April’s most loved photo stories take us from the suburbs of small-town Finland to Tokyo’s once-lavish love hotels via a night partying with Barcelona’s hardcore rave community. Middle East Archive’s latest book documents women’s lives across the Middle East, North Africa, and the diaspora, while Abdulhamid Kircher’s New Genesis takes a compassionate look at the story of one woman – Sierra Kiss, a single mother, struggling with the impact of addiction, homelessness and domestic violence. Slava Mogutin’s portraits celebrating queer bodies feel as urgent as ever. Meanwhile, Akila Berjaoui’s blissful pictures of the beach will have you longing for the hot sand of an idyllic Greek island. 

JUSSI PUIKKONEN, CRUISE

Pilluralli is a Finnish subculture in which young people socialise in cars, meeting at night to drive in convoy around their towns or parking in groups and hanging out in and around their vehicles. While it’s largely considered antisocial behaviour by the establishment, it’s a relatively innocent ritual; more about celebrating what’s often the first private space young people acquire that truly belongs to them – the inside of their first car – than it is about menacing the Finnish suburbs.

Jussi Puikkonen’s atmospheric photo series captures the details of the souped-up cars – the enhanced speakers and accessories, the paint jobs and the personalised flourishes – as well as the groups of friends piled into the backseats, gathered round the bonnets and behind the wheels, as exhaust fumes billow against darkening Scandinavian skies.

Read the full story here on Dazed. 

SLAVA MOGUTIN - 25 YEARS

This retrospective brought together a quarter of a century of portraits from Slava Mogutin’s ongoing series Anaog Human Studies – an ever-growing collection of photographs capturing and celebrating queer life. “What interests me is disaffection and discontent,” he told Dazed in a recent interview. “My work isn’t about representation, it’s about proximity: fragments of lived experience; bodies that carry desire, danger and damage at the same time.” 

Having been exiled from Russia for his writing and queer activism, Mogutin looks to inspiration from the queer artists making work before Stonewall; literature and art which he describes as “more experimental, more dangerous, more political and emotionally charged”.  He sees a parallel between his own experiences as a dissident in Russia and the way that figures like Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs and James Baldwin fought the system. And it‘s as crucial now as it was then. “I don’t believe in art for art’s sake. I don’t believe in safe art. I don’t believe in art that’s apolitical, decorative or elitist,” he explained. “We’re facing a worldwide epidemic of hate, bigotry and violence. It’s not the time for safe art.”

Read the full story here on Dazed.

MIDDLE EAST ARCHIVE, AL NISA/WOMEN

For the last six years, Middle East Archive has documented visual culture across the Middle East, North Africa, and the diaspora. This year, with contributions from Myriam Boulos, Juliette Cassidy, Farah Al Qasimi and many more, their eighth volume focuses on women and ever-evolving definitions and representations of womanhood. “I wanted to create a book that feels like a celebration, but also reflects the diversity and complexity of their lives,” founder Romaisa Baddar told Dazed. “The images resist the idea that there is one way to be a woman. And what made curating it so fun and interesting for me is working with over 70 different photographers who captured women in different places, for different reasons, so I was able to accomplish this diversity through the access to so many different perspectives.”

Read the full story here on Dazed. 

ABDULHAMID KIRCHER, NEW GENESIS

Abdulhamid Kircher’s New Genesis takes a sympathetic but unsentimental look at homelessness, domestic violence, and other struggles impacting the life of a young single mother living in Los Angeles. Baring witness to the daily struggles of his friend Sierra Kiss, Kircher’s latest photo book reveals the myriad ways American systems of care – from shelters to churches and social services – have been eroded by chronic underfunding and government policy, failing the women and children most dependent on them.

“Over time, I’ve realised that I gravitate to people who have gone through similar traumas to myself or my family,” Kircher told Dazed. “Sierra really reminded me of my mother. Their stories are different, but my mother was also young when she had me; she had no support system and suffered abuse from my dad. When I first met Sierra, she had no one. She had lost her mum to an overdose, and her father was in jail for life… but at its core, this work is really speaking about one person’s experience. I always struggle with broader generalisations, because there are so many women struggling, not getting the help they need, but in this work, I just wanted to be true to Sierra’s experience. I think when you're honest and truthful, people connect to that.” 

Read the full story here on Dazed. 

SOFIYA LORIASHVILI, 30 DAYS IN JAPAN

Paris-based, Ukraine-born photographer Sofiya Loriashvili continues her exploration of Tokyo’s love hotels with her latest photo series, 30 days in Japan. Having worked in strip clubs in France, this series expands her images, investigating the mysterious spaces that exist like erotic enclaves in the landscape of the city. She works with known collaborators to examine her outsider’s perspective of BDSM as both a literal and symbolic structure within Tokyo. “BDSM is a form of restraint that, to me, reflects certain aspects of Japanese society, as well as the tension between the omnipresence of sexual imagery and strict censorship,” she says. “I’m always impressed by those billboards, posters, ranges of champagne girls out in the streets and at the same time blurred dicks and pussies.”

Read the full story here on Dazed. 

JULIETTE CASSIDY, 24-HOUR PARTY, PEOPLE

Juliette Cassidy’s 24 Hour Party, People follows a full day and night of partying with Barcelona’s hardcore community. The subculture’s roots stretch back to Valencia’s Ruta del Bakalao scene and the explosion of rave and electronic music that swept through Spain in the 80s and 90s. “I’ve always been captivated by people who live on the margins, who refuse to fit into the boxes society tries to put them in,” Cassidy told Dazed. “It’s actually a space with incredibly strong, passionate values and a rigid, DIY code of ethics… If one person wasn’t feeling okay and needed to leave, the others wouldn’t stay behind to keep partying; they all left together,” she continues. “It felt like a tribal survival mechanism, a subconscious understanding that they only survive and move forward by taking care of their own. That kind of loyalty is a world away from the rigid, individualistic norms that society often tries to impose on us.”

Read the full story here on Dazed. 

AKILA BERJAOUI, THE POSSIBLE DREAM

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the beach,” photographer Akila Berjaoui told Dazed in a recent interview. Born in New South Wales, Australia, to a Lebanese father and an Australian mother, she spent her early childhood in Beirut by the sea. “We lived on The Corniche, right on the Mediterranean Sea.” 

Her upcoming photo book, The Possible Dream, pays homage to her abiding love of the beach. Featuring glittering water, sun-kissed beaches with long shadows at golden hour, and sensual portraits of bathers with salty hair, it spans the most beautiful beaches of the Greek Cyclades, the Balearics, Italy and Tunisia. This book will have you yearning for summer.

Read the full story here on Dazed.