"Thank you". A simple expression, rarely posed as a question. But the viewer of David Monteleone’s exhibition Spasibo (Thank you) should be wary. For a keener eye and sharper ear are needed where a lens, seemingly clear, focuses on the twisted identity of Chechnya.

It is a country that drags with it a heap of tattered stereotypes, war-torn ideas of what constitutes a place and those who live in it. For many in the West, Chechnya is nothing but a place of conflict, its people either soldiers or victims. It is the purpose of the Foundation Carmignac and their Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award, to free countries like this, marked by moments in their past, so that they might live on in people’s minds as something present. Davide Monteleone, winner of the 2014 award and part-time Russian resident and long-time observer of Chechnyan life, believes this to be very important; "of course life goes on," he says with a shrug, "but the question is, how does life go on?"

His images demand a second glance. Each Carmignac award is about an idea rather than a series of images, and Monteleone’s exhibition asks us to "imagine what lies outside the pictures" that make up the portrait of a nation. For the viewer to "make their own story", drawing the separate images together with their own narrative thread.  But, as in all politics, attention must be paid to what is not being said.

https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/4003/david-monteleone-spasibo