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Max Mueller Bhavan | India Bangalore

Raisa Galofre & Marvin Systermans
bangaloREsidents@IIHS

The artist and photographer Raisa Galofre, born in 1986 in Barranquilla, and photographer Marvin Systermans, born in 1990 in Cologne, live and work together in Berlin. During the bangaloREsidency the two photographers will enter into a visual dialogue combining their different photographic approaches, staged and documentary.

Raisa Galofre © © Marvin Systermans Raisa Galofre © Marvin Systermans
Raisa Galofre studied communication sciences and journalism at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla. In 2014 she obtained a Masters degree in Photography at the Burg Giebiechenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale). Since 2016, she lives in Berlin, where she works as a freelance photographer and lecturer. In 2017, Raisa joined the art space SAVVY Contemporary, the Laboratory of Form-Ideas, founded and directed by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, as a curatorial assistant and researcher. Since then, she has worked on various projects, exhibitions and symposia.

In her artistic work, Raisa Galofre uses the narrative characteristics of Latin American magical realism in order to question prevailing – mostly Western-influenced – visual representations and clichés of gender, identity and historical events by developing new narratives. Her photography explores the tension between real and fantastic, rational and mythical elements, which she translates into staged photographs and photographic sculptures. Her work was shortlisted for the Lucie Foundation's Fine Art Scholarship Award in 2018, and in 2015 she was one of the winners of the Profifoto New Talents Awards.

Marvin Systermans © © Raisa Galofre Marvin Systermans © Raisa Galofre
Marvin Systermans graduated in 2016 with a Bachelors degree in Communication Design from the Burg Giebiechenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale). In 2019, he received his Masters degree in Integrated Design with focus on photography at the University of the Arts Bremen under Professor Peter Bialobrzeski.

Marvin Systermans is currently working as a freelance photographer in Berlin. His work focuses mainly on urban spaces, structural change and the human habitat in general. His work was shortlisted by the Sony World Photography Award and the Felix Schoeller Photography Award in 2017 and has already appeared at the 1ra Design Biennale in Havana and numerous group exhibitions in Germany. His current work on the structural change in the German Lausitz region “State of the Region” is funded by the BFF - professional association of free photographers and film makers.

During the bangaloREsidency, the two photographers will develop a photo series that reflects on the presence of modernity and coloniality in the use, application and presentation of the different materials that can be found in Bangalore’s urban spaces.  Based on Aníbal Quijano's thesis: "There is no modernity without coloniality", they will photographically examine the encounters between Western and non-Western, organically grown and hypermodern structures. Their work builds a bridge between documentary and staged photography.

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