SLIDESHOW PROGRAM Schedule day by day The 6th ANGKOR PHOTO FESTIVAL November 2o - 27, 2o1o Siem Reap - Cambodia
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Projection Summaries – Saturday November 2oth FCC Angkor Curated by Reminders Project and pdfX12’s Yumi Goto A special presentation of 15 ASIAN WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS working in their native countries.
1. Gali Tibbon, Israel Echoes of Christian Jerusalem Thousands of pilgrims from across the world flock to Jerusalem to retrace the last steps of Jesus, walking the Via Dolorosa that ends at the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried and resurrected. A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, Gali Tibbon’s photographs offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the church, home to six ethnic Christian denominations.
2. Burcu GÜknar / Photo Araf, Turkey Night Shift Just as the women of their family have done for generations, the two sisters in Burcu GÜknar’s story have worked as belly dancers in Istanbul nightclubs since they were eleven years old. To bring home enough money to support their family, they perform in five or six different venues every night, returning home with the sunrise. Gradually, their lives have diverged; one is now a celebrity who dances on TV, while the other continues to dance in nightclubs.
3. Mariam Amurvelashvili, Georgia Prison Since 2oo5, Mariam Amurvelashvili has been documenting the conditions in Georgian prisons. Ortachala prison was notorious for its poor living conditions, housing ten times more prisoners than it was built to contain. In 2oo6, it was destroyed and replaced by a new facility where each prisoner has a bed, good food and hygiene, medical care, a library, and visiting hours. These improvements ensure that the prisoners, no matter what their crime, retain their human dignity.
4. Mery Agakhanyan, Armenia The Life of Peasants in Armenia The life of a peasant in Armenia is a hard road, unchanged for decades. They have no power, no choice, and no hope of securing a better station in life as the months and years pass. Their faces reflect ancient memories, filled with fatigue and exhaustion. The soil is as tired as the farmers, and they merge together into one arduous life.
5. Rena Effendi / INSTITUTE for Artist Management, Azerbaijan Oil Village In Azerbaijan, Soviet-era industrialization programs and the economy’s heavy dependence on the oil sector have attracted people to the capital, Baku, in search of work. Nearly four million people, half of the country’s population, now live in Baku, which is imploding through overpopulation and urban decay. Communities in the city and the suburbs – called Oil Village – live dangerously in makeshift homes, abandoned factories, and oil fields. Living in inhumane conditions for two decades, the air they breathe, the water they drink, and even the playgrounds where their children play are contaminated and hostile. And yet, life goes on.
6. Isabelle Eshraghi / Agence Vu, Iran / France Women of Isfahan, Ten Years Later Born in 1964 in Iran, Isabelle Eshraghi and her family immigrated to France when she was three, and did not return until 1996. Regular trips to Iran since then have allowed to her to compile a long-term project, and in this essay, she examines what has changed there in the last ten years through the daily lives of these women. Her intention is to show through their faces and gestures the essence of their femininity. Although some behaviour has changed along with a new way of consumption, the future is still uncertain.
7. Tatiana Plotnikova, Russia Russia: Alcohol Abuse The per capita consumption of alcohol in Russia is among the top ten highest in the world, and the problem continues to grow. The Balashov Narcological Clinic in the Saratov region is one of many clinics scattered all over Russia that treats alcoholics. Many patients have already experienced the terrible torture of delirium tremens but cannot stop drinking, as very often, entire families drink habitually, from generation to generation.
8. Suruchi Dumpawar / LUCIDA, India Sites of Terror Suruchi Dumpawar’s body of work documents the sites of a series of bomb blasts that shook Ahmedabad in Gujurat, India, on 26 July, 2oo8, killing forty-nine people and injuring more than 15o. She explores the tenacious link between landscape and memory through the medium of photography and text derived from newspaper reports of the blast. Her work is a reflection on a horrifying past seen in the rather ordinary landscape of the present, thus commenting on the banality of terror itself.
9. Poulomi Basu, India To Conquer her Land In September 2oo9, India’s first ever group of female soldiers in The Border Security Armed Force were deployed on the infamous India-Pakistan border. Poulomi Basu spent time with these young women at boot camp, in their homes, and on their journey to the border, documenting their transformation from woman to soldier. By following women from different parts of the country, castes and social backgrounds, she brings to life not only the challenges and struggles of ordinary Indian women, but also how these women face the reality of being a soldier.
