ART ORM
F
JANUARY 2019
THE # 1 ISSUE
“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.” – Joan Miro
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CON TENTS 05
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MARIO MARINO
INDIA
The man behind the camera
A land of unity in diversity
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SAMBURULAND
GYPSYS
Kenyas traditionally „dancing tribe“
The people without a country
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PASSION
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EXPRESSIVE portraits
TALENT MARIO MARINO
Mario Marino is a independent award winning photographer, he is born in Austria and based in Germany.
He has been photographing social documentarys and various peoples in their native lands since 2000.
His work focuses on human beings and is exhibited in museums and galleries around the whole world.
ario Marino is one of the most passionate and talented portrait photographers of our time. He finds his motifs on his frequent travels, which between 2013 and 2016 took him from Europe to Africa, Latin America, and again and again to India. The focus of his work is photographs of people. With great empathy and interest in the person opposite, he succeeds in creating expressive portraits and achieves an intuitive poignancy in his motifs with simple means and natural light. His portraits are captivatingly simple and artistically ambiguous at the same time. The motifs obtain tremendous power specifically as a result of their reduction.
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PHOTOGRAPHY IS MOSTLY A MEANS BY AND ITS PROTAGONISTS. HOW IS LIFE IN what are the day-to-day concerns WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND EACH INDIV
To give visual expresson to the essence of a person is the highest form of artistic photography.
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Y WHICH I TRY TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD N SLUMS OF OUR WORLD? s of people living in them? VIDUAL? TO EMPATHISE WITH AND CAPTURE THE
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I met this father with his two children by accident in Pushkar, Rajasthan. My driver and I had traveled about seven hours in the city and we were very tired.
Immediately I started to look for a background, a house wall or anything like that. I placed him in the shadow.
The sunlight from the opposite side was the brightener.
We were having a drink when this beautiful man asked me for some rupees. He is a beggar. There was this incredible charisma.
That’s all. I took four or five pictures, gave him some rupees and they went away.
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full of HAPPINESS
We simply have to smile when we look at this image of an irrepressibly cute, brightly attired, bright-eyed smiling little boy being held out a train window by an Indian woman in traditional dress. Both are smiling but the woman is looking away from the camera, and that’s what really focuses the attention on the main subject, making the image much more powerful.
Do you concur, and what were you thinking when you pressed the sh the woman to look away or was this a totally spontaneous moment? 13
Everything went very quickly, I took three more pictures and that’s it.
this little boy appeared. He is so full of happiness, power and hope – it’s incredible.
At first there was just the grandmother. I took three or four pictures of her. Suddenly
I do love this picture very much because you can see the different generations and I guess, you can imagine the future of this little boy and probably of Rajasthan. There is a lot of power and confidence.
hutter release. By the way, did you tell 14
INDIA - The land of colour and contradictions
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r, chaos
movement or intermarriage between classes. Worse, Castes it created werean underclass and excluded and ostracised whole groups of peoples as Harijan or “children deterof God”mined – more bycommonly known as Dalits or achuta: Untouchables”. birth and could not be altered. While this system may have ensured stability
didn’t allow
BEAUTY, PRIDE & HUMILITY DURING THE LAST 20 YEARS, I HAVE VISITED MANY COUNTRIES OF THIS EARTH, BUT IN NONE OF THEM HAVE I FOUND SO MUCH BEAUTY, PRIDE AND HUMILITY.
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IT IS THE HOSPITALITY AND THE OPENNESS OF THE PEOPLE IN NORTHERN KENYA THAT I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER FROM THIS TIME.
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. They are a sub tribe of the Maasai. The Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists who herd mainly cattle but also keep sheep, goats and camels. The name they use for themselves is Lokop or Loikop, a term which may have a variety of meanings which Samburu themselves do not agree on. Many assert that it refers to them as „owners of the land“ though others present a very different interpretation of the term. The Samburu speak the Samburu dialect of the Maasai language, which is a Nilo- Saharan language.
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SAMburu WEDDING
When a Samburu man meets a girl he fancies, he initiates a cultural process that can sometimes last months of negotiations, haggling over bride price and several visits before the girl’s family agrees to ‘hand-over’ their daughter to the man.
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During this initial visit, the man’s family usually comes with tobacco, sugar and tea leaves as gifts to the girl’s family.
But the bride-to-be may not even know the man is interested in her until his family shows up at their homestead with part of the dowry. She has limited choice over who marries her. The whole process is done oblivious of the girl’s decision. No dating. No courting.
After an agreement is reached, the groom’s party goes out of the homestead and comes back singing with a goat in tow to be slaughtered as a sign of consensus. The bride is introduced to the guests. She is adorned with the ceremonial gown of goat skin and a necklace chain which indicates her new marital status.
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When a Samburu man meets a girl he fancies, he initiates a cultural process that can sometimes last months of negotiations, haggling over bride price and several visits before the girl’s family agrees to ‘hand-over’ their daughter to the young man. But the bride-to-be may not even know the man is interested in her until his family shows up at their homestead with part of the dowry. She has limited choice over who marries her.
“If the man loses interest in the girl after the talks have started, he can pass the marriage opportunity to his brother as long as they are of the same age-set,” explains Christopher Lemaletiian, the 2012 cultural ambassador of the Maralal International Camel Derby Festival.
But its not always smooth sailing for the groom and his family. The girl may be on high demand and can get as many as five proposals from different families. They all present gifts and put forward their case why their ‘boy’ is most deserving to get the girl. Even at this stage, the girl has very little knowledge about her suitor/s. It is the girl’s family, especially the mother that decides the guy who will become the ‘most eligible bachelor’. After an agreement is reached, the groom’s party goes out of the homestead and comes back singing with a goat in tow to be slaughtered as a sign of consensus. The bride is introduced to the guests. She is adorned with the gown of goat skin and a necklace chain which indicates her new marital status.
