Khashayar Javanmardi has won second prize at PhMuseum 2024 Photography Grant with his project Spell Of The Caspian Lotus – a project he started during his study at DMJX in 2019/2020.
Spell Of The Caspian Lotus is a long-term documentary project about The Caspian Sea and and its surrounding communities, skillfully weaving together themes of identity, climate change, and environmental degradation.
The Caspian Sea is bounded by Iran on the South, Russia on the North, Azerbaijan on the West, and Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on the East. It is known as a sea because it is the biggest lake in the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states of Central Asia started exploiting the Caspian Sea. The primary sources of pollution in the Caspian Sea are the discovery, exploitation, and transfer of oil from the sea on the one hand and sewage, waste, and chemical poisoning on the other.
With the second prize at the PhMuseum 2024 Photography Grant, Khashayar Javanmardi receives €2,000 plus a projection at Verzasca Photo 2024, Kranj Foto Fest 2024, and PhMuseum Days 2024, plus promotion on the PhMuseum channels.
Khashayar Javanmardi graduated our Photo 1 programme in December 2019 and Photo 2 in December 2020.
A few pictures from the project:
