Ou Menya Bieke Depoorter

Ou Menya is the remarkable portfolio of award-winning photographer Bieke Depoorter. For three months the Belgian student travelled through Russia and Siberia gathering material for her graduation thesis. With a firm idea of what she wanted - to document brief but intense shared moments - she allowed the Trans-Siberian express to take her from village to village, from living room to living room. Not knowing a single word of Russian, the young photographer relied entirely upon a short note that her first hostess had translated for her in order to find lodgings. Never knowing where she might end up, Depoorter allowed her intuition to guide her; using body and sign language to communicate, she quickly gained people's confidence, and her unannounced arrival often resulted in an impromptu celebration. Primarily the photographs contained in this volume are evidence of transient and powerful human encounters. The collection is not a cross-section of life in the Russian countryside, but rather, a record of raw, uninhibited experiences, representative of Depoorter's connection to, and involvement with a number of different families. Accompanies an exhibition in de Kunsthal in Rotterdam (Netherlands) from December 10 2011 and in the Sint-Pietersabdij in Ghent from May 27 2012 until September 23 2012.