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Mario Marino is one of the most passionate and talented portrait photographers of oWur time. He finds his motifs on his frequent travels, which between 2013 and 2016 took him from Europe to Africa, Latin America, and again and again to India. The focus of his work is photographs of people. With great empathy and interest in the person opposite, he succeeds in creating expressive portraits and achieves an intuitive poignancy in his motifs with simple means and natural light. His portraits are captivatingly simple and artistically ambiguous at the same time.f his work is photographs of people. With great empathy and interest in the person opposite, he succeeds in creating expressive portraits and achieves an intuitive poignancy in his motifs with simple means and natural light. His portraits are captivatingly simple and artistically ambif his work is photographs of people. With great empathy and interest in the person opposite, he succeeds in creating expressive portraits and achieves an intuitive poignancy in his motifs with simple means and natural light. His portraits are captivatingly simple and artistically ambiguous at guous at expressive portraits and achieves an intuitive poignancy
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AVOIDING CIVILIZATION
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. They are a sub tribe of the Maasai. le heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence. I enjoy with my whole heart. I am
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. They are a sub tribe of the Maasai. le heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence. I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence. I
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. They are a sub tribe of the Maasai. le heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of
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“There's something about kindred spirits, you meet them and for a moment this world no matter ugly, makes sense. They bring a sense of freedom and clarity to one conversation; just enough to remind you of who you are.
gypsies "Sinti" may be derived from "Sindhi", the name of the people of the Sindh region in South Asia as the original Roma migrated from India according to a recent Estonian and Indian study, a notion popular among the Sinti themselves. However, the majority of scholars and anthropologists claim that there is no known basis for the comparison, meaning that they did migrate from India, but not necessarily from Sindh.
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Some of these Indian immigran workers wer The Sinti and Roma are believed to have left India about 1000 A.D. and have passed through what is now Afghanistan, Persia, Armenia, and Turkey. People recognizable by other Roma as Roma still live as far east as Iran, including some who made the migration to Europe and returned. By the 14th century, Roma had reached the Balkans and by the 16th century, Scotland and Sweden. Some Roma migrated south through Syria to North Africa.
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The Romani (colloquially known as Gypsies or Roma), are an Indo-Aryan, traditionally itinerant ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas and originating from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab regions of modern-day India.
re farmers, herdsmen, traders, mercenaries or book-keepers. Others were entertainers and musicians.
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Whether on a street, in a market place, at a temple, park, or even an empty desert, the artist uses simple means and natural lighting to capture motifs of imnmeasurable poignancy.
THE The truth is that capturing a person's true likeness is, in reality, a high art form.
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Without a doubt, Mario Marino is one of the most talented portrait photographer of our times. His unique portfoglio of work has been growing over fourteen years of travels throught Europe, Africa, Cuba, Mexico, Nepal and, especially, India. It is the portrait that stands at the centre of his photographic exploration. Despite the fact that months of reserarch precede every journey he undertakes, coincidence or synchronicity of events often determine his choice of whom to place before his lens.
"BECAUSE WHOM I WILL MEET AND HOW CAN HARDLY HAVE ANY INKLING ABOUT
MAGIC OF THE MOMENT The capacity to perceive another person and, in the flash of the moment, capture them in a convincing portrait, may appear simple, made easy by using the technical apparatus that is the camera. The truth is that capturing a person's true likeness is, in reality, a high art form.
Virtually no other subject has been pursued with such uninterrupted passion, intensity and directness since the beginnings of photography, as the portrait. When photography was first invented, people where so amazed by its natural accuracy and detail that it was hailed as a mirror of nature. Even though the all-permeating presence of photography in modern days has robbed it of much of its magic and ability to awe, there are still some images that succeed in fascinating and captivationg us completely. It is precisely in this digital age of endless arbitrariness that the essential value of
THEY MIGHT REACT IS SOMETHING I BEFOREHAND", Marino explains.
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The simple
joy of being and living in the world.
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CREDITS Free University of Bolzano - Bozen Faculty of Design and Art Bachelor in Design and Art - Major in Design WUP 18/19 | 1st semester foundation course Project Modul: Editorial Design Design by: Stefanie Andergassen Magazine | Borrowed Souls Project leader Prof. Antonino Benincasa Project assistants Maximilian Boiger, Gian Marco Favretto
Photography: Mario Marino Portrait of a Beggar from Allahabad Rana, daughter of a horse trader I Page 3 Portrait of Mario Marino I Page 5 Sadhu from Pushkar I Page 7 Portrait of a Beggar with his Children I Page 10 Mother and Child I Page 11-12 Boy with his grandmother in a train... I Page 13 Slum I Page 15-16 Moran Dancer I Page 17-18 Samburu Woman I Page 19 Samburu Bride and Man I Page 20 Karo Boy I Page 21 Mursi Girl I Page 23-24 Children I Page 25 Bride at a Samburu Wedding I Page 26 Kalbelia Girl I Page 28 Gypsie Boy I Page 29-30 Pilgrim I Page 31 Gypsie Girl I Page 33-34 Fonts: Apple Symbols Bebas Neue Butler Lato Paper: Cyclus Offset 140 gr. Color Copy Coated glossy 250 gr. Printed: Bozen-Bolzano, January 2019 Inside pages – Digital Print | Canon Cover – Digital Print | Canon
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There are only two ways to life your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein