About Me
Denis Vejas (1986 Lithuania) is a Vilnius-based documentary photographer, and visual storyteller.
Big part of my work has been done in nomadic settings, living the experiences that the road brings. As a photographer and a traveler, I always felt attracted by the things happening on the peripheries of the global world, focusing on the social outskirts and the spaces that are commonly marginalized.
Photography is the only thing that stayed with me from the beginning of my travels - everything else was temporal. It became a medium for me, the way to connect my world with the worlds that I am experiencing and to tell a story of people that I meet. The ones who were rejected by society and those who are rejecting the social norms attracted me the most. The main protagonist in my work is the outcasted one, labeled as a marginal, an illegal, a rebel, a witch..."
Shows and Awards
2021 06 - Marte Live multidisciplinary art competition,
Northern Europe semifinalist in photography category.
Finals gonna take place in Rome in December 2021.
2020 10 - Life Framer Photography Award Honorary Mention,
"Humans of the World" category, judged by Amy Kellner, Photo Editor at The New York Times.
2020 10 - Solo photography exhibition as a part of 'In Latino festival' .
"Day of The Dead" series. Public space, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2020 09 - Life Framer Photography Award Honorary Mention,
"Civilization" category, judged by Tate Modern’s Curator of International Art and Photography Emma Lewis.
2020 05- Life Framer Photography Award Honorary Mention .
"World traveller" category, judged by celebrated social documentary photographer Greg Girard.
2019 - Solo photography exhibition as a part of 'In Latino festival' .
"Residents and Visitors" series. Public space, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2019 - Solo photography exhibition as a part of photography festival "Encuentro Fotografico Mexico".
(Not) a Witch Portrait" photo series. Tijuana, Mexico
2018 - Life Framer Photography Award Honorary Mention. "Instant" category,
judged by Clément Saccomani, Managing Director of the highly-revered photographer-owned agency NOOR.
2017 - Collective photography exhibition "Magic and Witchcraft in the year 2017".
"Last Sufy Dervish in Kazakhstan" and "(Not) a Witch Portrait" series, Laarne Belgium.
2014 - Personal photography exhibition "Flow'ers". "Rainbow Gatherings" photo series. CommuneArt artists' residence, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2015 - Collective documentary photography exhibition "La Gran Pramesa".
"Maidan, Anarchy in the UKR" photo series. Hidalgo, Mexico.
2013 - 3rd place in 'Traver Scholarship photography awards' organized by National Geographic and World Nomads. "Last Sufy Dervish in Kazakhstan" photo series
Selected Publications
Human Affair Magazine / Agbogbloshie
Docu Magazine / Direction North (printed feature + cover photo)
Human Affair Magazine / Galamsey
NARA / Smaragdų karštligė. Kanapių karpymas Kalifornijoje
Calvert Journal / Belarus Protests: The Election that Shook the Country
Beware Magazine / The New Normal
Vice Espana / Así es la vida de la Familia Arcoíris
Vice International / My Strange Winter with a Shaman in Kazakhstan
The phoblographer /Winter with a shaman in Kazkahstan
Juxtapoz / Rainbow Gatherings: Images from a Modern-Day Hippie Paradise
Vice Espana / We went to a voodoo macrocelebration in Benin
Vice Canada / Ambient Photos of Nocturnal Western Africa
Vice Mexico / La danza de los cornudos: un after party con caguamas y machetes en Guanajuato
Vice Mexico / Hazte millonario cortando y fumando mota durante cinco meses
Beware Magazine / Bienvenue au Rainbow Gathering : dans l’œil de Denis Vejas
El Papel / La Bestia: el método más barato y peligroso para llegar a Estados Unidos
The main feeling that you experience from Denis Vejas work is a sensation of an encounter with a unknown world; a diverse cluster of parallel universes, mankind portraits from different cosmos, images which seeks to maintain an intimate distance into the deep of the emotional, the mystical, the wild..
His work is about an elaboration of social landscapes. It is a set of visual essays about reality and lucubration invented by our interpretations or visions, fruit of this distant lands away from the bubbles that we are used to live in - a magical realism making presence as a fact - through a ritual, or an escape to another place, a way of living (or surviving). Denis show us a game of temporality, a slide which conjugates the past and the present. His still images border on a pictorial form, evoking the scenes that shows our wild, our nature instinct, our most beautiful human brutality.
- Lucas Jose Carrelis
