In search of beauty @joonasparviainen - Tumblr Blog

Nida, Lithuania. 2016

#nida #film photography #b/w #the living boom #catch the moment #easa #european architecture students assembly #calm #still #baltic sea

Nida, Lithuania. 2016

#film photography #b/w #baltic sea #film grain #sand #friendship #other

Nida, Lithuania. 2016

#nida #other #film photography #b/w #film grain #baltic sea #easa #european architecture students assembly

On top of the photos we took, the final result of the workshop 'The Essence of Terra Incognita' in SESAM 2016 Terra Incognita was this movable Camera Obscura pavilion. In the workshop we documented essential atmospheres of Minsk by spontaneous photography to show an outsiders viewpoint to the city, and also built this pavilion, where the image of the outside is projected inside through a small hole. This way one can be in a familiar place and detached from it at the same time, making you look at the landscape in a new light. Thanks to Alexandra Kononchenko and Pavel Yurkevich for the photos!

Minsk, Belarus. 2016

1. Łukasz Woleński (PL)

2. Alexandra Strashinskaya (BY)

3. Nilüfer Karanfil (TR)

4. Veronika Karchmit (BY)

5. Aliaksandra Korotkevich (BY)

6. Grigor Nalchajyan (ARM)

7. Pavel Yurkevich (BY)

8. Vladimir Andjelich (BY)

I just came back to Finland from the most intense week in SESAM 2016 Terra Incognita (Small European Students of Architecture Meeting) in Minsk, Belarus where I tutored my own workshop called ‘The Essence of Terra Incognita’. The theme of the SESAM was ‘Terra Incognita’ implying exploration and discoveries, fresh impressions and cultural exchange on the city and the country that are still mostly unknown to people outside of Belarus. The aim of my workshop was to capture the essence of Terra Incognita, or in this case, Minsk.

Many of us visited Minsk – and Belarus – for the first time and thus had fresh eyes and curious minds for the city. During the first week of May my participants Vladimir Andjelich (BY), Nilüfer Karanfil (TR), Veronika Karchmit (BY), Aliaksandra Korotkevich (BY), Pavel Yurkevich (BY), Grigor Nalchajyan (ARM), Alexandra Strashinskaya (BY), Łukasz Woleński (PL), and me, explored Minsk and documented what we saw with photos and audio recordings. Through spontaneous photography we could show what we saw in Terra Incognita, what we thought was vital to this city and what caught our eye.

Documenting and analysing Minsk through spontaneous photography helped to capture various atmospheres essential to Terra Incognita and was also a great way to explore the city. Spontaneity was achieved by using disposable cameras and polaroid cameras, both of which support spontaneous photography but in different ways. With these kind of cameras one starts photographing intuitively and spontaneously, not thinking too much about the method but of the overall atmospheres. In addition to taking photographs we recorded soundscapes of the city and built a Camera Obscura pavilion to isolate a living landscape from it’s usual surroundings, to make the local people look at a familiar landscape in a new light.

Here’s a selection of the best photos taken by my incredible participants during the workshop, you can find a wider selection on my Facebook page. This is a documentation of both an outsiders viewpoint and first impressions on Minsk and also new discoveries of their hometown by my local participants.