1o. Huiying Ore, Singapore We Are Farmers Up until recently, a typical household in Singapore had several generations living under the same roof. Huiying Ore grew up with a hundred extended kin living and working together on a farm. Rapid industrialization and the resulting rural-urban shift has since changed that lifestyle, and now, most Singaporeans live in compact high-rise apartments which house on average four people. Her family fought to stay together, relocating their farming business and reestablishing it. Currently, three generations continue to work on the farm – a vanishing way of life in Singapore. This project documents the struggle as they toil on the land, and explores their hopes and dreams.
11. Ying Ang / MJR Collective, Singapore The Heartland In a rapidly modernizing China, the rural heartland and its inhabitants are often overlooked. A skewed demographic of mostly the very old and very young in villages contrasts with the city-centres’ ever-growing populations of unemployed youths. Like communities who have lost their young men to war, this toothless and infant-dominated population is left to fend for itself amidst a swathe of cross-provincial issues like climate change, water pollution, and the rising cost of land. Ying Ang photographed her family’s homestead on Hainan Island, where seven generations of blood relatives live and continue to do so.
12. Wenjing Wang, China Form and Home: Young Generation in Beijing Growing up under the one child policy amidst the recent frenzy of economic growth in China, the new generation has different values on life, wealth, and their future. At the same time, faced with an ever-changing environment, they also feel confused and solitary. Wenjing Wang photographs each person standing and lying down to represent the contradiction between what society demands of the youth and their own self-awareness.
13. Jean Chung, South Korea Korea’s Forgotten Women: Comfort Women for the U.S. Army After being treated as pariahs for decades, some elderly women have begun speaking out about their experiences as prostitutes in camp towns constructed around American military bases in South Korea. Through their testimonies, it has emerged that “Comfort Women” were not just provided to the Japanese Imperial Army as sexual slaves, but also to American military servicemen from the 196os to 198os. Part of the lowest social strata, these retired, semi-enslaved prostitutes now live alone in shanty houses, surviving on government welfare checks and collecting recycling.
14. Shiho Fukada, Japan End of Labor Town: Dumping Ground of Old Men in Japan Once a thriving day laborer’s town in Osaka, Kamagasaki today is home to about twenty-five thousand people, mainly men, of whom about 1,3oo are homeless. This “welfare town” is considered a dumping ground of old men. Alcoholism, poverty, street death, suicide, TB and most of all, loneliness prevail here. They have no family ties, and live and die alone as outcasts from the mainstream “salary man” culture. Japan’s economy, once the world’s second largest, is deteriorating rapidly; it is now difficult if not impossible for the greying men of the construction industry to find work.
15. Saori Ninomiya, Japan Ano Basyo Kara: From That Place-The Voice of Being Saori Ninomiya has long wanted to join the cause of raising awareness about the suffering of rape victims – in part because she was raped herself, but also because she felt a deep need to do so. She believes that healing takes place during the process of photographing.
Projection Summaries – Sunday November 21st FCC Angkor 1. Ryo Kameyama, Japan Mexican Prisons In the winter of 2oo8, Ryo Kameyama photographed four jails in Mexico. In Mesa Prison, the largest federal jail in the country, inmates often riot in protest against the terrible conditions inside. Because of corruption in the government and judicial system, many prisoners are inside on false charges, and because they are poor, they stand no chance of appeal nor bribing their way out.
2. Kishor Sharma, Nepal No Land For Us Nepal’s southern lowlands of Terai are conflict-prone areas rife with violence, in no small part fuelled by the struggle of the landless people. Dalits, or Untouchables, Kamaiya, who are indentured servants, and Sukumbashi, or squatters, are all landless people sidelined by society and placed at the same low level in the social hierarchy. They remain impoverished but are fighting to improve their living standards and to gain the titles to the land that they farm.
