We recently got to know The Sochi Project, by Arnold van Bruggen and Rob Hornstra, a project that aims to cover the changes that will take place in the area of Sochi, Russia, next host of the Winter Olympics in 2014.

In their own words:

The Sochi Project will be a dynamic mix of documentary photography, film and reportage about a world in flux; a world full of different realities within a small but extraordinary geographic area.

The Sochi Project is a unique, in-depth and as such a costly project. Dutch newspapers and magazines are unable to undertake or afford a project of this scale. We think it is important that independent, documentary journalism continues to exist. That’s why we are doing it ourselves.

Check out the interview we made with Arnold van Bruggen (click “Continue” for the interview).

1. How did you come up with the idea for The Sochi Project? What was your motivation?

Around new year’s eve 2006-2007 we made our first combined trip, through Georgia and Abkhazia. It was a good trip, it ended up in several publications and we decided to move on working together. So Arnold worked on some of the texts in Robs book 101 Billionaires and asked Rob to work on a project on the Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi. We already discussed earlier plans on working in the Caucasus, and the Olympic Games were the beste scapegoat imaginable to start such a project. Because everybody knows about the Olympic Games, and even people who don’t like sports are interested in the social and political aspects of organising these Games in such an area. For us it was an excuse to investigate all different kinds of topics in this huge and really diverse region, and connecting all these stories more or less to the Games gives even complete timeless subjects a certain sense of urgency or actuality.

2. A lot of people in the business say we’re in the middle of a huge crisis – no more venues for publishing documentary work, no money for online content etc. Do you agree? Is The Sochi Project a positive response to these claims?

Modern media – in The Netherlands but abroad as well – have a hard time trying to survive with low advertisement revenues and readers wanting more focus on domestic issues. Of course we could have considered different ways of getting this project financed, like applying for many funds and try to get some freelance contract with newspapers or magazines, but the great plus of this project is that we built our own medium. We have our own photography magazine, our own videozine with room for small and large stories on stories we pick – without all the sometimes ridicolous demands of Dutch media that there should be a connection with the Netherlands, or that all stories should have some newsworthy relevance. We can work in many styles, we can write monologues, fictionalised, bloglike, background articles, portraits, everything is ours to decide and so far the donors like it. We created complete freedom for ourselves.

For many years already we were looking for a way to make our manner of working, namely slow and investigative journalism, profitable for ourselves. Especially for me (Arnold) as a writer it is hard to get even with the costs of this kind of travels, let alone to make it profitable. We came up with this idea and we think it is the first time this model is used on this big scale, for a five year project and with the aim of collecting more than 100.000 euro for all our expenses – mind you – we’re not getting any salary of it. The logline of our project; the first time that the Games will be organised in such a troublesome region, is very sexy and promises many good stories. And also the way in which we organised our donorships, along with the Olympic medal system bronze, silver and gold is catchy. So we knew the subject of our project was very suitable to try this system. I don’t know if it would have worked if we would have been investigating Mongol nomads or another subject. But maybe next time such a subject will work as well, because right now we’re delivering more than wat we promised to our donors, in the sense of lots of personal attention, a firstclass book due to be released in November which silver and gold donors will get for free, and all already in the first year of the project. There are many good stories and photography series on the website. And all of this brilliantly designed by Kummer & Herrman, who actually participate with us in this project on a percentual budget, so the more donorships we get, the more realistic their budget will get as well.

I think – concerning venues for Documentary Photography – Rob is more into this, but I think in the Netherlands thanks to venues like Fotodok in Utrecht, things are getting better.

3. How is it going so far? Are the responses positive?

We’re getting a great response on our projects. Mostly online blogs write about our project, but also traditional media sometimes cover it and they’re always positive. They consider us to be pioneers – and the subject we choose is very strong. So people really like it. And we keep on getting more people to donate to us. It’s really good. Many photographers and others around the world mail us for tips and clues how to do something like this. We like that.

4. Crowdfunding sounds like the perfect market solution – the public get what they paid for, the journalist gets not only money but satisfaction. Is this model feasible in larger scale? I mean, do you think it will be possible one day to live out of it?

Anybody considering this should realize that It’s really a very demanding project. It’s like starting a completely new business. But of course, it’s not in any way profitable (at least not for me as a writer), we’re only covering the costs so we should work as well besides it. It are busy times, and that’s good. Maybe, if our community keeps on growing and people keep inviting us to talk about it and buy our books and other products, it’ll make a small living. that would be great. Four years to go!

Our donators are so far really enthusiastic about the project, i’m sorry to say that so far there has been no thorough discussion with donators about the way we do things, or handle our subjects in Sochi. That would be nice and it’s meant to be a part of our project. But maybe next year we will offer donators a journey to Sochi, to sleep in a beautiful sanatorium and meet people we’ll meet as well.

5. On The Sochi Project, besides funding the development of the story, you are giving something back to those who contribute. That is to me the main difference between yours and most of crowdfunded initiatives, where the only reward is the story itself. Why did you decide to reward the contributors? Is it a way of adding value to the project?

People really like to receive real stuff. People don’t pay for access to the website. that’s also a mistake we made for a start. People either pay to support our ideology, or pay to receive our books and other publications. So that’s why it’s easy to separate these two. Either support us with a small amount, or if you want to get the real stuff, pay more. I think you make people curious of what’s next. So far most people who donated 100 euros or more a year prolonged their donorship, while the bronze donators of 10 euros or more don’t really see the value of their investment as the silver and golden donors do. So at the one hand we should inform the people who donate small amounts really good about our ideology and how they’re upholding it with their donations, on the other hand, you see that receiving things keeps you more tied to the project, in both a materialistic and ideological sense.

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