Great Depression

Borut Peterlin was born on November 14, 1974 in Koper, Slovenia.

His optimism, energy and originality can drive someone to depression…

Borut graduated from Prague’s FAMU Academy with a BA in photography (1994-98) and earned a Postgraduate Diploma at The London College of Printing (2002-03). In 2000 he received a scholarship at Fabrica, Benetton’s Research Center for Communication and began working with Oliviero Toscani. In 2001, Peterlin started Fotopub Festival of Documentary Photography and served as art-director for seven years.

In 2011, KAUNAS PHOTO festival invited Borut Peterlin to show his “Flower Power” series of shots of flowers during routine and summit meetings of top-ranked political figures. The exhibition was shown in the Kaunas Botanical garden of Vytautas Magnus University. Currently however, Peterlin is solely focused on the ‘Antiquarian Avant- Guard’ or 19th century photography techniques with the emphasis on wet plate collodion.

Picture series The Great Depression, presented at Kaunas Photo festival 2014, documents the things the workers left behind after the companies they worked for went bankrupt during the economic crises of the 21st century. The images are shot using an old bellows camera, in wet plate collodion. The antique technique fits in with the Great Depression 1912-13 theme, embedding the emotional detachment from the event within the photographs themselves. This exhibition presents original glass ambrotypes.