Winners of the 2018 Urbanautica Institute Awards
We are pleased to announce the 2018 winners of the Urbanautica Institute Awards, in the following categories: Architecture, Space and Conflicts; Nature, Environment and Perspectives; People and Communities; Memories and Traditions; Memories and Traditions; and Anthropology and Territories.
Submissions were received from a number of talented authors, and each one displayed impressive merit with combining knowledge, critical thinking, and imagery to explore the deeper questions and issues within our society.
Here are our winners for 2018.
ARCHITECTURE, SPACE AND CONFLICTS
Winner Claire Laude’ s long-term research– ‘Ephemeral Intersects’— deals with the construction and representation of the memory of a place.
Shortlisted projects within this category are:
Arthur Crestani for his series ‘Aranya Redux’ that portraits the 80’s social housing district by architect Balkrishna Doshi in India
Andrew Waits with ‘Aporia’ a fictional narrative about the limit to what can be observed in a built environment.
Alex Currie facing ‘Degeneration’ housing issues and social stigma in the UK.
Special mentions go to:
Tsagkarakis Marinos for his work ‘Paradise Inn’ about the consequences of the massive and uncontrolled tourist development in Greece.
Noritaka Minami for rethinking the original ambition of California City’s real estate.
NATURE, ENVIRONMENT AND PERSPECTIVES
Winner Ellie Davies has studied the UK forest for the last nine years, exploring the complex interrelationship between the landscape and the individual.
Shortlisted projects within this category are:
Juan Fabuel for his series ‘14,24’, which explores migratory movements in the Mediterranean Sea and the perception, construction and notion of space and place.
Arnaud Teicher for his commitment to documenting the effects of wildfires in the forests of the South of France.
Raphaël Bourelly & Sébastien Tixier with ‘Shan Shui’ which shows the effects of industrialization on the rivers in the regions of central China.
Special mentions go to:
Diana Fritz for exploring the real and ideal in the representation of natural landscape.
Tamsin Green for elevating an essential mineral that has shaped the history of human civilization.
Thieu Riemen for his unfailing commitment to maintain the Dutch rural landscape.
PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES
Winner Filippo Romano is recognized in this category for his long-term commitment within Mathare, one of Nairobi’s toughest slums, in Kenya.
Shortlisted projects within this category are:
Nicola Domaneschi and Marco Verdi for their project ‘Flood, Medication Blues’ , which researches the relationship between humans and the natural landscape along the Po’ river. Matthew Genitempo for his poetic portrait of people in the Ozark Mountains.
Michalis Poulas for depicting the feelings of loss, loneliness, and isolation in Crete island in his project ‘Infinite Perimeter’.
Special mentions go to:
Sergio Camplone for his project ‘A Southern Question’, which explores the history of Matera, and the relationship between inhabitants and housing policies in Italy.
Tash Hopkins with ‘Western Springs,’ which displays her ongoing study of New Zealand’s high school youth.
MEMORIES AND TRADITIONS
Winner Alvaro Deprit who returned to his family’s place of origin in Andalusia, researching the overexposed and mysterious landscape as a symbolism for memory.
Shortlisted projects within this category are:
Tobias Bijl for reporting the uncomfortable and difficult story of Srebrenica, the genocide against the Muslim Bosniaks in 1995.
Marco Marzocchi with ‘Oyster’ which deploys the details of his difficult past, as his visual diary uncovers the absence of his parents.
Ioanna Sakellaraki in ‘Aidos’, researching shame as a lifelong Greek tradition for positioning someone in society.
Special mentions go to:
‘Triny’ by Arimasa Fukukawa for coping with a personal loss via a sense of liberation. ‘Regrets’ by Stefano Marchionini, which establishes a need for a dialogue between the personal need for memories and the vestiges of past generations.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND TERRITORIES
Winner Rodrigo Claramonte is recognized for his exploration of the subjective processes of territorialization taking place in the margins and borders of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which mark the limit and division between the Federal Capital and the province of Buenos Aires.
Shortlisted projects within this category are:
‘Anastasiia’ by Christian Van der Kooy which raises the question of how to read and interpret the landscape and stereotypes of the Ukraine.
Alnis Stakle for his long-term commitment to documenting China’s urban transformations. Kyler Zeleny for shining a light into the ‘last great west’, the Canadian prairies and their cultural legacy.
A special mention goes to:
Mauro Corinti for investigating the place of belonging and the concepts of appropriate distance to observe the land which is so special to Italo Calvino.