3. Florian Ruiz, France Shinsekai or The New World Built in 1912 as a recreational area of Osaka, Shinsekai— “the new world”— is now home to the largest community of temporary day workers in Japan. Societal outcasts, they live in a closed-off underworld. A symbolic den of sin, the area is rife with violence, alcoholism, illegal gambling, discount stores, brothels, porn movie theatres, and Korean churches eager to convert lost souls.
4. Mustafah Abdulaziz, United States Patagonia Cowboys Located at the bottom of South America, Patagonia is a land of myth and romance, defined by sweeping mountain ranges, a brutal climate, and vast plains so empty that if Manhattan possessed the same population density, fewer than fifty people would live there. In this isolated land lives the Patagonian cowboy or gaucho, who roams with his sheep and cattle in a way of life that has changed little since the 1900’s. Although the new bus and air routes through the mountains threaten their culture, the gauchos continue to pass on their traditions to the new generation.
5. Vidura Bahadur, India Tsampa on My Shoulder Following the suppression of the Tibetan uprising in 2oo8 and the failed talks between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives, the divide between Tibetans and Chinese has deepened. On his travels through Tibet, Vidura Bahadur was always aware of the invisible line cutting across communities and people. Today, the Tibetan freedom movement stands at a critical juncture and seeks global support to create dialogue and reach a solution, and, ultimately, peace.
6. Xavier Marti Alavedra, Spain The Last Greyhound Racing Track of Spain Open from 1962 to 2oo6, Barcelona’s Meridiana greyhound racing track was closed to all photographers except one. Xavier Marti Alavedra’s photographs form a narrative in which the hounds are always the protagonists set against a background of gambling and socializing. The track itself, designed by the Catalonian architect Antoni Bonet, is slated to become a contemporary arts center.
7. Charles Nnamdi Ijiomah, Nigeria African Heritage The annual weeklong Lagos Black Heritage Festival celebrates the dance and music of some of Nigeria’s 26o ethnic groups. Highlighting their disparate creative traditions, the festival actually serves as a unifying factor by recognizing how they each define their own identity. The festival showcases the country’s strides toward greater national unity and economic prosperity.
8. Shahidul Alam / Drik / Majority World, Bangladesh Bhramaputra Diary It took Shahidul Alam four years to chart the path of the Brahmaputra, one of the world’s greatest rivers. Searching for its mythical source, he travelled to the glacier in the Chemayungdung mountains that the river stems from. Following the river from West to East across Tibet, and plummeting South through India and Bangladesh, he went from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to the massive outflow at the Bay of Bengal. Older than the mountains, it is a river that forces its way across the towering Himalayas. But life on the river is changing. The sailboats that used to ply this mighty river are now rarely seen. The Bhatiali song is being replaced by the drone of the ‘shallow’ engine. Overfishing has reduced the harvest for the fisherman. But still, the river remains central to the Bangladeshi way of life, and Abbasuddin’s songs still drift across the waves of the majestic Brahmaputra.
9. Diane Grimonet, France No Assistance: 1998-2o1o Diane Grimonet’s work is a long-term examination of social problems in France. Her work is a painful admission of failure by successive political regimes to improve the situation of those who live on the margins of society including immigrants—both legal and illegal—the homeless, and single women. In spite of the changes in political power and new laws, and in spite of protest by its citizens, the situation in France has not changed, except for those who are suffering, for whom it has further deteriorated.
1o. Narendra Mainali, Nepal Aryaghat The Aryaghat at Pashupati, Nepal, is regarded as the most sacred place for a Nepalese Hindu to cremate the dead, providing the quickest way to send a soul to the next life. Having experienced a loved one’s cremation there, Narendra Mainali photographs the last rituals on the banks of the Bagmati River.
© Narendra MAINALI 01
© Narendra MAINALI 02
11. Natalie Ayala, Ecuadorian / France Black Gold In the four decades since oil was discovered in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador, the landscape has been transformed. The roads built by the big oil companies brought corruption, violence, prostitution, and environmental devastation to their communities. The way that Chevron, formerly Texaco, disposed of toxic waste had been prohibited in the United States since 1974 , and has contaminated the air, land and water. In 2007, Ecuador proposed a radical plan to stop exploiting its oil reserves, which represents thirty percent of the government’s budget, in return for financial compensation from the international community.
