Join us for a drink & a documentary photo informal screening in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in our friend's garden from Two Dogs Two Cats Studio - Tsanko Dyustabanov 17, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
We are Ioana Călinescu & Petruț Călinescu (https://www.petrut-calinescu.com/), the co-founders of The Center for Documentary Photography (Romania) -https://cdfd.ro/ - in Bucharest and we decided to present our work in the past 10 years in order to extend our professional network in the Eastern neighboring countries.
We are a small Romanian NGO working with documentary photography (which may stretch from photojournalism to art) in an interdisciplinary team (photographers, writers, designers, coders, researchers, musicians).
The results of our works are usually photo exhibitions, books, or other experimental publications, such as zines or postcard set. This year our latest project – Pride and Concrete. 10 Years Later (https://cdfd.ro/povesti/mandrie-si-beton-dupa-10-ani/) - was nominated for the European Press Prize / The Migration Journalism Award 2024 and we’ve also published the book of the project.
After the pandemic experience, we are slowly shifting our classic photo exhibitions into multimedia projections/websites which are more flexible, easier to travel with and reach new audiences. We usually wrapp up our projects in a multimedia projection with an original soundtrack by Electric Brother (a famous musician in Romania).
The Black Sea (2010-present) |https://cdfd.ro/povesti/marea-neagra/
We are planning to publish a new independent photo book in 2025 and we are ready now to present a work in progrese stage of an 15-year long-term visual project - The Black Sea
The Black Sea project started in 2010, when Romanian photographer Petrut Calinescu, born at the shores of the sea in the port of Constanta, Romania, started a 4-month trip around the `surrounding countries: Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania. Since then, year by year the image collection has been growing with updated new work, focused on how the people related with the sea. Since 2016, the focus has changed on the growing tensions triggered by Crimea annexation. The project will continue in 2024 too, in Romania, Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, showing how the Black Sea is impacted by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The project has been the subject of an interview in New York Times Lens and has been published partially in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and also exhibited in Czech Republic, Brazil and Turkey.
Ioana Călinescu is an independent journalist by conviction and, more recently, a co-founder of extensive independent cultural projects with social impact such as the Museum of Abandonment (MA) and the Romanian Center for Documentary Photography
(CdFD). She has been experimenting with a blend of social and cultural project communication for several years. Over the past six years, she has been responsible for PR and communication at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
Petruț Călinescu is an independent photographer and the co-founder of the Romanian Center for Documentary Photography (cdfd.ro). He is represented by Panos Pictures. He studied journalism and spent a long time working as a photojournalist, then dedicated himself to long-term documentary photography projects. To him, photography opens doors to worlds that spark his curiosity. Some of his most well-known projects are The Black Sea and Pride and Concrete. More information at:www.petrut-calinescu.com
This project is cofinanced by the Romanian Cultural Institute through the Cantemir Programme - a funding framework for cultural projects intended for the international environment, and by Romanian Administration of Cultural Funds (afcn.ro). The Romanian Cultural Institute and AFCN cannot be held responsible for the content of this material. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the financing.
