The Image / Incarceration / Representation / Media / Social Justice / Responsible Photography
Matt and Scott at Dvafoto have made some important observations on the behaviour of the press in Haiti.
Dvafoto just got a redesign too, bringing all their commentaries of the past up to the surface again. Well worth swimming about in the visual archive for a while.
2Double (day dooblay), a 21 year old rap kreyol artist, records a track in the Koze Kreyol studio in Port au Prince, Haiti, on July 18th, 2008. The rapper has had some recent success and local recognition but continues to live in the notorious Cite Soliel slum with his mother and 3 year old son. He says he hopes to use his music to get his family to a better environment. © David Zentz/Aurora Photos
Just two weeks ago 100Eyes launched a new issue Gade, Haiti. Who at that time would have knwon that the world’s attention would sear down upon that previously abused, cliched far away nation?
Today Andy Levin put out the following call:
“Shoot for 100Eyes: Gade, Haiti!
The situation in Haiti has brought a tremendous many talented photographers to Haiti, with many more on the way. We would like to find a way to broaden the picture of Haiti that is currently in the news, by combining work with the disaster area with work from the rest of the nation.
If you are going to Haiti and will be there in February, I am asking photographers to spread out around the country and to spend day or two photographing something other than the earthquake ravaged area, to be included in a special issue of 100Eyes on Haiti.
I am hopeful that photographers can use the same resourcefulness in getting around Haiti as they have in getting to the disaster area … and I know that there are many stories to be told beyond what we are currently seeing, many struggles that happen on a daily basis. There is beauty, there is laughter as well.
We believe that the effort made by photographers in doing this would more than make up for the relative small resources going into the project, by helping to create a broader picture of Haitian life, and to put the horrific, and important, images that are currently being taken in Port au Prince in context.
As part of the project we will be having Haitian children and students take pictures to show the events through their own eyes, an effort that was planned before the tragedy. In addition we ask that each photographer try and bring a compact digital camera and find a Haitian child to work with in whatever area of the country that you are working in.
Depending on the amount of work received we may have needs for volunteer editors and coordinators as well. For those more interested in a structured environment I am going be extending the 100Eyes Workshop in Haiti through the end of the month and possibly beyond.
For details on this please contact me through our workshop page for Haiti, here.”
If I was a photographer I’d be anxiously looking for an avenue to broaden the media coverage away from only disaster consumption. This seems like the best opportunity; Structured, purposeful and community based.
We have seen the terrifying images, now let’s get past them to action. If you’ve got money give it, if you’ve got a camera get involved.
I picked the image above out from the selection at 100 Eyes. David Zentz has done two series on Haiti, Saut D’eau and 2Double.
David’s work at Verve, 100Eyes and Aurora Photos. David also has a blog, Your Moment of Zentz.
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UPDATED: SARAH SHOURD WAS RELEASED FROM EVIN PRISON ON 14TH SEPTEMBER, 2010. SHANE BAUER WAS RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2011
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Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal are imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. They are not spies; they are principled activists, valued journalists and now political pawns.
I’d like to summarise their situation and then focus on Bauer’s ongoing work in Sudan.
Earlier this week I met Shon Meckfessel, one-time Cake band-member, occasional anarchist, and long-time writer for literary, political periodicals.
Shon has been known most recently as the fourth member of the hiking party on the Iraqi Kurdistan/Iran border. Shon is not in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison because he – due to illness – delayed the start of his hike by 24 hours.
The day after his three friends Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal had set out, Shon got on a bus headed to the same trail-head with the intention of catching up. While on the bus, he received a call from Shane telling him that the three of them had just been detained by Iranian border patrol. That was on the 31st July, 2009.
Most US mainstream media coverage has been neutral presentation of the known facts, sometimes peppered with confusion and incredulity. It has focused on the absurdity of the situation instead of the integrity of the writing, teaching and activism of the three members of the party.
Outside of the media, there has been organised support. There has also been the minority view – the predictably offensive right-wing nut-jobs.
To answer briefly the questions of how and why a party of Americans were hiking near the Iranian border, Iraqi Kurdistan has been peaceful for nearly twenty years since the close of the first Gulf war.
Shane, Sarah and Joshua were all seasoned travellers and they had been advised that the mountains and waterfalls of Ahmad Awah in the North East were well worth a visit. Shon and his friends travelled to As Sulaymaniyah together. When they took the two hour bus ride from the city they thought it headed northwest, not eastward. No locals they spoke to mentioned the proximity of the Iranian border.