12. Will Baxter, United States The Repercussions of Hope – Afghanistan Despite recent talk of hope and change for Afghanistan, violent attacks worsened throughout 2oo9, and the “fighting season,” as the troops call it, culminated in a particularly bloody summer. While coalition troops went about the difficult task of trying to build trust, ordinary Afghans caught up in the war continue to lead truncated lives and suffer the majority of the violence. The Taliban carried out numerous bombings and continued to recruit successfully, mainly among unemployed and uneducated young men. These images seek to capture the lack of understanding between the security forces and the people they inevitably cannot protect, looking at the undefined boundaries of the war and the half-lives people are forced to live in its midst.
Projection Summaries – Monday November 22nd FCC Angkor NEW BLLOD : Magnum 2ooo / 2o1o Curated by Antoine d’Agata
1. Bruce Gilden / Magnum Photos Tokyo-New York-Haiti
2. Jim Goldberg / Magnum Photos Excerpt from Open See 3. Mikhael Subotzky / Magnum Photos The Four Corners / The Outside
4. Alex Majoli / Magnum Photos
5. Alessandra Sanguinetti / Magnum Photos The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams 6. Chien-Chi Chang / Magnum Photos The Chain
7. Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos 8. Alec Soth / Magnum Photos 9. Jonas Bendiksen / Magnum Photos The Places We Live 1o. Chris Anderson / Magnum Photos Capitolio
11. Lise Sarfati / Magnum Photos The New Life 12. Donovan Wylie / Magnum Photos The Architecture of Conflict 13. Jacob Aue Sobol / Magnum Photos Bangkok Encounter, 2oo8-2oo9 14. Moises Saman / Magnum Photos Afghanistan, Broken Promise
15. Dominic Nahr / Magnum Photos 16. Mark Power / Magnum Photos The Sound of Two Songs – Poland 2oo4-2oo9 17. Olivia Arthur / Magnum Photos
18. Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum Photos As I Was Dying 19; Peter van Agtmael / Magnum Photos Afghanistan 2o. Trent Parke / Magnum Photos The Seventh Wave 21. Christina Garcia Rodero / Magnum Photos Rituales en Haiti
Projection Summaries – Tuesday November 23rd FCC Angkor 1. Bangkok Unrest For more than two months in the spring of 2o1o, Bangkok became a battleground. Calling for parliament to be dissolved and re-elections to be held, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, better known as the ‘Red-Shirts’, clashed with government forces in the heart of the capital city. Complex, volatile, and certainly not yet ended, the nine weeks of violence resulted in Thailand’s biggest loss of lives in decades: at least 88 people died in the clashes, and thousands more were injured. Tonight we feature the work of eight photographers who covered the conflict in Bangkok: Agnes Dherbeys, Athit Perawongmetha / Getty Images, Kosuke Okahara, Masaru Goto, Patrick de Noirmont / News-pictures.com, Paula Bronstein / Getty Images, Roland Neveu, and Vinai Dithajohn.
2. Raimon SolĂ Casacuberta / Courtesy of Gallery Tagomago, Spain On the Other Side of the Road For three years Raimon SolĂ has been visiting neighbourhoods and communities of gypsies. An ethnic group with a history of at least a thousand years, gypsies now live scattered on five continents. Despite being marginalized without their own voice or space in Europe, where they are most numerous, they have managed to survive and retain their identity.
3. Ayana V. Jackson / Courtesy og MOMO Gallery, United States African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth In “African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth,” Ayana V. Jackson addresses the role of racial and cultural citizenship as it impacts the lives of African descendents in Mexico and throughout the Americas. Through her portrait-based work, she examines virtual maroon societies and spaces created to accommodate complex identities arising from a rapidly expanding global community.
4. Igor Posner, Russia / United States of America Stuzha After fourteen years abroad, Igor Posner returned to St. Petersburg, Russia, to become reacquainted with his birthplace. Defiantly Russian yet strangely European, in St Petersburg beauty, poetry, music, darkness, agony, and intoxication collide. Igor Posner’s images do not follow a chronological narrative, but rather speak to the exuberance and timelessness of the city, turning the familiar and mundane into abstract scenes that recollect his blurred childhood memories. That they are photographed in St. Petersburg is both relevant and irrelevant as the city, like in any big city, is a place of hope and dreams, isolation and disillusionment, loss and sadness.
