Maria Gutu
HOMELAND
Republic of Moldova
HOMELAND
“The Homeland” series explores the connections between young people from the northern part of the Republic of Moldova and their surroundings. One third of Moldova's population has emigrated, and the number of citizens leaving increases every year. Homeland isn't only a place, person or event. When I was a child, my parents went abroad to work, and I spent time with my grandparents. Then, after I went to study in Chisinau, I realised I was visiting home so little that I began to want to spend more time documenting it, to experience what I missed: home, family. Perhaps I wanted to resolve this sense of loss of family connections by documenting the place of my childhood, wanting to know more about this beautiful place with its wonderful nature, from which people constantly leave. My work is a poetic quest for my roots, for a home whose meaning always changes.
ABOUT MARIA GUTU
Maria Gutu was born in 1996 in the Republic of Moldova. She is interested in documentary photography, remote places, youth, the notion of home and the relation between humans and the environment. In 2022, she finished her studies at the Docdocdoc School of Modern Photography, Saint Petersburg. Earlier, in 2020 she graduated in cinematography at the Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts in Chisinau.
In 2018, she became one of Artpil’s ‘30 under 30’ women photographers. In 2019, she received a CDFD (Centre of Documentary Photography) grant in Bucharest, Romania. In 2020, she was a finalist of the 2020 People Photography Award by The Independent Photographer. Since 2021, Maria has been a member of WomenPhotograph. In 2022, she was shortlisted at the Sony World Photography Awards, Open Competition: Portraiture. She has participated in collective exhibitions in Romania, France and the United States.
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