Shon, Shane, Sarah and Joshua stayed in As Sulaymaniyah (bottom left) for a night. The bus ride they thought went north west in fact headed east to Ahmad Awah (top right).
As Sulaymaniyah and Ahmad Awah are in Kurdistan, North Eastern Iraq. The areas marked Kordestan and Kermanshah are in Iran.
Iraq and Iran border and territories.
For a long time – aside of an early factual statement (August 6th) – Shon stayed out of the media spotlight and let the Department of State run its diplomatic channels. However, his friends remain imprisoned. Recently, media coverage of the story has declined (Diane Sawyer’s direct questions to a prevaricating Ahmadinejad the exception). On November 2nd, Shon wrote an open letter to Iranian President Ahmadinejad:
I had hoped that the misunderstanding would be resolved quickly. Three months have now passed, and I cannot imagine what more the Iranian authorities might have to learn about my friends or what they were doing in the area. … Mr. President, by continuing to deprive Shane, Sarah, and Josh of their liberty, Iran is working against some of the very causes it supports. Each of these three has a long and public record of contesting injustice in the world and addressing some of the inequities between rich and poor which you have spoken about through their humanitarian work in their own country and overseas.
Shon goes on to describe their various work and causes. Read the letter in full. Also on November 2nd, Shon appeared on Democracy Now! to reassert his position that the Iranian authorities can have no illusions as to their characters.
On November 9th, the three were charged with espionage.
Of the three, Shane Bauer has written and published the most. Most recently his article, Sheikh Down (Mother Jones) described how the ‘Pentagon bought stability in Iraq by funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to the country’s next generation of strongmen’.
Shon notes, “As a fluent speaker of Arabic, Shane has focused on injustices in the Arab world, in Iraq and Palestine in particular. The Christian Science Monitor published Shane’s January 7th interview with Musa Abu Marzook, the only English-language interview with a Hamas leader during Israel’s attack on Gaza.”
I could have as easily featured the publicly available works of Josh or Sarah; each of the three illustrate their non-spy credentials through their past writings and journalism. That said, neither Josh or Sarah are involved in photojournalism or multimedia journalism as Shane is.
As Shane’s AP editor said in the clip atop this post, there are not many twenty somethings in Darfur freelancing and living with Sudanese rebels.
I have picked out five images from Shane’s Darfur series, but he also has produced two multimedia pieces One Day with the S.L.A. and Darfur: Rebellion from the Margins. In both stills and video he is trying to offer a context for the rebels bearing arms. The equation is simple: without a fight they would have “been run into the desert, where there is no water and left to die”.
Rebels from the SLA-Unity faction sit stranded in the countryside. North Darfur, 2007. © Shane Bauer
In the heat of the summer, SLA rebels swim near their base after a long night of rain. Deisa, North Darfur, Sudan, 2007. © Shane Bauer
A UN helicopter takes off after delivering medical supplies to a small clinic that was looted by the Janjaweed. Many Darfuris are demanding a UN peacekeeping force to replace the beleagured African Union mission, but for now the UN is limited short stopovers to deliver small boxes of supplies to villagers. Bir Maza, 2007. © Shane Bauer
Village elders meet in North Darfur. Many civilians remain in the countryside, either because they cannot afford to travel to a refugee camp or because they refuse to leave their homes, 2007. © Shane Bauer
Women collect water in goatskins at a well in Farawia, North Darfur. With no water facilities and many wells poisoned or destroyed by the Sudanese government and its janjaweed militias, people have to travel long distances to find water. 2006. © Shane Bauer
The stills and video are a privileged view of existence for the Sudanese Liberation Army and the civilians they protect, but it is also a view that has dated. Shane continues to work on a feature length film about these same civilians, the S.L.A. and their continued struggle. Time ticks on.
Given that Shane is an accomplished photographer, I was a little surprised that his cause hasn’t been forwarded much in photographic circles, or more specifically the photoblogosphere. Jack Kurtz picked up on the story and posted it to Lightstalkers but it got no takers. Shane is a member.
Tewfic liked Shane’s Darfur multimedia but missed the story of his and his friends capture … as many of us did.
And, of course, we only anticipate Shane’s release in the context of all three’s release.
Perhaps, especially when the photographic community are mobilising to help in Haiti, we should also be aware of ongoing problems elsewhere?
The family have set up the Free The Hikers website, and also Facebook and a Twitter. We can start there with our actions.
