Petra Stavast: ‘Ramya’ – Beautifully Archiving Your Landlady for 14 years

Petra Stavast (Tiel, NL, 1977) is a visual artist. Through the media of photography, film and text she unravels and structures complex social issues often departing from a seemingly insignificant personal observation. In books and installations she brings different fragments of research together and translates them into compelling visual stories.

Netherlands – 

Ramya, long-term personal project converted into a photobook by Dutch photographer Petra Stavast, made over a period of 14 years, is simple story of a tenant documenting her landlady Ramya when she first moved into her house in 2001. Published and designed by Hans Gremmen of f-w photography, Stavast successfully creates a very personal and intimate connection while photographing Ramya and her surroundings. The project is also beautified with photographs and video works from Ramya’s private archive and her strong faith in Rajneeshpuram(OSHO), established between 1981 and 1985 in no-man-land of Oregon, USA.

Nominated as the Best Book of 2014 for Photo-Eye and Emaho, ‘Ramya’ was my favourite book from 2014 and the simplicity of the book with a very deep-seated relation of the photographer and the photographed, is a sheer visual delight.

 

Photography Reviewed by Manik Katyal

 

Screen Shot 2015-09-03 at 8.44.39 PM

Related Posts

Jan Brykczynski: “Boiko” – Exploring the Rural Reality of Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains

Poland – Those Boikos are the most mysterious tribe the length and breadth of the Carpathians. No-one else is quite ...

Natan Dvir Comin Soon

Natan Dvir: “Comin Soon” – New Yorkers and their Colossal Advertisements

USA –  ‘Coming Soon’ by Israeli photographer, Natan Dvir, is an exploration of our visual relationship with the branded city ...

Manik Katyal on Thomas Mailaender “The Night Climbers of Cambridge”

United Kingdom – With an elegant black velvet cover, ‘The Night Climbers of Cambridge’ is an enthralling collaboration between London ...

Anne De Gelas: L’amoureuse

Belgium – An (almost) perfect day – 4th April 2010 Max comes to wake us up quite early, he’s there ...

Holy Bible – Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

England –    “Right from the start, almost every appearance he made was catastrophic… Catastrophe is his means of operation, and ...

Momo Okabe: “I truly wanted to destroy everything I had”

Japan –   Momo Okabe’s photographs depict the bare situation. Be it the sexual act, a wasteland, or the wake of ...

Marlous Van Der Sloot: Le Corps Vecu

Netherlands – In modern society we often forget that ‘the physical’ is also a source of information. Because of rationalization, ...

Life after the Iron Curtain – Jutta Benzenberg

Albania – Albanian documentary photographer Jutta Benzenberg’s photographs tell the story of her country and its people through three books ...

Wenxin Zhang: FIVE NIGHTS, AQUARIUM

China –  Five Nights, Aquarium is a non-linear narration weaved by photographs and five short written works. I try to ...

Showing Slide 1 of 10