WONDERLAND | JASON ESKENAZI

Jason Eskenazi is an American photographer, born 1960 in Queens, New York. The fall of the Berlin Wall led him out of Queens into the big world. After trips to Germany and Romania for their first democratic elections Jason traveled to Russia in 1991, just before the August coup that marked the end of the USSR, and have returned many times since culminating in a photography book project called “Wonderland: A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith”, exhibited at Visa pour L’Image in Perpignan, France and at the Leica Gallery in New York and winner of Best Photography Book 2008 by Pictures of the Year International. Eskenazi spent more than a decade photographing life in the former Soviet Union. He says that USSR is a gloomy utopian nightmare . He believes that it’s a tragedy that people of the ruined empire, who are not ready for a new life, who don’t see their place in future,  feel nostalgic about the communistic past. Jason says his photographs are about the difficulty of losing what you always thought would be there. Wonderland is about nostalgia, choices, missed chances, the search for life… the finding of love and the loss of love. For him it is the metaphor of the Soviet Union.

Jason Eskenazi has received numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1999; The Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize, 1999, for his work in a Jewish Village in Azerbaijan; and The Alicia Patterson Foundation Grant, 1996. His work has appeared in many magazines including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and Soros Foundation publications.
photoslaves

All images  © Jason Eskenazi

Publication
Wonderland – A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith. DeMO Books, (USA), 2008.
Title Nation, with Valeri Nistratov, Schilt Publishing, 2010
Solo Exhibitions
Wonderland- A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith, Leica Gallery, New York, USA, 2007-2008
Wonderland- A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith, Visa Pour L Image, Perpignan, France, 2004
Group Exhibitions
The Aftermath Project Benefit Auction, Peer Gallery, New York. 2006
Moving Walls, Open Society Institute, New York,1999
Collections
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Leica Gallery, New York
Awards & Grants:
Best Photography Book POYi, 2008  “WONDERLAND.”
Fulbright Scholar, 2005
Guggenheim Fellow, 1999
Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize, 1999
Links:
Jason Eskenazi website: http://www.jasoneskenazi.com
NYTimes Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/showcase-15/
Kids With Cameras: http://www.jasoneskenazi.com/kwc/index.html
Studio 360 Interview with Jason: http://www.studio360.org/2009/dec/18/aha-moment-robert-frank/