Ignacio Navas: La Linde

I was thinking how this whole photographic theme of the Spanish urban peripheries has become so clichéd in the sense that the works produced these days are quite similar formally and conceptually to those created back in the mid nineties. There is definitely something missing in these modern explorations of the margins of the Spanish city but in my opinion Ignacio Navas' ongoing La Linde is an attempt to fill in some of those gaps. His black and white series conveys a rare sense of anxiety and emptiness while exploring the edges and outer limits of these urban territories of Spain.

Uli Westphal: Mutato

It is via Nicola Twilley's Edible Geography blog that I have recently become aware of Uli Westphal's Mutato project. Since 2006 Uli has been collecting, classifying and photographing a large array of mutated produce found in the farmers' markets of Berlin - and now in his own small farm. He states: 

"The complete absence of botanical anomalies in our supermarkets has caused us to regard the consistency of produce presented there as natural. Produce has become a highly designed, monotonous product. We have forgotten, and in many cases never experienced, the way fruits, roots, and vegetables can actually look (and taste). The Mutato-Project serves to document, preserve and promote these last remainders of agricultural diversity."

I personally find this work fascinating because it provides a countervailing view to the aesthetic notions we impose over the appearance of vegetables in our contemporary society. Eating perfectly shaped tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers in November or February is nothing but a lifestyle choice that has serious ecological and humanitarian consequences. In this sense Westphal points out that since the Green Revolution a vast majority of plant varieties that humans have bred over the past 10,000 years has simply vanished:

"The detachment of the people from the land, from the processes of food production has allowed this extinction to happen behind the scenes, without any public awareness. The ever increasing amount of processed foods and food imports also contributed to the illusion that the diversity of our food supply was increasing not declining."

It is also very relevant to note that Uli Westphal's Mutato project has not concluded with the creation of a photographic archive of vegetable mutation. He has also started a small farm in order to experience first hand the implications of growing his own vegetables, to create further awareness and, of course, adding new Mutato samples to his existing collection. Both his blog and website condense a wealth of information, experiences and insight.

Hari Kunzru: Address to European Writers Parliament

Thanks to Stanley, editor of The Great Leap Sideways, that I became aware of the points made by the novelist Hari Kunzru in his address to the European Writers Parliament last November. Here is an extract that struck me:

The third area of concern for us as writers is the use of language to produce identity. In the European context this is particularly crucial, as the economic crisis is immiserating large numbers of people, who are  - as always in European history - turning towards xenophobia and atavistic nationalism in the hope of identifying an enemy more tangible than global capital.

It seems to me that multiculturalism, once a useful and progressive kind of politics, is no longer functioning as well as it did. The limits of identity politics are becoming clear. Instead of a playful, creative blending of the best of host and migrant cultures, the terms of multiculturalism are increasingly used by cultural conservatives of all stripes to police cultural boundaries. A liberal politics of absolute inclusivity, while presenting itself as pragmatic, has the disadvantage of obscuring genuine differences and antagonisms. Identity politics, which privileges categories like race and religion, is wilfully silent about class. Culture is, self-evidently, at the heart of this, and so we as writers have a central role to play. It sickens me to watch European bigots puffing up their chests about the values of the Enlightenment, as a badge of their superiority against poor and marginalised immigrant populations. Again, I say that opposition to this Enlightenment fundamentalism, isn’t moral relativism, but an ethical imperative. At this point, respecting difference is important, but so is asserting our common life across borders of race, class and religion. The fake pageantry of respect is no substitute for a genuine internationalism.

I can't agree more with this effort to reorient the debate and question the claims that multiculturalism has failed altogether.

Photographic Typologies

Level 5 of the Collection Displays at the Tate Modern: Five rooms devoted to the photographic typologies of Thomas Ruff, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Graham, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, among others. Curated by Rachel Taylor, she is involved in acquisitions of works by contemporary international artists for Tate’s permanent Collection. Needless to say August Sander, whose work can be seen in the central gallery, features prominently.

August Sander - The Painter Heinrich Hörle

A great opportunity to investigate the relationship between deadpan aesthetics and documentary photography. And see good quality prints.

These Americans

Workers from Mexico at a Cedar Mill near Leakey, Texas, and San Antonio 12/1973

From the great These Americans, a project by Doug Rickard, founder and editor of American Suburb X, that explores American photographic archives.

