Portfolio Category - Portrait Awards 2014

Ulan Bator Photo Studio, Mongolia, 2012. Ger districts are shantytowns surrounding Ulan Bator. More than half of Mongolia`s capital residents, i.e a quarter of the whole population in the country, live in ger areas. After abandoning a nomadic lifestyle in the countryside to live in the city, most newcomers settle in gers- the traditional portable homes of nomadic families- in the outskirts of Ulan Bator, shaping a unique rural-urban hybrid environment. The main objective of this photo series is to meet the people behind the statistics and to document, through a participatory project, the everyday stories of the women, men and children who live, work, study, play, love and dream in the ger districts of Ulan Bator. With the collaboration of NGO Mongolian Youth Services Center and a group of local teens, we set up a basic temporary photo studio in Chingeltei ger area: a portable studio light, fabric backgrounds bought at the market, a camera. People from the community were invited by the group of youths to sit for a family-album style portrait while sharing their thoughts about life in the Mongolian growing shantytown. The people we photographed were mainly passersby, often friends and schoolmates. Aiming at encompassing a collective self portrait of a whole community, we photographed and interviewed almost one hundred people.