badlands. Lovingly known as “the miracle in the desert,” it was once surrounded by beach resort towns and frequented by Hollywood celebrities in the 1950s. However, a combination of agricultural pollution, increasing salinity and algal blooms killed off the fish species in the late 50s and early 60s, causing thousands of carcasses to rise to the surface and wash up onto the shore. Disturbed by the fossilized fish remains and the subsequent smell, beachcombers and investors headed elsewhere, turning this area into a ghost town marked by abandoned motels and rogue trailers in various stages of decay.

“Decay is the future,” a resident of nearby Bombay Beach told me. Blistering hot temperatures, poor air quality and saline degradation are a regular part of life for the very few people who, more often than not, choose to live here. For full-time residents of the Salton Sea, decay is both a harsh reality and an ideology.”

Situated in the charming Spanish town of Borriana, the ‘Cs House‘ is a modern villa, coherent in its vision and execution.

The house is located on a long, narrow plot of land, accessed by the north-facing side. From this point, the site looks onto the Sierra Calderona mountain, which in part provided inspiration for the project. The key focus was to occupy the plot with a series of volumes, placing them in a manner that would provide all spaces with double ventilation.

“This double glazing makes possible the viewing of the whole plot from the access to its final limit, where the outdoor pool is located,” says architect Antonio Altarriba Comes. When designing the villa, Comes wanted all spaces to relate to each other, leading to the creation of a continuous and coherent structure, externally and internally. To achieve this, the volumes of the ‘Cs House’ were built around the patio that welcomes the garden into the house, evoking a sense of infinite space.

In collaboration with photographer Prue Stent, the series of artist Honey Long titled “Soft Tissue” captures the female body focused on different body parts appearing like a dreamlike landscape.

The creative duo has a long-held fascination with gender, identity and the beauty and strangeness of the female body. Their series discovers the unexpected such as a tongue protruding from an envelope of pale pink fabric, or a woman’s body swathed in damp cloth. With this pictures, the two artist want to distance themselves from the stereotypical female sexuality and create their own imaginary. The pictures draw the attention to the details of the body, its’ textures, protrusions, folds and the things often kept hidden. This focus generates intricacy, animism and mystery. Anthropomorphic objects and materials merge with and distort these bodily forms so the beholder finds it difficult to grasp. The artist’s intention is to encourage the viewers to feel the images and observe their own meanings and associations that take shape.