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Before going through the series of winners of World Press Photo, i had never heard of narco cinema. But then again each time i've discovered a cinematographic (sub)genre recently it was thanks to photography. In late 2009, i found about Nollywood cinema through Pieter Hugo's work. This year Fabio Cuttica brought me to Narco Cinema.
The name says it all. Narco cinema churns out low-budget, action-filled B-movies that star drug dealers, corrupt cops and politicians, strippers, explosions, blood baths but also plenty of trucks and those vehicles that are twice the size of my flat. Although they are fictional, the films mirror and glamorize the stories of the real battles that oppose police vs narcos or drug cartels vs other drug cartels. The more brutal the real conflicts get, the more violent the scenarios of narco movies.
Making a 90 minute movie is an experience as fast-paced as the action in the film itself: most of the time only 2 weeks separate the writing of the scenario from the distribution of the film. The films never make it to the big screen, they go directly to DVD case. VICE went to the shoot of a narco movie last year and came back with a long article and a short documentary. But let's get back to the winning entry at the World Press Photo 11:
Tijuana is a focal point of real-life drug wars raging in Mexico. The wars have inspired 'narco cinema', a B-movie genre dating back to the 1980s that has become increasingly violent in recent years. Formulaic and action-packed, the films have been accused of glamorizing the drug lords' way of life, but reflect a world much of the audience recognizes. Narco cinema is enormously popular both in Mexico and with Mexicans living in the USA. Over 30 such narco movies are shot each year in Tijuana alone, and many actors achieve star status. Fabio Cuttica speaks about the project: The winning picture, which is one of a series about narco cinema, was shot during the filming of the movie El Baleado 2. It was one of the last scenes, before the main character, actor Fabian Lopez in the role of Saul 'El Baleado' was shot to death. I worked on the set of El Baleado 2 film during a week. In the scene, 'El Baleado' leaves his office, shooting at the enemies that want revenge. In the background, a cloud of cocaine fills up the room. His face, drug crazed, is also cover by cocaine-like powder. That day was the last day of filming. It was a 20-hour, non-stop journey, at a set inside a house in Tijuana. It was a very tiring day, but really lucky, I will not forget it!"
In an interview with The Independent, Cuttica explained that narco cinema may even be a way to make sense of the violence. As he suggests, "it is something happening today in Mexico and the people feel somehow involved with this, they want to know, suffer, and - why not? - also laugh about it."
More photo in The Independent, Contrasto. Previously: The pavilion i wish i hadn't missed at the Venice Biennale and World Press Photo 11, the most spectacular works of photo journalism from the year 2010. |
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A post that was left floating in draft limbo since mid July... This year again the World Press Photo contest, an international competition of photojournalism, comes with its fair share of grim images of wars and crisis at the other end of the word, with pictures that talk about women suffering, immigration and children crying. It reminds us of the Haiti earthquake and of other events that have long ceased to make the headlines of the newspapers. But the contest has also cheerful pictures of women luchadores in Bolivia, high-speed car races between amateurs in Mexico and even sardines if sardines are what you're into. There is also a surprisingly high amount of photo documenting the eruption of volcanoes. All of them far more formidable than the one that got every traveler's attention last year.
A man throws a corpse onto a pile of dead bodies at the morgue of a hospital in Port-au-Prince. In the aftermath of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January, thousands of residents fled the capital Port-au-Prince.
A Haitian family, trying to leave Port-au-Prince, boards a boat in the city harbor.
Entrails and skeletons of dead livestock lie in the Gadabedji reserve in the Maradi region of Niger in western Africa. Meat traders buy up dying livestock, slaughter the animals, cook the meat on the spot and sell it to neighboring Nigeria. (...) Lacking refrigeration facilities to store meat themselves, local cattle-farmers had little option but to sell their dying animals at a fraction of the usual rate and use the money to buy what food they could.
A Cape gannet comes in to land during the summer nesting season. Malgas Island, off the west coast of South Africa, is an important seabird breeding ground.
A man smokes outdoors in Cemoro Lawang, which is the main tourist access point to Mount Bromo and was badly affected by the eruption. Mount Bromo volcano, a popular tourist attraction in East Java, Indonesia, began to show signs of activity in November, with a major eruption on 19 December spewing stones and ash 2,000 meters into the air.
