independent ↗ © Rob Hornstra/INSTITUTE. Courtesy Flatland Gallery
The Sochi Project In The Sochi Project, Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen have since 2009 been documenting the changes in and around Olympic Sochi, Russia. Over a period of five years, The Sochi Project will become an atlas of this volatile region, from the multi-billion-dollar investments in the Olympic venues to the conflict-ridden territories of the Northern Caucasus and Georgia. The Sochi Project is a dynamic mix of documentary photography, film and reportage about a world in flux; a world full of different realities within a small but extraordinary geographic area. The Sochi
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Project is a unique, in-depth and costly project. Dutch newspapers and magazines are unable to undertake or afford a project on this scale. Hornstra and Van Bruggen think it is important that independent, documentary journalism continues to exist, which is why they are doing it themselves, financed by their donor system and by selling special edition prints and publications, like Empty Land, Promised Land (2010), Sanatorium (2009), the Annual C-Print Collectors Box, posters or Christmas cards (with prices ranging from € 6 to € 1,000).