Empty Land, Promised Land, Forbidden Land
Rob Hornstra
Self-Published
English
Texts by Arnold van Bruggen
Hardcover
Edition of 800
272 pages
195 x 250 mm
2013
ISBN Not available
Empty land, Promised land, Forbidden land is the result of three trips between 2007 and 2010 to the tiny country of Abkhazia. Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen have spent numerous weeks of traveling through the country, seeing how it is slowly trying to claw its way out of isolation. The country broke away from Georgia after a short, violent civil war in ’92-’93 and was recognized as independent in 2008 by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and the atoll of Nauru. The story is particularly tragic for the thousands of refugees who fled in the early nineties and have little prospect of returning. The book became a journey of discovery, not only of the country itself but also of the places where the refugees live.
Since 2007 Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen have been working together to tell the story of Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. They have returned repeatedly to this region as committed practitioners of “slow journalism,” establishing a solid foundation of research on and engagement with this small yet incredibly complicated region before it finds itself in the glare of international media attention.
thesochiproject.org
About the Artist
Rob Hornstra, born in 1975 in the Netherlands, is a Dutch photographer of predominantly long-term documentary projects, both at home and around the world. He has published several books of solo work, produced documentary series for a variety of international magazines, and taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad.
robhornstra.com
Arnold van Bruggen (1979) is a writer and filmmaker. With his journalistic production agency Prospektor, together with his colleague Eefje Blankevoort, he uses film, photography and text to tell stories that are otherwise overlooked by the media.
(Source https://berlin-fotofestival.de/speakers/arnold-van-bruggenen/)