Nguyen Thi Li, aged 9, who lives in the Ngu Hanh Son district of Da Nang in Vietnam, suffers from disabilities believed to be caused by the defoliating chemical Agent Orange. During the Vietnam War, US forces sprayed Agent Orange over forests and farmland in an attempt to deprive Viet Cong guerrillas of cover and food. The dioxin compound used in the defoliant is a long-acting toxin that can be passed down genetically, so it is still having an impact forty years on. The Vietnam Red Cross estimates that some 150,000 Vietnamese children are disabled owing to their parents' exposure to the dioxin. Symptoms range from diabetes and heart disease to physical and learning disabilities. See the film The Leaves Keep Falling.
The head of a man, who was ambushed while driving with his family, lies beside the road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, in northern Mexico. The city, on the border with the USA, is a smuggling crossroads and a battleground in the drug wars that afflict the region, with thousands killed each year. The man's wife was fatally wounded by gunfire during the attack, and he was forced from the vehicle and abducted, leaving behind his children aged three and four. Police later found his body some 20 kilometers away.
Kirill Lewerski, aged 16, a cadet on the Russian ship Kruzenshtern. The traditionally rigged, four-masted bark was built in 1926, the second largest tall ship still in operation.
A man carries a shark through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, in September. The capital had seen some heavy shelling that month, part of the conflict between Islamist militants and pro-government troops. Sharks form a large portion of total Somali fish landings. The fish is not commonly eaten in Somalia, but shark meat is dried and salted for export.
Mount Merapi, in Central Java, Indonesia, erupted in late October, blasting hot rock and volcanic ash a kilometer and a half into the air, in what was said to be its largest eruption since the 1870s. Days after the initial eruption came an even bigger blast, releasing pyroclastic flows - fast-moving currents of gas that can reach 1,000°C - which wiped out surrounding villages, even killing people outside the denoted danger zones.
Bodies of victims of the Merapi eruption lie covered in volcanic ash in a house in the village of Argomulyo.
Lucha libre (Bolivian wrestling) is one of the most popular sports in the country. Women wrestlers are known as cholitas and have in the last ten years become popular in the sport. Here, Carmen Rosa and Yulia la Pacena perform in a benefit show to raise money for the bathrooms of a school in La Paz, Bolivia, 26 June.
Carmen Rosa walks along the street with Julia la Paceña, her best friend in real life, and her 'best enemy' in the ring. Btw, The Fighting Cholitas, a documentary by Mariam Jobrani and Kenny Kraus, shows the ladies in action.
Joséphine Nsimba Mpongo, 37, practices the cello in the Kimbanguiste neighborhood of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a member of the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste (OSK), Central Africa's only symphony orchestra. During the day, Joséphine sells eggs in Kinshasa's main market, and rehearses with the orchestra most evenings during the week. Most of the OSK players are self-taught amateurs who hold down day jobs all over the city.
Half of humanity now lives in a city, and the United Nations has predicted that 70 percent of the world's population will reside in urban areas by 2050.
A garbage dump where aborted fetuses are frequently discarded. Abortion is a crime in Kenya, unless the life of the mother is in danger. Penalties run up to seven years in prison for a woman trying to procure a termination and twice as long for anyone conducting one. Women from richer classes can afford the € 60-80 it costs to have an abortion secretly performed by a compliant professional in a proper clinic. Poorer women have to rely on backstreet establishments, where untrained practitioners terminate pregnancies using knitting needles, bleach, malaria pills and other non-medical methods. Each year, at least 2,600 Kenyan women die after illegal abortions and 21,000 are hospitalized with complications from unsafe procedures.
Latex gloves hang up to dry after being used and then washed. The gloves are re-used to save money.
Pademba Road Prison, in Freetown, Sierra Leone was built to accommodate around 300 prisoners, but now holds more than 1,100, including many juveniles. According to Sierra Leonean law, children under 17 should not be imprisoned with adults, but poor documentation means that it is not always easy to prove age. Youths can remain in jail for years while awaiting trial, as in some cases age must be proven before a trial can commence.
A bucket at one end of the courtyard serves as latrine for the 240 remand inmates.
Tibetan monks prepare for the mass cremation of earthquake victims on a mountaintop in Yushu county, Qinghai province, in China. A 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the province on 14 April, killing over 2,600 people and injuring some 12,000 more. Tibetans usually practice sky burial, leaving corpses out for vultures, but the sheer numbers of dead in this case forced the monks to abandon tradition.