5. Adrian Arias / Collectivo Nomada, Costa Rica Harvest of Man The potato growers of Cot and Tierra Blanca de Cartago in Costa Rica have farmed the region for decades. Adrian Arias visited the area several times, documenting their daily lives. “Harvest of Man” is a portrait of the farmers, and their bond to each other and the land.
6. Thierry Falise / OnAsia, Belgium Burmese Shadows Every year since 1999, Thierry Falise has crossed the Thailand-Burma border with the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) who provide medical and material relief to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people hiding in Myanmar’s borderlands. These young volunteers negotiate dangerous territory riddled with landmines and patrolled by Burmese soldiers to help the Karen, Karenni, Shan, and other groups that have been targets of the regime’s ethnic cleansing campaigns.
7. Joao Pina / Kameraphoto, Portugal Gangland: Urban Violence in Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is one of the most violent cities in the world: an average of eighteen people a day are killed by gunfire, mainly in the slums or favelas. Curious about what drives this violence, Joao Pina followed the police on raids and patrols as well as the young gang leaders. These men, who average no more than eighteen years of age, are the de-facto leaders of their communities and provide their neighbors with basic necessities like food and medicine. Despite being instrumental in causing the violence tearing the communities apart, they also help to keep it together.
8. Dorian François, France Work in Progress: Mongolia, an Urban Portrait The image of the Mongolian steppes, immense, beautiful, and devoid of human presence, is now offset by rapid urbanisation. City dwellers bear the history of the slow change in the fabric of society as the striking contrast between rural and urban Mongolia grows. Steppes and city blocks, landscapes and portraits, reveal a fragile equilibrium vibrating under the assault of the modern world. Dorian François’ essay is about the search for a new national identity within the confusion of the urban environment.
9. Stephen Shames, United States Outside the Dream: Child Poverty in America Published in May 1991, Stephen Shames seminal work, Outside the Dream, shocked the establishment with its unflinching portrayal of child poverty in America. The statistics were grim: twelve million children in the US were poor at that time, representing one in five children; half of all children in families headed by women were poor; and a third of poor people in the country were children.
Projection Summaries – Wednesday November 24th Children’s day - Wat Damnak Pagoda 1. Andy Drewitt Donkey Shelter, Australia
2. ANTARCTICA / D.R.
3. Camille Hermant Traces d’Enfance
4. Toni Anzenberger / Anzenberger Agency Pecorino
Projection Summaries – Thursday November 25th FCC Angkor 1. Haiti Aftermath On the 12th of January, 2o1o, a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti. It destroyed the capital, Port au Prince, causing massive homelessness and nearly a quarter of a million deaths. Most main facilities-hospitals, banks, police offices, prisons-were razed to the ground. The difficulties in getting aid to a place that often lacked good basic infrastructure in the best of times, let alone after a natural disaster of this size, meant that the suffering continued for months, and still does today as Haitians try to rebuild. There are over 1.3million internally displaced people who still live in emergency camps without running water. Benjamin Lowy / Reportage by Getty Images was in Haiti days after the earthquake to document the immediate situation. Liu Lung covered the aftermath for the displaced people in the weeks following it, while Riccardo Venturi / Contrasto is working on a long-term project there. Andrew Berends followed three thousand refugees who had been made homeless in the capital, travelling along the beautiful Grand Anse River by ship to Jeremie to start a new life.
2. Miyoko Ihara / Sha-do Collective, Japan Missao and Fukumaru Miyoko Ihara’s grandmother Missao is 85-years-old and still farms her land. Her constant companion is a six-year-old alley cat called Fukumaru. Although they live in their own little world, they shine as bright as stars, sharing dignity and mutual love. Working under fluffy clouds in a blue sky, Missao tells her little cat, “We’ll never leave!”
3. Anna Boyiazis, United States of America AIDS Orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa A work in progress, the story begins in a remote village in Rakai district, Uganda, which is the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic. In 2oo8, Anna Boyiazis set out to create a portrait of a family of eleven children, five of whom are AIDS orphans. She attended school, gardened, swam, and foraged with them for fruit and insects, intent on documenting what it was like to be a child there.