(Words without Borders): The Work Force Issue

Happy 2011 to all. New Year's resolutions? Definitely more blog postings, certainly more shooting, obviously less impractical thinking. Anyways, it is a great start to the year, with quality writing on labour and employement around the world, in the January issue of the online magazine Words without Borders. I have enjoyed most of both the non-fiction and fiction narrative featured, and especially that of Andrés Felipe Solano's Six Months on Minimum Wage, where he goes undercover in a textile factory in Medellín, Colombia:

"My work day begins at 6:45 a.m. (...) At the entrance I look for a yellow card with my name on it and I slide it into the slot of a metal clock that looks a lot like a small safe. I hate that sound in the morning, the heavy clack, like a shackle; but I love the music it makes at 5:00 p.m., when I check out, like the snap of fingers returning me to the world. Each time you stamp your timecard in a factory, it’s like putting a price on your day. Mine is worth 14,500 pesos ($7.67).

He bears witness to the precarious working conditions in which his coworkers are employed and learns why they need to put up with them. But, just as importantly, Solano offers a meaningful insight into the socio-political fabric in which the factory is inserted:

"Twelve thousand employees in the industry have lost their jobs in the first half of 2007 and some employees have already departed, rather than wait for their pink slip. One of my coworkers told me in the hallway that he was moving to a town in the middle of the rainforests of Chocó to run a hardware store. (...) Something smells bad in this city. Thousands of country folk made their way through the rainforest to found Medellín, the great city of industry. And now their descendants are returning to the humidity of the jungle."

He is later employed as an assistant in a lorry collecting the finished clothing from workshop to workshop, most set up in the living rooms of houses in neighbouring urban districts:

"Our second errand that afternoon is in a slum built on top of an old dump. We’re there to collect a dozen sacks of clothing. In Moravia. Or what was left of it. The night before I arrived in Medellín a fire burned down two hundred houses in this barrio. My travels with Isaza were becoming a sort of verification of the city’s tragedies."

In the last paragraphs the writer considers his own experience from a strictly personal standpoint and struggles to come to terms with the intensity of it all.

"I close my eyes and see the cutters on the fifth floor, the embroiderers and the printers on the fourth, the fifty sewing machines on the third, sounds that are by now as familiar to me as tapping on a keyboard. (...) Every time I write something in this little black book it seems like the answer is ever more remote, like a cargo ship headed for the Orient."

Writings by Najem Wali or Quim Monzó in this current issue, or browsing through that of November 2008, The Enigma of Arrival, are in any case a reality check after the Christmas celebrations and a much needed source of insight.
 

Edwin Booth as Hamlet by J. Gurney & Son, New York, ca 1870

Beyond Reportage

There are a number of documentary photographers in Spain that have addressed the phenomenon of migrations in the country using an array of contemporary visual strategies. Many of them seem to have reconsidered in their personal projects the conventions of the classic photo essay and its role in shaping traditional representations.

Luis Belmonte. La Dehesa

While Luis Belmonte's La Dehesa series looks at the transitional nature of the camps built by the council of Albacete for the accommodation of migrant agricultural workers, Sebastián Conejo investigates in his Mezquitas the empty interiors of the areas reserved for communal prayer in the urban mosques of Catalonia. What might appear as a new set of typologies, these images are instead an invitation to contemplate the space and silence within the existing architecture and certainly beyond our own preconceptions. The quietness and serenity that both photographers are able to convey contrasts quite sharply with the social and political controversies surrounding the construction - and even the existence - of these shelters.

Sebastián Conejo. Mezquita

Many documentary photographers have also resorted to vernacular photography and turned their attention to the high street photo studio, the institutional archive or the family album. Seems that their scope is to bring about a strong sense of closeness and to highlight the fact that the individuals and communities have actively participated in the process of documentation. Instead of pressing the shutter, these photographers use their editing skills to browse through hundreds of images in albums, boxes and digital media. Picking up an image becomes a decisive moment in its own right and this is exactly the case with the work of Juan Valbuena. With the patronage of Casa Arabe cultural centre of Madrid, he has put together a great book and exhibition: Nosotros, Un álbum colectivo del barrio de Lavapiés.

