BIO
Olga Ingurazova is a Russian-born photographer, international visual journalist and educator.
She began her carrier documenting post-conflict recovery and the aftermath of separatist movements. In 2015 Olga was named to the shortlist of ”30 under 30” emerging talents by Magnum Photos and was listed as one of Photo Boite’s “30 under 30 women photographers” to watch.
Today Ingurazova produces personal projects as well as cross-media editorial work worldwide as a photographer, producer and project manager. She combines artistic insider’s perspective and the distance of a journalistic observer.
Ingurazova was awarded and supported by the Lucie Foundation Award, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Prize, Aftermath Project Foundation, Invisible Photographer Asia Scholarship, IAFOR Documentary Award, International photography Direct Look Award.
She has been internationally published (Smithsonian magazine, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Io Donna, Courier international, Russian Reporter) and exhibited (Les Rencontres d’Arles, Encontros da Imagem Festival, Latvian Museum of Photography, Festival Pil’Ours, Palm Springs Photo Festival, International Festival of Photography PhotoVisa among others). See full CV.
Olga is a member of International Federation of Journalists, Russian Union of Journalists and Women Photograph Foundation. She studied photojournalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University and broadcast media at the High School of Film and Television Ostankino.
Photo: Maria Ionova-Gribina.
BACKSTAGE & PROJECTS
Trained in the field of journalism Olga became a post-war photographer and used her investigations to act in processes of peaceful post-conflict recovery. Till 2017 she was documenting disputed regions in the Post-Soviet world and the Caucasus and participated in dialogue programs that were helping divided communities in Georgia, Armenia, Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Moldavia and Ukraine to rebuild relationships in the aftermath of the civil and national wars.
Ingurazova provided the coverage in the international media, held campus activities and trained local mass media stuff. She collaborated with local governments to launch cultural events helping repatriates families from war-torn Syria, returned to the ethnic motherland, to assimilate in the South Caucasus. Worked in the back of the violence preventions between muslim and christian residents around Serbian enclaves in Kosovo.
Olga’s award-winning photo stories ”Scars of Independence” and ”Wolf Story” were published as a part of a book series "War Is Only Half the Story". In 2016 the Guardian selected Ingurazova as one of the ”ten best photographers documenting post-Soviet and East Europe”.
Being sports enthusiast and football fan, she covered four Mundials (FIFA World Cups in South Africa 2010, in Brazil 2014, in Russia 2018 and CONIFA Football Games 2016 in Abkhazia), Winter Olympics 2014 in Russia and 2012 UEFA European Championship in Poland and Ukraine.
Her work was focused on the dynamics of fans subcultures and how sports forms and connects communities, infrastructures and nations. Ingurazova worked with officials and footballers from Somaliland, Northern Cyprus, Padania, Iraqi Kurdistan, Sapmi and Panjab during CONIFA (Football Cup for de-facto nations and sports isolated territories around the world).
Producing TV documentaries and News during FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russian cities, Ingurazova knot together foreign media, locals and sportspersons for a set of international events, including training for local junior football teams with foreign footballers.
MANIFESTO & METHOD
Working her way up in documentary storytelling Olga witnessed how the combination of visual arts, education and participatory experience creates new cultural and social norms in the groups.
She uses personal projects and education activities to develop local talents and practice visual communication that change cultural and social mindset inside her own country.
Olga organizes her personal and commissioned projects the way its backstage becomes an offline platform that allows people to connect and act together. She includes protagonists of her stories, general audience and local institutions in research, production, and exposition stages.
Ingurazova believes in soft correcting power of visual pedagogy that shows the relevancy of travel fast between cultures and identities, and that knows how to translate this travels into transmittable and adequate emotions and experiences.
Olga collaborates with practicioners from the fields of arts, mass media, sports and pedagogy driven by the belief that an artistic game plan in everyday life is "a way to fall in love with diversity and bring back 'sport' in our lives." Ingurazova was a guest speaker and educator during festivals and forums in Russia, Belgium, Croatia, France, Latvia and Italy.
Ingurazova teaches an author course for photography, visual arts and journalism students and practitioners. Full and 1-3 weeks "short-sprint" versions are adaptable to any audience, educational program or public event. It focused on overcoming individual limitations and unsound competition provoked by today’s process of inclusion in the industry. Finding joy in connecting field work with deeply personal needs. In order to become not only storytellers but storymakers.