The even, hard surface of Laguna de Sayula, a dried-up salt lake in western Mexico, proves an ideal location for a spontaneous high-speed race between amateurs. A small community of motor enthusiasts in Mexico devote much of their spare time to restoring, fine-tuning and customizing their cars before meeting for informal races. City streets, highways, parking lots and even indoor spaces become locations for spontaneous races.
Fernando Javier de la Barrera Angulo, in a 1967 Chrysler Plymouth Barracuda, races Raul Rosas Cano, in a 1972 Nissan Datsun, and Aaron Cervantez Flores, in a 1969 Ford Mustang. The prize-winning photographs are touring in an exhibition that opens in 45 countries over the course of a year. Right now the show is in Cologne, Wellington, Portimão, Arrecife, Edinburgh, Seoul, Naarden, Ottawa and New York. Check out where it will be traveling in the coming months.
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Today more and more people decide to escape reality in order to make up a new identity. Some are donning a "mask" that allows them to express themselves freely. Others live vicariously through the avatar they have created to navigate virtual worlds the way themselves would often dream of living their 'real' life. But multiple or split identities are not confined to intentional escapes, some people have theirs imposed upon them by a society that wouldn't allow otherness and dissidence. Second Lives: Jeux masqués et autres Je, the exhibition open throughout the Summer at the Casino de Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain, presents critical as well as humorous works on contemporary strategies of construction and deconstruction of identity.
The recent development of cyberculture in the "communication society" contributes largely to the multiplication of identity. Online social networks enable everybody to create multiple profiles; virtual realities are - veritably - lived through "avatars". This "poly-belonging" enables the individual to discover and express multiple facettes of himself/herself, to have the freedom to play with one's own identity - through masks or not - and to open the way to otherness. The exhibition might deal with a theme that has been examined over and over again in exhibitions and essays dealing with the parallels existences made possible by modern technologies but the outcome nevertheless provides visitors with many opportunities for reflection. I thought i would see "just another of those shows about online/offline life" but was surprised to see how far the exhibition reached. Second Lives takes visitors from media hoaxes to the reenactment of iconic artworks, from an homage to Michael Jackson to hybridization between human and animal and from the cold analysis of our globalized individuality to the use of masks in and outside theater stages.
Kaori Kinoshita and Alain Della Negra are showing absorbing videos that investigate 'avatars' and more precisely, how people handle multiple or split identities, how they relate to sex, money or beliefs according to whether they are on Second Life or in what they repeatedly call "RL" (real life). One of the videos, La Tannière (The Den) is a series of portrays of furries, people who are fans of anthropromorphic animals to the extent that some of them have adopted a 'furry lifestyle' and a minority even believe that they were born a furry. This marginal community, consisting of chimeras, half men and half animals, was created in the 80's, when Disney anthropomorphic heroes began their invasion. Its number of members - as avatars -- has increased with the internet.
Hermine Bourgadier investigates another sub-culture, the one of Cosplay. The Casino de Luxembourg is showing two series. The first one follows cosplayers showing off their costumes at conventions. The second one stems from a workshop held at high school in which the artist asked students to pick up a cartoon or video game character and adopt their most typical pose. The disguise this time is most rudimentary, the accent being on gestures and expression.
Deconstructing Osama takes us away from online worlds and brings us back to the front pages of newspapers. Back in November 2006 two photojournalists from Qatar-based news agency Al-Zur pulled off a brilliant coup of investigative journalism by following the trail of Dr. Fasqiyta-Ul Junat, a leader of Al Qaeda's military wing. Fasqiyta-Ul Junat, they discovered, "was in reality an actor and singer named Manbaa Mokfhi who had appeared in soap operas on Arab television networks and was the public face of a MeccaCola advertising campaign." The actor had merely been hired to play the role of a dangerous terrorist. After Mokfhi disappeared mysteriously, "intelligence services then invented the figure of Osama bin Laden and his associates in which to create the face of terror."
The revelation was spread on the cover of news magazines, detailed in tv news reports, and documented through exclusive photos that see him leading an incursion by Al Qaeda Taliban guerrillas, entertaining his comrades with acrobatic moves performed on the back of a mule, handing out sweets to children, working in his dromedary farm, stirring up a popular demonstration against Western imperialism, etc. The figure of Mokfhi/Fasqiyta-Ul Junat is obviously a complete fiction. He looks suspiciously like Joan Fontcuberta, an artist known for his investigations into photography's many flirtations with deception.
