Photojournalism nominee

Autumn 2015. So many Syrian and Afghan refugees came to Austria.
I was deeply concerned about the fate of these people and joined a humanitarian convoy to Serbia. We brought clothes, shoes, blankets, food and water bottles to the Serbo-Hungarian border where busses, filled with refugees, arrived in short intervals.
While we tended to the most basic needs of these men, women and children I had the chance to make a series of nighttime photographs that reflect the drama of these outcasts.
Through my photographs I want to depict the dignity of these people, I want to show their beauty and their hope for a better future for themselves and specially for their children.

I feel a social responsibility which I express through the fundamental means of photography. My intention is to make the spectators read in the faces, to see the fear, the exhaustion, the desperation, the tension but also little flashes of joy and optimism. I want to evoke the viewers' empathy and initiate thoughts and discussions about the fates of migrants in an intercultural context.

NURITH WAGNER_STRAUSS


Born in Melk/Austria
Studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Mag.art, concert diploma Residency in Sudan for one year
Intensive engagement in photography
Since 1987 freelance photographer
Photo reportages about Roma in Southern Peleponnes /Greece
about Syrian refugees in Horgoš / Serbia and in Vienna / Austria
about children in slums and about migrant workers in India
about the NGO Nishta in Himachal Pradesh, India

Lives and works in Vienna

Multiple solo exhibitions and participation in group exhibitions e.g.


2016 " “outcast. hope“ Photographic Positions to the Outcasts of Society

Galerie Alpha /Vienna / Austria (S)

2015 " photo::vienna I Edition #2 – werkschau 2015

MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art / Vienna / Austria (G)

2015 " “Rabenmütter“ – Mütterbilder von 1900 bis heute

Lentos Museum of Modern Art / Linz / Austria (G)

2013 " “The Kids of Rakkar“ Community Center Sidbhari / Himachal Pradesh / India (S)


3rd prize at 2016 Photo Contest Hoepfner Stiftung, Germany

The focus of my work is on women and children in a social context.
I feel a social responsibility which I express my way through the fundamental means of photography.