tiana markova-gold

2011-11-14T19:48:00.000-05:00

Scènes et Types

Portrait No. 1
Morocco 2011

Portrait No. 4
Morocco 2011

Khadija
Morocco 2011

   While in Morocco I began to work with collage, cutting up the photographs I was making and piecing them back together, juxtaposing and layering the images. I began to experiment with combining my own photography with acquired imagery, primarily photos taken from local women’s magazines, colonial Orientalist postcards and contemporary pornography.
   I was spending time with and photographing women who were pushed to the edges of society – single mothers, prostitutes. Many of these women did not feel safe having their faces photographed, some didn’t feel safe being photographed at all, but it was important for them to talk about their experiences.
   I began to use the collages as a way to express what I understood about these women’s lives while examining my own perceptions and experiences and exploring ideas about representation, marginalization, sexuality, the nature of stereotypes and women's relationships with power, choice and identity.

Femmes Ombres No. 4
Morocco 2011

Femmes Ombres No. 2
Morocco 2011

Scènes et Types No. 3
Morocco 2011

Scènes et Types No. 2
Morocco 2011

Scènes et Types No. 5
Morocco 2011

Portraits and Femmes Ombres - collage of original photographs

Scènes et Types - collage of images from colonial Orientalist postcards and

contemporary European and American pornography

Maroc

2011-05-01T07:14:00.001-04:00

Fondation des Jeunes Haitiennes Optimistes

2011-01-28T12:21:00.004-05:00

Sara, 21 years old.

Marie Darline, 18 years old.

Marie Danielle, 18 years old.

2011-01-25T17:46:00.010-05:00

Marie Dominique, 19 years old.

Sloanie, 18 years old.

Marie Darline, 18 years old.

Francia, 22 years old.

Sara, 21 years old.

Eduardine, 20 years old.

Marie Danielle, 18 years old.
Rosverline, 20 years old.

2011-01-20T21:51:00.002-05:00

12 January 2011

2011-01-17T11:17:00.003-05:00

A memorial church service is held in the open space behind the destroyed church building. Jakmel, Haiti 2011.

Remnants of the school for disabled children remain in the building which housed PAZAPA Centre des Enfants Handicapés until it was severely damaged in the earthquake. Jakmel, Haiti 2011.

People gather in the street to watch locally produced films about the earthquake and its impact on the people of Jakmel.
Jakmel, Haiti 2011.

11 January 2011

2011-01-11T11:52:00.003-05:00

9 January 2011

2011-01-09T19:31:00.011-05:00

Members of Fondation des Jeunes Haitiennes Optimistes (FJHO - Foundation of Hopeful Young Haitians) participate in a cholera prevention training with volunteers from Médecins Sans Frontières.

"Violence against women has many faces but none of those faces reveals a happy heart."

The young women of FJHO do outreach work in Pinchinat tent community, the largest in Jakmel, housing up to 5000 displaced persons since the earthquake of 12 January 2011.

Medine Adonis, head of women's and children's groups in Pinchinat tent community.

The young women of FJHO prepare to travel to Port au Prince to participate in a promotional event for Digicel mobile phone company.

FJHO founder, Jocelyne Firmin, helps the young women do their hair and make-up and decide which outfits are appropriate for the event in Port au Prince.

Jakmel, Haiti 2011.

7 January 2011

2011-01-07T13:35:00.007-05:00

la-a se espas ti moun pa jen fi. fanm yo dwe al kaka nan chanm anwo. gason pa dwe antre la-a...
(this is the space for children not young women. women must go kaka in the room further down. men don't come in here.....)

Paintings by Charlotte Charles on the toilet stalls in Penchinat tent community. Jakmel, Haiti 2011.

1 January 2011

2011-01-01T17:22:00.004-05:00

Children playing in Tapis Vert, a small tent community on the edge of Cité Soley.

Freché e Do (Fresh Air and Gold), a local band playing music in Tapis Vert.

The center of Tapis Vert.

A young girl with a machete.

Dancing to the music of Freché e Do.

A mother and child in Tapis Vert.