The very title o the exhibition, Second Lives: Jeux masqués et autres Je, refers to technology but many of the works deal with a fantasy that doesn't need internet to flourish. As disturbing as they are airbrushed, spray-tanned and covered in foundation, the little girls of High Glitz were portrayed by Susan Anderson just before show time as they were competing at some of America's child beauty pageants.
The photos find an echo in Hsia-Fei Chang's tiny shoes. Modeled on women's shoes, they were altered to fit the feet of very young girls. Their high heels, open-toe and ornamentation make them impractical for children. Like Anderson's High Glitz series they evoke a sense of inappropriate seduction.
Aneta Grzeszykowska's remake of Cindy Sherman's seventies classic Untitled Film Stills was so careful it took her one year to restage all 70 original photographs. Composition, makeup, clothes, props have been rigorously recreated. However, the scenes were shot in Warsaw, not New York.
Previously: Que le cheval vive en moi (May the horse live in me). See also Virtual Identities at CCCS Strozzina in Florence. Second Lives: Jeux masqués et autres Je was curated curated by Paul Di Felice, Kevin Muhlen and Pierre Stiwer . It remains open at the Casino de Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain through September 11, 2011. |
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Last June, while i was confusedly walking up and down the stairs of the Graduate Exhibition of the Communication Art and Design department at RCA in London, i suddenly found myself gaping at three stunning, large scale photos by Catherine Hyland. One of the photos is part of her Wonderland series which documents what remains of an amusement park conceived in 1998 to become the largest of its kind in Asia. Built near Beijing, the spectacular theme park was left to decay after funding was cut and agreement couldn't be reached over the rights of the land. The other two photos were equally fascinating: one evoked the manufactured landscape of Edward Burtynsky, the other brought you to a much quieter yet somehow uncanny universe.
I had so many "why?" "how?" "where?" in my mind that i contacted Catherine and asked her if we could have a quick interview. Hi Catherine! Could you describe the photos you were showing at the RCA show? What is the story behind them? I was exhibiting three large format photographs as part of an ongoing body of work that aims to question the conventional view of the Sublime whilst critiquing the current state of our industrial landscape. 'Wonderland' shows the dilapidated skeleton of an abandoned theme park in China. Adopted by the local residents, it now exists as an unconventional playground within the town. To me it paints quite an intriguing picture of consumerism gone awry. The discarded structures of the half-built theme park have remained disconnected and vacant for over a decade. A spectacular contrast to the locals who continue to use ancient farming methods to tend the empty cornfields left surrounding it. At first glance you wouldn't be blamed for thinking you had walked into some post-apocalyptic scene straight out of Cormac Mccarthy's The Road. There is a strange allure to what the locals are doing here, that creeps up on you in the most unsuspecting manner.
The second image titled 'The Finishing Room' was shot in Sri Lanka where I was attempting to chronicle the new types of Eco-Factories that are emerging in Southern Asia with increasing frequency. What I was inherently interested in was documenting - from the inside, our attempts to rectify a manufacturing system that has already spun out of control. In contrast the third image 'Inglenook' shows the outcome of an industrial process. Made in response to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in April - May 2010, which caused enormous disruption to air travel across Western and Northern Europe, the piece hopes to create a seductively sinister husk of the former event. A poetic meditation of the prodigious but overlooked where the mirrored imagery of a natural event is echoed within our man-made environment.'
Where is Wonderland exactly? Your photos show a deserted place, is it already open to the public? 'Wonderland' itself is in China, just outside of Beijing. It was left over after funding was cut on another of their legion of newly developed tourist attractions. The project first began in 1998 but was left when developers and local farmers were unable to reach an agreement over the rights of the land. The fragments are now left for all to see and wander around at their will, like some monument to post-boom consumerism. The aim of the Wonderland developers was to create the biggest theme park in Asia. We are left looking at the cusp of an unrealised plan and as a result a far more interesting object, in my opinion.
I think that like most visitors of the RCA show i was fascinated by your images and intrigued by their location. How did you encounter these places? Was it by chance or did you hear or read about them somewhere? I used to just drive/walk/cycle around for hours on end in search of something that intrigued me. As my practice has developed I've begun to research places more thoroughly, through the internet, sweeping through the National Geographic or just talking to people about their own experiences. There are so many channels of information out there for us to choose from that it seems to make sense to utilise and celebrate them. After all it's usually the accidents that occur after the research that inform the final images anyway. Nothing compares to the more spontaneous aspect of it, stumbling into that moment that kind of stops you in your tracks. It's a much more overwhelming and special experience that way. But as my projects have become more complex the necessity for organisation and negotiation has become imperative. Many of the locations I choose exist as functioning places of work, often remaining shielded from public view. Sub-stations, quarries and power stations often exist down narrow lanes and engulfing woods, rendering the quest for them idiosyncratic in nature which is makes them even more enticing, like hidden worlds just waiting for the layers to be peeled back.
