Futures Residency: Luis Alberto Rodriguez & Jewgeni Roppel

During our Open Residency Program this past Autumn we had the pleasure of hosting two emerging photographers, Luis Alberto Rodriguez and Jewgeni Roppel. This residency was made possible through a collaboration with PhotoIreland Foundation and Futures. Futures is a new photography platform that pools the resources and talent programmes of leading photography institutions across Europe in order to increase the capacity, mobility and visibility of its selected artists. By bringing together a wealth of resources and curatorial expertise, each talent selected by the Futures members gains access to an unprecedented network of professionals, markets and audiences.

For six weeks our studio became a hub of activity. Luis and Jewgeni regularly scheduled shoots in our southeast region and beyond, both making significant progress on new bodies of work. All of us here at the studios enjoyed watching these projects come together, discussing their progress at meal times, popping into their studios for impromptu tutorials and watching as Luis gained mastery of new darkroom skills while Jewgeni schooled himself on his new drone. The images above are pulled from Rodriguez’s new series The People of The Mud on the left and Roppel’s Mother, Ireland on the right. PhotoIreland founder and director Angel Luis Gonzalez took some time to reflect on their combined efforts.

“Luis focused on the performative aspects of certain Irish traditions, specifically Gaelic Football and Irish Dancing. With a strong background as a dancer, he surpassed mere anatomic studies, playfully constructing instead a very personal language, derived both from the spontaneity of some interactions and his choreographic experience. The resulting images are stunning and intriguing.

Jewgeni organised his time to visit the whole island of Ireland looking for aspects of Cultural Heritage in the landscape. Collecting a vast amount of images from historical buildings, cultural landmarks, and details in the landscape, Jewgeni aimed to construct a broad view of this country’s identity, offering mysterious images and oftentimes abstracting from nature what of manmade there is.”