Bieke Depoorter, Belgium

Bieke Depoorter was born in Kortrijk and graduated from KASK in 2009 with a series on Russia, which won the Magnum Expression Award and the Photo Academy Award for GUP magazine. Of this series, Oe Menia, Depoorter writes: ‘For three periods of one month, I have let the Trans-Siberian train guide me alongside forgotten villages, from living room to living room. Some Russian words scribbled on a little piece of paper allowed me to be welcomed and absorbed in the warm chaos of a family. Accidental encounters led me to the places where I could sleep. The living room, the epicentre of their life, establishes an intimate contact between the Russian inhabitants. In this room, they sleep, eat and drink, as well as cry. For a brief moment, I was part of this. Their couch became my bed for one night. This way, I experienced transient, but very powerful, shared moments. We communicated without words. We understood each other somehow’.