Bieke Depoorter’s photo series, Oe Menia, won the Magnum Expression Award and the Photo Academy Award for GUP magazine. Of the work, she says: ‘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. This way, I experienced transient, but very powerful, shared moments. We communicated without words. We understood each other somehow’.

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