Arnaud Contreras

Born in Helsinki in 1968, Itkonen studied photography at the School of Art and Communication in Turku and at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She has exhibited across Europe and her work is held in permanent collections at the Modern Museum, Stockholm, Helsinki City Art Museum, The Finnish Museum of Photography, and the Finnish State Art Collection. Itkonen was Finnish Young Photographer of the Year 2003 and a Fotofinlandia finalist in 1996 and 2004.

The Arctic has always been a source of fascination for explorers, adventurers, traders and whalers. It is a land of extreme weather, days and nights that last months and a landscape which is both deadly and beautiful. Itkonen’s images of this frontier range from immense icy landscapes steeped in blue light to intimate portraits of the Inuit at home in western clothes and polar bear trousers! Itkonen’s time with the Inuit allowed her to capture their humour, warmth and their unique relationship with the immense barren land which provides their livelihood. Her photographs record the rhythm of their lives and the impression the modern world has made on the ways the Inuit have always lived.

Tiina Itkonen has published a beautiful book called ‘Inughuit’.

© Tiina Itkonen

The battle to save a unique collection of prehistoric footprints

An endangered window into South America’s ancient past has gained a new lease on life, thanks to the pioneering efforts of an Argentinian scientist intent on preserving prehistoric animal tracks etched into a remote stretch of coastline that is under threat from rising sea levels, human destruction and developers.

Teresa Manera de Bianco, a palaeontologist and geologist who, with her husband, found the fossilised tracks in 1986 when a winter storm partly blew the sand off a three-kilometre rocky shelf, has raced against time to record the tracks before rising sea levels put them permanently beyond reach. She has also struggled to convince local residents that the tracks, laid down 12,000 years ago when the area was an inland pond teeming with birds and mammals, are worth protecting from destruction.

For her endless curiosity about the animals that produced the tracks and her dedicated quest to preserve them for study by scientists and local people alike, Manera won a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2004.

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© Teresa Manera

On 8th March 2005, Steve Messam and six gallant volunteer artists floated seven large red inflatable balls, ranging from 6ft to over 12ft diameter on the tranquil waters of Grasmere, Cumbria. The half-mile long installation remained on the lake for 4 days before a change in wind direction and overnight gales forced the removal of the temporary piece.

The other idea of the installation is to challenge people’s ideas of things in the Lake District landscape and to raise awareness of the inovative arts scene in the Lakes.

The piece was supported by the Cumbria Tourist Board, the National Trust, the Lake District National Park Authority and South Lakes District Council.

© Tony West

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Tadzio explores cities from speed trains’ windows.

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Soviet Union officially collapses on December 25th, 1991. Fifteen years later, the 15 ex-republics of the Soviet Union are waking up and growing up between democracy and dictatorship, liberalism and neo-communism, between European Union and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, between laicization and religion, between inequality and unity.

Formerly regrouped together in only one block, 15 ex-republics of the Soviet Union are actually countries very different. And it is interesting to notice that when some young people are dreaming of Russia or United States, their parents or grandparents are missing the great Moscow’s Mother.

The goal of Evangeline Masson et Patricio Diez’s project is to meet the young people from 20 to 35 years old, to know them and to understand their desires and projects.

© www.15ans15pays.com

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Jacaranda is a “guarani word which designates a decorative tree from tropical America and Madagascar with vivid lilac-blue flowers, whose wood is appreciated in ebenistery under the name of purple wood”.

Two motivated students found several similarities between this tree and the social entrepreneurs they are going to interview around the globe:
- Like the Jacaranda, whose roots take the best from the ground on which it grows, social entrepreneurs rely on their environment to elaborate solutions to social problems;
- Like the Jacaranda, which grows from South America to the Australian Continent, as well as in Madagascar, there are social entrepreneurs all over the world;
- Like the Jacaranda, that produces a wood of great quality for multiple uses, social entrepreneurs come up with ideas that can be exported and duplicated in different contexts.

The heroes you will discover on their website are not those who appear in adventure novels, history books or action movies. They are not legendary soldiers, famous politicians nor superheroes with magical powers.
But they improve the life of millions of people on all continents and build step by step a better world.
Their weapons : innovating ideas, determination and a deep belief in the capacity of each and everyone of us to change the world.
Their fieds of action: economic development, education, environment, health, social issues…

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Julien Daniel presents Odessa, Odessa, a serie shot between Odessa, Texas, and Odessa, Ukraine.

Julien Daniel was born in 1970. After graduating from the EFET audiovisual school of Paris in 1991, he began his career as a photographer in 1993. Julien has been a member of the Oeil Public photographers’ association since 1997. His freelance work has regularly been published throughout the French Press, in publications such as: Liberation, Le Monde, L’Express, and Telerama, among others. Julien’s own work has already received many distinctions: the World Press Photo Prize (in 2001 and 2002), the ”Attention Talent” Fnac Prize (2002), the Fuji Prize (2002). He is the winner of the 2004 Kodak Critic’s Prize.

© Julien Daniel / Oeil Public

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Afro Peaks is a trans-afro-mountains scientific expedition, with the aim to climb and film African Mountains from north to south, in memory of the pioneering Naturalists and Explorers who greatly conribute to better understand Nature , Africa or Moutains wilderness.

Their trip is going to take them trough all African countries, from Morocco to South Africa, from Senegal to Eritrea through the 47 continental African states to symbolically link all peaks according to their travelling.

They are going to participate to study projects on biology, environment conservation and mountain development in about ten selected areas. They wish to meet and help various education and environment conservation actions (water, biodiversity, ecofriendly citizenship) and promote the values of sustainable development they stand for.

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Fifteen years have past between the fall of Berlin’s wall until european Union’s enlargement to the East.
On May 1st, 2004, three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), five Central Europe countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia) and two Mediterranean (Cyprus and Malta) have joined the Union. Bulgaria and Romania will follow in 2007.

European Union has now a new Eastern border. Turkey, Moldavia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia are its new neighbours. Border ? Gap ? However, a new line divides again the continent.

Work done between June 2000 and August 2003.
Guy Pierre Chomette and Frederic Sautereau.

© Frédéric Sautereau / Oeil Public

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Few venturers dare to confront alone the desert. Régis Belleville made it its land of predilection since his childhood.

Confirmed venturer, member of the Society of the French Explorers, awarded by the National Geographical Institute, he is considered as one of the big Saharan travellers. Nicknamed by the nomads “the white camel rider”, he also works for the scientific community.

More than long “méharées”, meeting with the nomads, tight contact with the dromedaries, and permanent discovery of the desert, are his great sources of motivation.

Since 1998, Régis specializes in survival in Saharan middle, human physiology and water stress.

© marine lefebvre

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