Juan Valbuena

www.luisbelmonte.com
www.sebastianconejo.com
www.casaarabe-ieam.es

Dinu Li and Judith Quax

The personal possessions of undocumented Chinese migrant workers in the north of England in the intimacy of their temporary accommodation is the subject in Dinu Li's project Secret Shadows.

Due to their legal status in the UK and their likely refusal to be photographed, Li investigates instead their lifestyle through their belongings and the stark simplicity of their rooms.

The photographer explores in these images notions of displacement, memory and identity as we are allowed to enter the privacy of the workers' rooms and to use our judgement and imagination to interpret the traces of their presence and hints of their absence.

Although with a different rationale, Judith Quax has also placed these traces at the core of her subject matter.  She has photographed the rooms where young Senegalese men had lived before setting off for the Canary Islands in their quest to reach the European Union and join its workforce. The precarious fishing boats in which these men and women are trafficked carry up to 150 people in a journey that can take at least three days to complete.

Judith "talked to family and friends of the men, interested why the men made this perilous trip and to find out what happened to them. Some of them died, some of them reached Europe and from some of them there is no news".

www.judithquax.com (via)
www.dinuli.com

Points of View at the British Library

It might seem to be an unlikely visit for documentary photographers or photojournalists, but the exhibition Points of View currently held at the British Library in London features an outstanding number of seminal works in the field of social documentary, travel and war photography. Along with beautiful vintage prints and original photo books on display, it offers a relevant examination of early documentary photography as an ideological and commercially driven practice where photographic truth is rather a constructed representation. A few highlights:

John Thomson, A Cyprian Maid, Cyprus, 1878.  

The book Through Cyprus with the Camera (1879) of John Thomson is on show, along with images of Street Life in London, an important work that helped establish social documentary practice in the UK. In London, Thomson teamed up with journalist Adolphe Smith and together produced a monthly magazine, Street Life in London, from 1876 to 1877. The project used both text and images to illustrate the lives of the street people and the 'undeserving poor' of London using the very same visual approach Thomson did during his previous travels in China or India. Later, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), administration of Cyprus was ceded to the British Empire and in that context John Thomson wanted to create a "faithful souvenir of an island woefully wrecked by Turkish maladministration" whose illustrations would "afford a sense of comparison in after years, when, under the influence of British rule, the place has risen from her ruins".

Also on the walls is the iconic image of Thomas Annan Close No 118, High street, part of the book The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, a striking precedent for current photographic practices concerned with the documentation of areas undergoing "urban regeneration" programs. In 1868 the city corporation of Glasgow commissioned Annan to photograph the streets and closes of the City Parish slums before being demolished in order to leave room for the construction of brand new tenemental dwellings. Although Annan did not considered himself a social reformer in any sense, the series are held to be the earliest documentation of an urban slum - twenty years before the influential How the other Half Lives of Jacob Riis in New York. 

Edward Sheriff Curtis, Waiting in the forest, Cheyenne, 1910

In the section entitled Documenting Difference there are two prints of Edward Sheriff Curtis. In 1906 Curtis set out to document the existing Native American populations of the US with the political support of Theodore Roosevelt and the financial aid of J.P. Morgan. He took 40,000 images and edited them down to the 1,500 that made it to The North America Indian, consisting of twenty volumes. Curtis however manipulated and staged many of his pictures but this was a quite extended practice at the time, especially taking into account that many documentary photographers, like him, were actually commercial and studio practitioners by trade. Curtis then came up with a "simulated ethnography" of Native Americans supposedly unaffected by Western society with the ideological scope of representing them as a vanishing race. That being said, his images, as the one above, are haunting and extremely arresting but also rich in significance and implications, strongly connected to the artistic trends and ideological values of the time. 

Felice Beato, Interior of the North Taku Fort, immediately after its capture, 21 August 1860

Early war photography features prominently in the exhibition. Works of Robert and Harriet Tyler documenting the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857; images of John Burke during the Second Anglo-Afghan War as an example of a photographer embedded within an invading army; the iconic and controversial A Snapshooter's Last Sleep of Alexander Gardner; and several examples of the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent Paris Commune by Ernst Lucke and Henry Langerock.