30 December 2010

2010-12-30T22:57:00.002-05:00

Spent today in a car, driving….Petion-Ville and then down through Port-au-Prince….out to the sea in Montrouis and then St. Marc and up into the mountains.
The city feels very much like the last time I was here three years ago, except that all the empty spaces are now filled with people living in tents and there are completely collapsed buildings and whole hillsides that have crumbled.
People are carrying on with their lives….going to the market, doing laundry, getting married, taking care of their children, working.

WIP-LTI/Lightside Materials Grant

2010-11-02T16:00:00.014-04:00

Women In Photography is proud to announce that the 2010 WIP-LTI/Lightside Individual Materials Grant, providing $1000 in artists choice of Kodak materials has been awarded to Tiana Markova-Gold for her project documenting social issues surrounding sex workers in Macedonia.

In Macedonia, as throughout the world, sex workers are pushed to the margins of society by a combination of prejudice, discrimination, and violence. Sex workers inhabit a particularly vulnerable position in Macedonian society, facing harassment and violence not only from their clients and pimps, but also from law enforcement officials and other authorities. These abuses include physical violence, illegal detention, compulsory testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and rape, which are compounded by substandard enforcement of law and lack of access to health and support services. Adding to these challenges are the risks of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, drug addiction, a hostile public attitude, and mass-media harassment. Because of the tremendous negative stigma connected to prostitution in Macedonia, most sex workers are living double lives, concealing the fact that they are sex workers from their families and the communities in which they live. A disproportionate number of street-based sex workers, those most vulnerable, are members of the Roma community, Macedonia’s most harshly discriminated against ethnic minority group. Gay and transgender sex workers are often targeted and further marginalized because of their sexual or gender orientation.

Building upon my previous long-term projects documenting the lives of sex workers in New York City, I spent several weeks in the spring of 2010 photographing and recording the stories of sex workers in Macedonia. I collaborated closely with Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS), spending many days at their drop-in center, joining the outreach team in the streets and in the Roma community, and visiting sex workers in their homes. I recorded hours of audio interviews and conversations with the people I photographed, as well as the sounds of the streets and rooms where they live and work. Because of the sensitivity of the topic and the previous negative exposure sex workers have suffered in Macedonian media, it was essential to me to not only work closely with HOPS, but also to discuss the project directly with the sex workers themselves. Many of the people I photographed in Macedonia were eager to tell their stories but asked that I conceal their identities from the viewer; they wanted to be seen and heard but were terrified of being exposed. Theirs are stories of fear, isolation and vulnerability, but also of survival and courage in the face of persistent abuse and alienation.

20th Anniversary Lange-Taylor Prize

2010-08-04T20:20:00.010-04:00

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University has awarded the twentieth Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize to photographer Tiana Markova-Gold and writer Sarah Dohrmann, both Americans. The $20,000 award is given to encourage collaboration in documentary work in the tradition of acclaimed American photographer Dorothea Lange and writer and social scientist Paul Taylor. Lange and Taylor worked together for many years, most notably on fieldwork that resulted in American Exodus (1941), a seminal work in documentary studies.

Tiana Markova-Gold and Sarah Dohrmann’s project is an investigation of female prostitution in Morocco and the experiences of two American women documenting women’s lives. Dohrmann and Markova-Gold seek to dismantle negative preconceptions about women in prostitution in Morocco , and women in general, by providing the people they work with an opportunity to speak for themselves while critically examining the impact of media and cultural representation upon women’s lives. With their project, they will explore the negotiation of relationships “between the prostitute and the society she lives in, between the artist and the subject, between non-Muslim and Muslim women, between women.”

Markova-Gold and Dohrmann began working together in Morocco in October 2008. Dohrmann had been living in Morocco for over a year, where she had made friends and spent time with sex workers. She began writing about her interactions with them, as well as traveled around the country to talk to Moroccan sociologists and community leaders about prostitution. Meanwhile, Markova-Gold had been working on an in-depth project about the lives of women in prostitution in New York City since the spring of 2007. Their collaboration in Morocco began to take shape when they spent a week together with two young prostituted women.