And was it easy to get access to them? I'm thinking about Wonderland of course but also about the factory in Sri Lanka. With Wonderland my only obstacle was the language barrier, I found myself copying Chinese characters off the internet, a lengthy process to say the least. Passing my unpolished scraps of paper to bus drivers/taxis/general passers-by in the hope that my instructions might make sense. To this day I have no idea what my writing must have looked like or exactly what it said. I imagine it perhaps looked like a very handy 3 year old had written it for me. It was then just a process of faith, hoping that I was heading in the right direction. This to be honest it what made it fun. The Sri Lankan Eco-Factories were much easier to get access to, as I was actually filming a short documentary for the Sri Lanka Design Festival at the time in which we got shepherded about from one place to another to experience the apparel industry firsthand - it was an incredible trip. It looks like you are already an accomplished photographer so why did you chose to enroll in a Master in Communication Art and Design? What did you hope to gain there? I had the best two years of my life at the RCA, I chose Communication because it seemed to afford its students the kind of freedom I was after within a course that adopts a complete mixed bag of people in terms of disciplines. I thought that was fantastic, I look around the friends I have gained from studying in this way and realise just how beneficial that can be. Specific genres or mediums become increasingly less important and as a result the emphasis is placed almost wholey on the development of ideas that then come into fruition in completely unexpected, wild and wonderful ways. I think being in that environment is a really precious experience. Although it did make me realise personally just how firmly my feet were planted within the realm of lens based work, something which I'm happy to admit. What are your plans after graduations? Are you flying to new 'absurd' locations? I hope so, there is a project I desperately want to do in Japan, I just need to find a way of getting out there.
Thanks Catherine! |
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While i was in Nottingham for the Making Future Work events, i decided to take the bus to Derby and check out All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism at QUAD. The exhibition postulates that art and journalism are two sides of a unique activity; the production and distribution of images and information. Whereas journalism provides a view on the world, as it 'really' is, art often presents a view on the view, as an act of reflection. The first part of the exhibition title, All that Fits, points directly to the New York Times' moto "All the News That's Fit to Print." It asks us to think about what becomes of the information that doesn't fit into the format or the agenda of a media outlet. Some of it is cut and customized to fit, some of it simply vanishes. But the information that doesn't fit can also become the material and topic of artworks. And this is just as well since our faith in the impartiality and reliability of journalism has eroded over the past few years. At the same time, more artists have included activities such as inquiring, reporting and documenting into their portfolio while admitting that they are not bound by the same 'reality' constraints as journalists. The works selected for the exhibition blend aesthetics and conceptual techniques we expect from artists with the methods and protocols that characterize the journalistic practice. They question the information rather than deliver it.
All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism unfolds over three chapters: The Speaker, The Image and The Militant. The Speaker focused on the speaking subject or author, also in terms of editorial processes and camera angles. What can enable a subject to appear as authentic, authoritative and truthful? The Image examined how images are produced, through framing and positioning, but also how counter-images are created. Despite the claim of neutrality and pragmatism, this chapter proposes an 'aesthetics of journalism'. The third show opened yesterday. The Militant, continues the strand of counter-images, but by using journalistic means such as exposé and research. These methods often work to uncover what a corporate media industry does not, and thus return to some of reportage's initial claims. Since the three shows overlap in content, with most works participating to 2 of the 3 chapters, i thought i'd fuse the three chapters into one post that looks more generally at the contemporary production of truth.
According to Adam Broomberg, "Photojournalism cannot be radical because it has to work within familiar patterns. It is politically ineffectual. Now museums and galleries are actually the place of radical, political work." Together with Oliver Chanarin, he has been taking a lateral approach to documentary photography and information. For the Chicago series, for example, the duo has chose to stay "away from those immediate, heart-tugging images that suggest social concern" and focused instead on how the mechanism of the state worked. Chicago is a fake Arab town built in the middle of the Negev desert by the Israeli Defense Force for urban combat training. "Everything that happened happened here first, in rehearsal". All wars led and to be led by Israel in the future are practiced in the streets of Chicago, where the only human traces are photographs of Arab militia used for target practice. During the war in Lebanon, its labyrinth of streets and alleys were adorned with abandoned cars, imitating areas of Beirut. During the first and second intifada its concrete walls were covered with Arabic graffiti reminiscent of Gaza city, and an additional area was constructed to simulate the refugee camps of the occupied territories. During the first Gulf war American Special Forces had their first taste of the Middle East in Chicago in the Israeli desert.
