N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A,
a blog about photography by Sofia Silva
I’ve been writing this post for weeks. Adding, editing, proofreading and questioning the intention to publish it. Obviously, I write because I want to, but mostly because I feel the urge to express myself and words are always my place of solace. In my mouth, words taste raw; often too dramatic and erratically poetic. As…
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Everyday, I wake up, hear the news, see some photographic registers of the previous events in Ukraine, get nauseated, shed a few tears and then re-fuel the level of frustration. It’s masochism, but I can’t avoid it. My irritation regarding what photography has been doing in relation to this particular war has been escalating to…
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While WWIII isn’t officially declared, we just go about our days, or we don’t. I’m writing in anger and frustration, sick to the guts, thinking the best way to deal with this is to write and, in doing so, prevent students from having to hear me talk about this non stop for the rest of…
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I’ve been thinking about this documentary – Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle – ever since I saw it a couple of weeks ago. Some images just got stuck in my mind. Writing about it seemed like a natural thing to do, but I guess it took some time to digest it and today, while listening…
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I’ve been following Nihilsentimentalgia for the past six years or so. I visit the blog every two or three months and read an entry or two. It’s an open but stable relationship. It seemed that every time I read the blog there are texts exactly matching the issues I currently grapple with, like a creepy…
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I’ve started this post two months ago and since then Nihilsentimentalgia has been as slow as it gets. I’ve been wondering whether this blog should take a break. Being its tenth year, I thought I’d be motivated to write with a certain cadence, but the opposite has happened. I’m feeling overwhelmed by images and I’m…
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photo: Palestinian mourners carry the body of eight-month-old Palestinian baby Leila Anwar Ghandoour, who died from tear gas inhalation in Gaza City on 15 May 2018 [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency] As of Sunday, a succession of events has once again reanimated a question that often comes to mind, namely: what would make me go into exile? Throughout…
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On average, I enter a shopping mall once a year, and only if I can’t avoid it. I hate everything about them. This year, I already had my share. I went accompanied by my partner, who noted he was surprised by how well I was behaving, containing my typical anti-capitalist swearing about consumerism and so…
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Warning: most of the links have extremely violent imagery. I gave myself a task: to look at photographs of violent events for a period of more or less a month and to chose a photograph per day (which wasn’t manageable after all). I realized from this experience that I haven’t really been looking at photographs…
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Note: I chose to give the warning I missed to find when I came across the image that I’ll be referring to later on this post: a poor resolution image of the inside of the Bataclan after the tragedy that came to be known as the Paris attacks. The tragedy took place on a Friday…
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© Antoine D’Agata, Mexico, Nuevo Laredo, 2000. For different reasons, I see quite a lot of photographs and bodies of work on a daily basis. What rarely happens, is being surprised by the work of an established photographer, whom I didn’t know. Today was one of those days. While reading about the voyeur and in…
Read MoreFrom time to time I revisit Gus van Sant’s movie Elephant. I think of it as a brilliant artwork, definitely his best. The characters, the composition, the poignancy of the argument… though he mastered them all what really captivated me was the animal theme and the symbolism behind its use. I remember reading an…
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photo © REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis, A masked protester holds a metal bar during a violent demonstration in Syntagma square in central Athens OPEN LETTER TO ANGELA MERKEL Dear chancellor Merkel, We start by saying we address you only as chancellor of Germany. We did not vote for you and do not acknowledge the existence of a…
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photo by @ Juan Manuel Serrano/Associated Press, more images here and here miners struggle for working conditions in Asturias, Spain. It’s been going on for weeks… You can read a personal account of what’s happening here “The total absence of limitation to the thirst for power which wants to hold everything under its thumb, even…
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N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 