4. Luca Zanetti / Laif , Switzerland The Truth Needs Allies Colombia’s 46-year-old civil war, which pits Marxist guerrillas against government troops and right-wing paramilitaries, has left deep wounds even as the fighting rages on. As the criminal trials of paramilitary warlords continue in the U.S. and Colombian courts, the confessions of the paramilitary chiefs have exposed their long reign of terror in Colombia. Over twenty-five thousand people have disappeared, most of them between 1998 and 2oo4. Some families have been waiting for word about their loved ones for more then 20 years. Luca Zanetti followed the government’s forensic anthropology team, documenting the dangerous and difficult task of digging up and identifying Colombia’s war victims. Using information provided by relatives of victims as well as their killers, they have found over 35o bodies in two years.
5. Taslima Akhter, Bangladesh Life and Struggle of Garment Workers Workers in Bangladesh’s garment factories toil from dawn to dusk for a pittance – 1,65o Taka, less than $25 a month. The garment industry, which employs about three million people—eighty percent of whom are women—, is the largest foreign revenue earner, accounting for more than seventy-five percent. The workers’ protests for higher wages have finally been heard by the government, which raised the minimum wage to 3,ooo Taka; however, as this amount barely covers the rise in inflation, they will continue to struggle.
6. Jehsong Baak, South Korea / United States Là ou Ailleurs (Here or Elsewhere) Whether he is in Paris, Rome, Seoul, or New York, Jehsong Baak reacts only to emotion, never following a style or trend. His pictures come from a place he calls his own, a place he blends into perfectly. Fog, silhouettes and transparency, he fades away and turns what he calls a self-portrait into a strange picture of someone astonished to discover that the vague silhouette is that of the photographer who is, once again, outside of the frame—elsewhere.
7. Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images, Australia Pakistan Displaced In May 2oo9, the Pakistani army’s military operation against the Taliban forced over two million people to flee their homes in Swat. This humanitarian crisis was the largest displacement of people since the Rwandan genocide. Although some took shelter with friends or relatives, many were left to seek refuge in relief camps where they faced harsh living conditions in the searing heat for months, waiting to return home.
8. Paula Bronstein / Getty Images, United States Mongolia’s Unforgiving Freeze Paula Bronstein photographed Mongolia during one of the most difficult winters in over thirty years. The Zud is a natural disaster whereby a summer drought is followed by a very heavy and bitterly cold winter, and more than two million livestock perished last year because of a lack of food. The Zud was especially hard on the 35% of the population that live below the poverty line. The lack of homeless shelters in Ulan Bator means that many resorted to living in underground sewers to survive temperatures as low as -25C degrees.
Projection Summaries – Friday November 26th Angkor National Museum
1. Li Lang, China The Yi People The Yi people of China’s southern province of Yunnan number some 1.6 million, tucked away on a high mountain range. Their isolation has safeguarded the purity of their culture and faith, but not even they can remain untouched by China’s explosive economic growth. Li Lang documents the Yi’s way of life to preserve it; despite surviving centuries of hardship in the severe climate, it will soon be extinct.
2. Julio Bittencourt, Brazil In a Window of Prestes Maia 911 Building From 2oo2 to 2oo6, the 22-storey Prestes Maia 911 building in São Paulo, Brazil was one of the biggest squatter settlements in the world, home to 468 families who created a library, cinema, and workshop in the abandoned building. Occupying the building was a form of protest against the government’s unsympathetic policy on the homeless, and it succeeded: although the squatters were evicted in 2oo6, most were re-housed or compensated.
3. Pascal Maitre / COSMOS, France Somalia, the Country Abandoned by All Since 2oo2, Pascal Maitre has visited Somalia five times, watching the country sink further into despair. On his last trip, Mogadishu had been emptied of life, except for young militiamen, men doped on khat or shooting up, and women and children—the poorest of the poor – who could not afford to leave. The country has been abandoned by all except Wahabhis, members of a puritanical Islamic sect that supports extremist Islamic groups.
