Mimi Mollica: East London Up Close
Spontaneous, close-up images capture the joyful cacophony of an ever-changing community.
At once familiar and beguilingly abstract, this playful series by local photographer Mimi Mollica thrusts you straight into the heart of London’s frenetic East End. Intense, colorful snapshots of people, fabrics, architecture, wildlife, and everyday objects create a kaleidoscope of the inspiring, frustrating, wild, and living streets. Though confronting in its (sometimes extreme) closeness, Mollica’s photography is full of warmth and a love for his community – making us yearn for a time when being near to others was a normal part of day-to-day life.
‘These images have a giddy quality. They don’t just record what the photographer saw, they replicate the process of seeing; the way that the east London street pulls you in and tosses you about in its visual currents.’ – Rachel Segal Hamilton, from the introduction. (via Photolondon.org)
The book is published by Hoxton Mini Press.
About the Author
Mimi Mollica is an award-winning photographer, born in Palermo – Sicily in 1975. His photo essays deal with social issues and topics related to identity, environment, migration, and macroscopic human transitions. Mimi chooses to work on long-term projects which allow him to research explore and develop a subject in depth. As a result, Mimi had traveled and photographed across the continents working on assignments and on his personal projects.
Mimi collaborates with a number of prestigious magazines and book publishers, including among others; The Guardian Weekend Magazine, FT Weekend Magazine, The NYT Lens blog, Newsweek Japan, Sunday Times Magazine, Internazionale, Granta Magazine, Thames & Hudson and Lars Muller.
His work has been featured on a number of exhibitions and festivals of photography across the globe such as Somerset House, London 2013, The Rencontres D’Arles 2011, London Street Photography 2011, Contributed Gallery, Berlin 2010, Jerwood Space, London 2010, Milk Gallery, New York City and Third Floor Gallery, Cardiff 2010 and European Parliament, Strasbourg 2009.
Since 2011 Mimi runs his innovative series of online and physical workshops on visual story-telling, focussing on developing the photographer’s ability to conceive, produce and package a photo essay of their choice.
In early 2015 Mimi founded the Photo Meet, an organization aimed at celebrating photography through a series of events such as the Offspring Photo Meet which include portfolio reviews, lectures, networking, presentations, and much more.
