David Monteleone
Spasibo

Carmignac Gestion photojournalism Award

Exhibition: 8th November to 4th December 2013

Davide Monteleone, with his Alpa 12 TC, has photographed forests and mountains. The ‘forest’ was the term used by the Chechens to represent the place where the Islamist separatists hid when they took up arms to fight the Russian and Chechen authorities in 2009. Vedeno, a former historic centre of the Chechen rebellion, Shikara, Shara, the frozen lake Kezenoy-am – on which a tourist site close to the border with Dagestan is shortly to be built for over three billion roubles – symbolise the sombre history of a country where rebel ghosts still make the authorities tremble with fear. Davide Monteleone’s rigorously conceived photos have captured the experience of that country, using diffuse black and white images to offer a ray of light and make space appear open, as if in a last bid for resistance.

Another side of Chechen society presented in the exhibition is the changing social status of women, a particularly striking symptom of the changes brought about by the First Chechen War (1994-1996). While the number of arranged marriages of young girls of thirteen or fourteen years old still increased in the last two years, this practice became illegal with the passing of the new federal law, even though Kadyrov is not personally opposed to it. The veil is compulsory under Kadyrov, although he and his family circle advocate and openly practise polygamy. Alcohol sale became strictly legislated, whilst in 2009, alcohol consumption was still at hand. In the time of globalization, Chechnya drifts in the outrageous depths of artificial compromise, masked by fear.

Davide Monteleone (b. 1974) started his career in 2000, when he became an editorial photographer for the Contrasto agency. The next year he moved to Moscow as a correspondent. This decision determined his ensuing career. Since 2003, Monteleone has lived between Italy and Russia, pursuing long-term personal projects. He published his first book Dusha, Russian Soul in 2007, followed by La Linea Inesistente in 2009, and Red Thistle in 2012.

His projects have brought him numerous awards, including various World Press Photo prizes and several grants like “Aftermath” and the European Publisher Award. In recent years he has carried out projects for leading international magazines, foundations and cultural institutions, exhibiting and teaching. Since 2011 Davide has been a member of VII Photo.