4. Saiful Huq Omi / Polaris, Bangladesh Heroes Never Die: Tales of Political Violence in Bangladesh 1989-2oo5 The fundamentalists believe watching a film in a cinema is not Islamic, so they bombed the movie theaters. They think communists are against religion, so they bombed the communists. Some were targeted for believing in Sufi Islam; others, for being apolitical, normal citizens, or for being a member of the opposition party. Some had protested against government rule; some were honest journalists; some were brutally raped for being a minority. Saiful Huq Omi’s photographs show an overview of political violence in Bangladesh, where fundamentalism is a growing problem.
5. Palani Mohan / Reportage by Getty Images, Australia Wrestling Since India’s wrestlers took home medals from the 2oo8 Olympic Games in Beijing, the spotlight has been turned on kushti, a 3,ooo-year-old martial art practiced in some parts of India, Pakistan and Iran. Dating back to of the ancient empire of Parthia, it is arguably the antecedent of the Greco-Roman tradition. However, kushti has fallen out of favour as India’s sporting authorities put pressure on practitioners to abandon it in favour of the more recognized styles of wrestling.
6. Pieter Hugo / Courtesy of Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Nollywood Nigeria’s Nollywood is said to be the third largest film industry in the world, releasing over a thousand films a year. Movies are made in a week with low cost equipment, basic scripts, actors cast on the day of shooting, and “reallife” locations. By asking a team of actors and assistants to recreate Nollywood myths and symbols as if they were on movie set, Hugo blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction, and the viewer is left wondering what is real.
7. Andrea Star Reese , United States The Urban Cave Unsheltered or homeless people are often regarded with suspicion and not always afforded much sympathy, but Andrea Star Reese found them receptive and cooperative when she started to follow them. They all had a desire to tell their story. The images are her response to the beauty of the place and people, and to the dignity, determination and perseverance of the homeless society.
8. William Daniels / Panos Picture, France Faded Tulips William Daniels first travelled to Kyrgyzstan in December 2oo7 to investigate if the 2oo5 Tulip Revolution had been the step toward democracy that it was said to be. He discovered that in reality, the situation has deteriorated and the country is further away from democracy than ever. Daniel returned several times until the uprising in April this year to finish his long-term social portrait of the country that will be published in a book.
9. Jean Depara/ Revue Noire, Angola / Democratic Republic of Congo Nights and Days in Kinshasa, 1951-1975 Working in the heady days of national independence, Jean Depara was not just a photographer but also a playboy who loved bars, dance halls, and women. Although he moonlighted as a shoemaker, and watch and camera repairer, and shot portraits in his studio out of necessity, his real love was go out with his camera and flash to photograph the nightlife of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). After twenty-five years of guerrilla terror, Kinsasha today is barely recognizable as the crazy, joyful town in Depara’s photographs.
Projection Summaries – Saturday November 27th FCC Angkor A selection of works by 12 former ANGKOR PHOTO WORKSHOPS students 1. Ajay Hirani, India Bombay, In Solitude After six years away, Ajay rediscovers the city where he grew up. He photographs Bombay in the early morning, between midnight and dawn, between the last local train and the first. The city is, like Ajay, an insomniac.
2. Kosuke Okahara, Japan Any Given Day: Living for the Moment in Medellin’s New Drug War When drug lord and paramilitary boss Diego Fernando Murillo, better known as Don Berna, was extradited to the U.S. in May 2oo8, the young gang leaders in of Medellin, Colombia, began a fierce turf war for control of the city and the cocaine trade. Homicide rates rose by more than thirty percent. In 2oo9, there were more than 2,ooo murders and in the first two months of this year, the death toll was already at 6oo. The situation is further complicated by the fact that rival gang members co-exist side-by-side like a mosaic in the slums. Until either Sebastian or Valenciano, the two top rival leaders, wins, the death toll will continue to rise.
3. Gazi Nafis Ahmed, Bangladesh Inner Face Being gay in Bangladesh carries with it a great deal of social stigma; it is taboo, and only talked about in hushed, scandalized tones. “Inner Face� is the story of the gay community in Bangladesh.