Important to note as well are the images of Felice Beato documenting the Second Opium War. Again, thought to be acceptable, he arranged many scenes and a witness to the one above noted: "Beato was there in great excitement, characterising the group as 'beautiful' and begging that it might not be interfered with until perpetuated by his photographic apparatus". But the fact is that military servicemen and colonial officials were among the most loyal customers as his photographic works were regarded as an effective representation of colonial might and power.

 

Alberto Henshel. 1869 - 1870.

There are many other photographers and images that have really drawn my attention: The calotypes of David Octavious Hill and Robert Adamson and their "intimate visual essay" of the fishing community of New Haven in Scotland "anticipating  [as early as 1843] the social documentary role of photography"; the work of Peter Henry Emerson in the Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886) where "blending social documentary with photographic naturalism, he sought to capture a way of life threatened by industrial development, rural displacement and the growing popularity of tourism"; the cartes de visite of Alberto Henschel; the striking images of Richard Buchta, Guillaume Duchenne or Henry Finnis Bloose Lynch, the list can go on and on. The exhibition is vast and it takes a good two hours to cover most of it allowing time to read the thoughtful captions. It is definitely a great opportunity to discover good work linking to contemporary practices. It closes on the 7th of March and I can only recommend a visit. By the way, have you ever seen a camera lucida or a magic lantern?

www.bl.uk/pointsofview

All About Your Greens

The following films might interest those who want to learn more about mass-production of vegetables, the systematic use of exploited labour in the agribusiness industry and migration as a contemporary phenomenon.

A film by Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer, We Feed the World (2005) looks at the mass-production of food and the corporate grip on policy making. The Almería agribusiness industry features prominently but the film also deals with large-scale clearing for soja agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon; EU-sponsored dismantling of small scale traditional fishing boats in Brittany while favouring large, industrial trawlers; hybrid aubergine production subsidized by the government in Romania; and bread waste and battery chicken production in Austria.

Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, appears in the film stating: "If you go to the market in Senegal you can buy European produce for a third of the local prices. So the Senegalese peasant farmer no longer has any chance of earning a living."
 And he wonders: "So what can he do? If he's still got the energy he risks his life as an illegal immigrant via the Strait of Gibraltar and has to hire himself out in southern Spain in inhumane conditions [as a labourer in the greenhouses]".

Our Daily Bread (2005), a documentary film of German director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, portraits for more than 90 minutes the world of European industrial food production and farming - without any words. A truly stunning film to look at, the official website describes it perfectly: "Monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds - a cool, industrial environment which leaves little space for individualism. People, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of this system which provides our society’s standard of living".  There is also footage taken in Almería consisting in aerial views and the work inside the greenhouses.

In the documentary film El Ejido, la loi du profit (2007) Moroccan born Jawad Rhalib "points out the mechanism of an industrial system that exploits human beings and the environment. [It] is the story of degradation of human rights, environment and ethic values in Europe that are being imposed by globalization". However the most remarkable quality of this film is that Jawad fully focuses on the people employed in the greenhouse industry of Campo de Dalías and gathers their personal stories, opinions and perspectives. The director, a witness himself of the racist events of 2000 as a journalist working for the Radio Télévision Marocaine, also explores how the local population interacts with the migrant community.

I would also like to mention Elina Hirvonen's Paradise - Three Journeys in this World (2007). This film documents the difficult working and living conditions that the seasonal workers of Almeria have to endure. Concentrating in the person of Malian Bakary Fofana, Hirvonen also connects with his family in his country of origin. Besides, Hirvonen explores the quest of those still trapped in Moroccan soil trying to reach Europe.

Another outstanding film to watch, even though not a documentary, is Heremakono, Waiting for Happiness (2002) of Mauritanian born director Abderrahmane Sissako. The movie is set in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, the departure point for many migrants trying to reach the EU through the Canary Islands. Upon release from detention centers in the islands or mainland Spain, many will end up working in the greenhouse fields of Almeria. Here, Abdallah (Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed), visits this town, where his mother lives, before emigrating to Europe. The film is a delicate, evocative and subtle examination of the overwhelming urge to emigrate. Awarded in several festivals, the film received critical acclaim at Cannes in 2002. Sissako observes that "exile is something that happens prior to a trip, which is to say that all those who are gone have already left, even before making the geographic trip. To go is a generous act, (...) and in any case, humanity is the fruit of all travel and encounters".