MONIR SALIHI
is a swiss photographer from Zurich, working primarily in 35mm and medium format. His early work focused on skateboarding, while overtime he has shifted his attention to portraiture. The images he produces are hauntingly still. The moments he captures feel as if they could not have actually existed in our world, full of flaws and constantly in flux. However there is more to hisnwork than just being nice portraits. The influence of his early work has given even the most stunning of his portraits a certain amount of grit and realness despite their fleeting fragility. As with any documentation of youth or the counterculture, Salihi moves fluidly through these worlds as an insider. This insider position gives his images great intimacy. He sets his viewers up for an intense relationship with each of his subjects, mostly through their direct (and often critical) eye contact, pulling the viewer further into these worlds. Through his lense, the people captured in just those moments and in just those places seem (if only for 1/125 of a second) perfect.
Hannah Gottschalk
Monir Salihi (born 1986) lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland.