WELOME TO METALLURG | Rob Hornstra

Issue 08

I am asked to open the door to my bedroom. An extremely large woman with a cloth on her head stands threateningly in front of the door to my bedroom at Metallurg sanatorium. Still rather dazed from a healing radon bath I have just had, we both enter my room. Already shaking her head, the head cleaner points vigorously at my unmade bed. This is completely unacceptable. Together we shake out the covers and make the bed. From now on, please do this before breakfast. Just like at home, she adds sternly.

THE PARADE | Nadav Kander

Issue 08

The Parade is the name of a quiet coastal road in South East England.

Stretching for approximately two miles, the 150 or so houses that line one side of the road all share uninterrupted views of the sea from the front, whilst from behind they are overshadowed by Dungeness, the oldest nuclear power station in England. Contained within the seemingly private space of their own homes, we watch people performing domestic actions that are not remarkable, nor individual but similar and universal—for me they reveal so much about ourselves.

THE BLENHEIM OAKS | Simon Norfolk

Issue 08

Blenheim Palace near Oxford—one of the greatest of England's stately homes—was a gift from a grateful nation to a General, John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, for his victories in battle. In William Fordice Mavor's New Description of Blenheim, a contemporary guidebook to the palace and its gardens, the extraordinary suggestion is made that the original layout for the planting of the oaks imitated the disposition of the troops at the beginning of the Battle of Blenheim on August 13, 1704. Just think: a battlefield, laid out in the heart of England in a massive leafy reminder of a faraway military conquest!

SHRINES: PUBLIC WEAPONS IN AMERICA | Paul Shambroom

Issue 08

What happens to weapons of war when they are no longer useful for their original purposes? Those that are not scrapped are often given second lives in the public sphere, mounted in places of honor in communities across the United States. Town squares, city parks, armories, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts display retired cannons, tanks and aircraft from past American conflicts.

REAL BEAUTY | Jodi Bieber

Issue 08

This new body of work has been inspired by a number of events, primarily by my own maturity. My forties have brought a feeling of more comfort in my own skin than when I was younger, even though my body shape has shifted dramatically. This project is a reaction to a Dove billboard advertising campaign in London showing ordinary women in their underwear advocating and speaking up for real beauty. Advertising campaigns don’t usually draw my attention, but this one did.

RENA EFFENDI | Pipe Dreams

Issue 08

My first job, at the age of 19, was as a translator for the Azerbaijan International Oil Company, a consortium of some of the world's largest oil producers. This gave me financial independence, as the oil industry was the most lucrative employer for educated youth in Baku. I was considered one of the lucky few—those that managed to benefit from the oil boom. Having gained an inside perspective, I decided to look outward as I began to photograph in 2001, focusing on the oil industry’s effects on ordinary people’s lives in my country.

MOVING EAST | James Longley

Issue 08

After a decade spent mostly in Russia I decided I needed to make a film in the Gaza Strip. It was 2001, just after the New Year, and the second Palestinian uprising was well underway. Ariel Sharon was about to be elected Prime Minister of Israel. At the Erez crossing, an IDF soldier looked skeptically at my cameras and press ID, then waved me through into the bone chilling rain and Gaza. It was my first time in the Middle East; it was my first time in a conflict zone. But it was also the start of a chapter of my life which has not yet ended.

GERD LUDWIG | Moscow Never Sleeps

Issue 08

My personal connection with Russia had already begun, when I was a young child growing up in Germany after World War II. In the darkness of our cramped, post-war space that served as bedroom, kitchen and living room all in one, I would listen to the sad, soothing voice of my father as he conjured up images of endless winter landscapes; of soldiers battling their way through snowstorms; and of people hiding from them in stables and barns.

Guest Intro by Frank Evers

Issue 08

In the face of dramatic changes in modern communication, INSTITUTE was formed to support its visual artists in a comprehensive and synergistic manner, with the simple goal of bringing their work to the widest possible audience. In gathering these storytellers together under one roof, I have acted purely on an intuitive level, attracted primarily to the strength of their work, to the intelligence and ideas underlying that work, and the resulting impact on the viewer.

JEFF JACOBSON | In the USA

Issue 08

Little Beaverkill, Mt Tremper, NY 2006

LAUREN GREENFIELD | Deconstructing Fashion

Issue 08

Fashion has been a recurring theme in my photography, weaving itself through my stories and pictures in conscious and unconscious ways. When I began my career as a documentarian, I did not intentionally pursue fashion as a discreet focus. I photographed youth culture and studied gender and body image. In that context, fashion was always an integral part of the narratives’ fabric. I photographed girls and women across the world as they navigated their respective social pressures, and struggled to define their individuality.

ZED NELSON | Love Me

Issue 08

Beauty is a $160 billion-a-year global industry. The pursuit of body improvement has become like a new religion. We live in a society that celebrates and iconizes youth. The promise of bodily improvement is fuelled by advertising campaigns and a commercially driven Western media, reflecting an increasingly narrow palette of beauty. The modern Caucasian ideal of beauty has been packaged and exported globally, and just as surgical operations to Westernize oriental eyes have become increasingly popular, so has the beauty standard become increasingly prescriptive.

JOSHUA LUTZ | Am(star)dam

Issue 8

Windmills from the roof of an abandoned building continue forever into the distance. Water quietly flows even through the smallest towns surrounding the city. In some areas the canals are still frozen, but the ice is far too thin to support the would-be skaters quietly sitting on a bench. A few weeks after my son Hudson was born, unsure of what to expect, we wrapped him up and headed from New York to Amsterdam. I was commissioned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson leaving Amsterdam for New York; somehow this task of getting everything through security seemed far more daunting than anything Henry Hudson could have ever encountered.

TABLE OF CONTENTS | Issue 8

Issue 08

Featuring

Lauren Greenfield
Joshua Lutz
Gerd Ludwig
Zed Nelson
Rob Hornstra
Jeff Jacobson
James Longley
Paul Shambroom
Simon Norfolk
Nadav Kander
Rena Effendi
Jobi Bieber

LARRY LOUIE | Tibetans: The Struggle for Cultural Preservation

When I travel I am constantly amazed by the ethnic and cultural diversity that I encounter, along with the different languages, customs and beliefs. My photographs allow me to share with others the variety and beauty of the world I see. But increasingly, I feel an urgency to document people in areas of the world threatened by urbanization and globalization—places where traditional ways of life, ancient knowledge and customs, languages and identities are disappearing at an alarming rate. People often talk about endangered species and the loss of biodiversity in nature. Some are beginning to notice the threat to the diversity of cultures.