4. Selvaprakash Lakshmanan, India Coastal For the millions of people living along India’s coastline, climate change is a harsh reality that has drastically affected their livelihoods. Wind and current patterns have changed, causing rivers like the Tharamibharani to narrow and become shallower. Industrialization, overfishing and destruction of coastal habitats have compounded the problems caused by climate change, and access to freshwater has become limited in some places. While scientists and politicians debate climate change at international conferences, coastal communities have to deal with its consequences every day.
5. Amdadul Huq, Bangladesh The Sweeper Colony The 21o families living in the five-storied “sweeper’s colony” in Tikatoly, Dhaka, all work as cleaners for the Dhaka City Corporation. Originally from Kanpur, India, their ancestors had migrated to Bangladesh in search of a better life; instead, they ended up as social outcasts. Despite the discrimination they face, their jobs are important, and deserve appreciation and respect.
6. Srikanth Kolari / Asia Motion, India 26th December 2oo4: A Day to Remember On the morning of December 26th, 2oo4, an underwater earthquake measuring nine on the Richter scale triggered a tsunami that swamped the coastline of twelve countries. In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, five years later, the survivors have moved on with their lives but their most vivid memory is of the Tsunami. In spite of their huge fear of the sea, the people return every day because no matter how much it has taken away from them, it provides the food necessary to feed their loved ones. And after all, life must go on.
© Srikanth Kolari / Asia Motion 01
© Srikanth Kolari / Asia Motion 02
7. Munem Wasif / Agence VU, Bangladesh Saltwater Tears Rippling sea waves, dried river skeletons, and endless fields. Water everywhere but not a drop to drink. Each family needs about six pitchers of water a day, and they have to walk seven miles to get it, through knee-deep mud in rainy season, and braving the biting cold of winter. In the 17 sub-districts of southwestern Bangladesh, the normal flow of water has been ripped to shreds by the dagger of development. There is no water anymore, only a salty, rotten corpse. Shrimp farming has choked off the very foundation of coastal agriculture. The land, birds, fish, insects; everything has been burnt away by the tyranny of brackish water.
8. Sohrab Hura, India Children of Pati Only very recently has the economic boom of India extended to the people in rural areas, who suffer some of the worst living conditions in the world, and who need progress the most. Pati, a small area in central India comprising of a few villages, is one such place. Primarily a tribal region, Pati has been one of the most economically neglected regions of the country. Before 2oo5, the average number of days of employment per person was only six or seven per year. As is often the case, children are the most vulnerable. With very little access to health, education, and a steady income, and with subsistence farming being solely dependent on the erratic monsoons, life in this place is a daily struggle to survive, and is especially hard for children.
9. Veejay Villafranca, Philippines Marked: The Gangs of Baseco The Chinese Mafia Crew, or CMC, was once one of the most feared gangs in on of Manila’s biggest slums, the Bataan Shipping and Engineering Company (Baseco) compound. Sons of infamous gangsters, the thirty gang members, marked by their tattoos, made a living pushing drugs, picking pockets, or stealing. A huge fire in 2oo4 that razed homes and property in the compound galvanized the men, who decided to turn their lives around, looking for honest work and trying to erase the stigma that came with their tattoos.
1o. Rony Zakaria, Indonesia Men, Mountains, and The Sea Divided by 17,ooo islands and located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is home to more than 15o active volcanoes and has a coastline that spans over 8o,ooo kilometers. The mountains and the sea have been an integral and essential part of Indonesian life, culturally, economically and spiritually. This project documents the ongoing history of the people and communities whose lives are directly affected by the mountains and the sea.
11. Zishaan Akbar Latif, India Istanbul Nights The magic of an Istanbul twilight is no fantasy; its magic is very real. Walking around the city, Zishaan Akbar Latif found it difficult to resist taking images of this place that reflects both history and modernity, bustling with a multilingual, multicultural populace. After the day where lovers walk along rocks in the bay or visitors shop in the flea markets, the dust settles and sun descends to reveal the magnetism of the city and its easygoing way of life between two continents.
12. Sean Lee, Singapore Homework “Homework” is the continuation of Sean Lee’s previous work, “Method,” in which he plays a character called Shauna – his female alter ego. These photographs try to express her memories during the time that she existed in his life. In many ways it is her parting gift to him and his family. A work in progress, the finished series will be published in a book.