In America, North Africa, and around the world, women enter into prostitution for a variety of reasons, the foremost being severe economic pressures. Globalization, with its changing labor markets, leaves women and girls particularly vulnerable. While intimate in their approach, Markova-Gold and Dohrmann hope to portray Moroccan women within a larger context of women worldwide, acknowledging Morocco's unique position as a bridge between Europe and Africa, its role within the MENA region and Islamic society, and as a developing nation grappling with the economic impacts of globalization

Markova-Gold and Dohrmann plan to spend three months in Morocco living with and documenting the lives of sex workers from different economic levels and backgrounds. Of their collaboration, they say that together they “gain a different kind of access—one that allows for the cultivation of deep and nuanced relationships, resulting in a complex holistic story. By delving into the lives of Moroccan women who are working as prostitutes, and by honestly, humbly, and unflinchingly answering to [our] roles as documentarians, [we] hope to reveal greater human truths about sexuality, empowerment, and the complex nature of women's choices.”

2010-02-21T12:17:00.008-05:00

The Nymphoto Collective is proud to announce its online auction and print sale to benefit the relief effort in Haiti.

The Art for Haiti auction will be coordinated by eBay Giving Works and 100% of the proceeds will go to Partners in Health. The auction & print sale will take place February 27 through March 9, 2010. Partners in Health is a recognized non-profit organization that, over the course of 20 years, has established 12 medical non-profit facilities in Haiti. Partners in Health is committed to continue to work with the people of Haiti for better health care.

It has been only a month since the earthquake in Haiti, but the press is already beginning to slow down its coverage, which is why the Nymphoto Collective has organized this online auction. The Haitian people have a very long road ahead to recovery. The artists participating in this fundraiser want to show their solidarity and let the Haitian people know that they will continue to support them in the months and years ahead. Some of the participating artists have family and friends in Haiti, and some have built relationships with the Haitian people and culture through photography.

Work by (in alphabetical order by last name) Keliy Anderson-Staley, Nina Büsing Corvallo, Jeff Cate, Rona Chang, Cameron Goodyear, Candace Gottschalk, Laura Heyman, Geoffrey Hutchinson, Hee Jin Kang, Michelle Kloehn, Yijun Liao, Minette Lee Managhas, Tiana Markova-Gold, Stephen Meierding, Maria Passarotti, Suzanne Révy, Jon Shireman, Emily Shur, Brea Souders, Tema Stauffer, Julianna Swaney, Hidemi Takagi, Jane Tam and Jennifer Williams.

This eclectic group of artists has shown in museums and galleries around the world. The fundraiser offers an opportunity for collectors to acquire artwork and contribute to an important cause.

Please visit: nymphoto.com to be directed to the auction & to find additional information about this fundraising effort. Please direct all inquiries regarding this online event to contact@nymphoto.com.
NYMPHOTO / NYMPHOTO.COM / NYMPHOTO.BLOGSPOT.COM / CONTACT@NYMPHOTO.COM

2010-01-15T15:21:00.001-05:00

"We as human beings have a responsibility to act right now...this is not only a nation of poverty and desolation...this is the nation that taught our hemisphere what it means to be a freedom fighter and what it takes to break the chains of slavery. We need to act, not because Haiti is some nation of perennial victims that we need to have pity on, we need to act because Haiti is a nation of heroes and we need to repay them for what they have given us."

2010-01-15T01:19:00.005-05:00

An email I just received from a friend in Port-au-Prince:

Bodies everywhere. Death in the air. People constantly walking up and down, crying and moaning about losses of life, property and hope.

Despair and singing of GOD, and journalists from time to time. Blood stained sheets covering bloated rotting bodies of men and women and children.

Long cold nights on the asphalt with the homeless people afraid to sleep inside.

Masses gathered in front of government offices hoping but knowing that there will come no help or words of encouragement.

Blindness of persons not seeing that government is gone and that others (foreigners) are in charge.

Impatience and growing hunger and thirst that can become very dangerous if not quenched.

Hoping for time to hasten so that wounds can heal but not wanting to grow old at the same time.

Friends missing but even after three days not accepting that they may be gone forever.

Time to rest and awaken and face all of these realities again.

Links to organizations and information:

http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

http://pih.org/home.html

https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquake&subsource=homepage

http://relief4haiti.chipin.com/rebuilding-jacmel-haiti

http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/shattering-haiti-the-makings-of-unnatural-disaster/

sonya

2008-09-25T23:40:00.004-04:00

susana/breaking the surface

2008-07-21T22:49:00.009-04:00

suzy & uni

2008-06-30T12:33:00.003-04:00

NIGER

2008-06-30T12:25:00.011-04:00