In a carefully staged composition/scene, soldiers are pointing their heavy weapons at civilians, a mother is crying over a child that lays dead in her arms, other dead bodies are scattered around, there are traces of an explosion and tension is everywhere you look. Except maybe right between a menacing soldier and a civilian where a cameraman is quietly recording the scene. In The Dreadful Details, Eric Baudelaire conveniently juxtaposed all the moments we expect to see in a war photo. The photo documents as much as it fakes a situation of war. Even the set is not genuine. It was created by a designer who has never set a foot in Iraq, his only cues were photographs from Time magazine.
The most puzzling work in the exhibition is Oliver Ressler's video The Fittest Survive. Actually it is not so much the video itself that is bizarre but its subject. The film follows the five-day course Surviving Hostile Regions done in January 2006 in Wales. The instructors, hired by a privately-owned security enterprise, are British ex-special force soldiers. The participants are businessmen, government officials and mainstream journalists who are put through conflict-situations in order to be ready for business in Iraq and other dangerous areas "that might otherwise have been closed to opportunity." The camera follows the participants as they experience the staged reality of live shell bombardments, an assault by armed guerrillas, the rescue of accident victims, and moving through mine fields. As curator Elena Sorokina explained during her interview with the artist, The video brings attention to the current militarisation of businesses, and, less directly, to the increasing involvement of private business in warfare. Unfortunately, i didn't get to see the film Elimina, a totally Ghanaian production that stars the white American artist Douglas Fishbone. The film was scripted and shot by a leading Ghanaian production team, with a cast of Ghanaian celebrities. No reference is ever made of the fact that the artist clearly doesn't belong in the movie. The project continues Fishbone's investigation into the relativity of perception and understanding, pushing what audiences expect as the acceptable limits of role and representation in film. The film will be released as a low-cost mass-market DVD and VCD in Africa and on African immigrant markets, The rest of us will be able to buy it as a limited edition in the art world. Fishbone talks about his new Elimina to Tate.
At the entrance of the exhibition, right by the ticket office, the curators have hung Insurance.AES256 by Michael Takeo Magruder, a project reflecting on issues of information freedom and secrecy in today's media landscape. insurance.aes256 is the name of an insurance file released by WikiLeaks last year in connection with the Afghan War Diary disclosure. The insurance file was 20 times larger than the 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that the non-profit organization had already published. The file generated considerable speculation and debate as no official explanation was given about its contents or purpose. Moreover, cryptographers declared that the file was virtually impossible to crack.
Alejandro Vidal's Somewhere in a Great Country is a series of video-captures found on the internet. Because they are devoid of any human presence and feature explosions, we are led to believe that the images document car bombings, acts of sabotage, war scenes, etc. In reality, they only record the moment when fireworks are used during celebrations of independence, festivals and political rallies. All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism is curated by Alfredo Cramerotti & Simon Sheikh and remains open at QUAD in Derby, England, until 31st July 2011. Previously: Manipulating Reality - How Images Redefine the World and Manipulating Reality - The Day Nobody Died. |
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Sorry for being so silent over the past few days. A combination of medicine-proof flu and weak wifi at the hotel have thrown me into the arms of Jo Nesbo again and i've only emerged from this lethargy now. So here's a last and light post about the ongoing London Street Photography Festival where i discovered Anahita Avalos's tableaux of everyday life in Villahermosa, Mexico.
More of her images on flickr. Anahita Avalos's work can be viewed until June 22 at Photofusion in Brixton, as part of the show On Street Photography: A Woman's Perspective but her photos have also been selected for the festival award along with the following talents:
Told you that was a light post. I'll do better tomorrow when i finally know how inspector Harry Hole catches the serial killer who marks his victims with the 'devil's star.' The photos of the winners and finalists are on view through July 24 at the German Gymnasium, along with Vivian Maier's solo show. Previously: Vivian Maier at the German Gymnasium. |
