Michaelis student a finalist in the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards
Carla Meyer-Kleynhans is a final year student at Michaelis is one of ten finalists in the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards. She was shortlisted for her series, Private Moments. She then went on to create a second series titled The Symbiosis of Belonging. In this series, Carla explores the concept of belonging to a person, place, family or moment. She states “To immerse yourself in a moment is to belong. To belong is to choose to devote yourself to loved ones who may or may not share your blood, to feel connected and share a history with a place, to live in a state of mutual symbiosis.”
Describing her series, she says: “My photographs aim to showcase a symbiosis between the private space and the spectacle: ordinary moments of belonging, disrupted by the presence of the photographer, who plays the role of an outsider. The tension between confronting those watching and immersing oneself in simply belonging is explored through this intimate and queer lens.”
As a finalist Carla received a Sony full frame camera on which she completed the second assignment, photographing to the brief ‘belonging’. She, along with one of her lecturers, is being flown to London in April for the award ceremony. All shortlisted and winning images will be exhibited as part of the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition in London from April 18 until May 6, 2019 before touring globally to countries including Japan, Italy and Germany.
If Carla wins the student competition, Michaelis will receive Sony imaging equipment to the value of 30 000 euros.