Shane Bauer received 1st place for independent audio slideshow features in the 2008 NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism contest. In 2007, he was a national finalist for photojournalism in the Harry Chapin Media Awards as well as a national finalist for feature photography for the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2007 Mark of Excellence Awards. He also received the Lyon Prize in photography that year. (Source)
Sarah Shourd, 31, is an English teacher in Damascus and is learning Arabic. She previously taught as part of the Iraqi Student Project, a program which gives Iraqi students living in Damascus the skills to continue their education in US schools. Sarah has written articles on travel and social issues reflecting her time in Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen and Mexico (Escape From Iraq: A Muslim Family Finds Solace in Ramadan, Brave Eyes, Laughing Hearts: My First Encounter with Yemen, Families Shout Their Love Across Minefields in Golan Heights). She attended UC Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lived after graduating until moving to Damascus with Shane. (Source)
Joshua Fattal began undergraduate work at UC Santa Barbara and graduated from UC Berkeley (2004). For three years after college he was invested in the Aprovecho Research Center, a sustainable living project in Oregon. In 2009, Josh was on a years travel partly independently and partly as a teaching assistant for the International Honours Program ‘Health and Community’ semester. (Source)
The BBC reported today that Italy was to open its first prison to serve specifically transgender prison population. In terms of its policy and service, such a move is welcome and progressive.
The US, however, doesn’t have specific institutions for its transgendered inmates, instead it employs the following policy:
This rigid policy can result in housing a woman (male-to-female trans) with a male inmate in the same cell. When this occurs, violent and/or sexual assault is common. Karen Franklin PhD posits that the prison system in the US establishes for transgendered youth a track toward future incarceration;
So Italy is leading by example? Well, yes and no. The prison at Pozzale (near Florence) was formerly a women’s prison subject to senior staff abuses, consequent court battles and ongoing bureaucracy ensuring mismanagement of resources. Recently it has housed only two inmates while other prisons in the area were overcrowded. The transgender prison is the socially-responsible solution; a new start for an institution with a corrupt past.
There is a total dearth of photographs of this institution, but also of trangender prisoners in the media today. I hadn’t paid it any thought until I was pressed to search for images for this post. I hope and expect that photojournalists will document activities at the prison once the new inmates arrive. It is a worthy story; there is a need. I suspect the Italian authorities would want to put a positive media spin on the story, and also on the trangender realities that are unfortunately still uncomfortable and/or controversial for some members of the public.
Further reading
I’ve never quite had a holiday like that before; the snowfall you always thought your parents were making up as they described the days when “real winters” hit.
Yesterday, Manchester airport availed itself and I got out. Arrived back in Seattle last night.
So I am back on the horse and I’ve got stuff to say (so does the horse).
Hulu has just posted Nick Broomfield‘s two documentaries on Aileen Wuornos.
The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) was made two years after the seven murders off highway 75, Florida. Broomfield demonstrates the efforts by Wuornos’ lawyer (Steve, a hippie musician known as Dr. Legal), her sponsor and friend (Dawn) and the Florida Sheriff’s Department to cash in on her story.
Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) opens with a recap of the main characters and a reminder that the police chief and officers resigned following allegations they’d sold their stories to a Hollywood studio. It is illegal to profit from state work in such a way. Dawn and Steve were in on the deal too!
In Life and Death, Broomfield is subpoenaed to court to testify on Steve’s “seven joint ride” to the prison in which Aileen was held; he was on his way to deliver legal advice. Broomfield filmed the ride for his first documentary.
Aileen changes her stories time and time again. Details she discloses to Broomfield when she thinks the camera isn’t running she won’t repeat elsewhere. She sabotages her own defense. Eventually, Aileen wants to be executed and repeatedly attempts to maneouver proceedings to secure her death.
Broomfield’s conclusion is that Aileen is clearly insane. On the evidence of her last ever TV interview (below) it is hard to dispute.
24 hours before this interview Aileen passed a state psychological assessment that deemed her of sound mind.
For her Babies Behind Bars series, Neelakshi Vidyalankara visitied the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, the largest maximum security women’s prison in New York state.
“The prison opened in 1901 and has hosted many infamous women prisoners (including Kathy Boudin, Jean Harris, Carolyn Warmus, Sante Kimes and Pamela Smart). It is also one of a few women’s prisons in the USA that allow pregnant prisoners to keep their newborn babies with them for the first 12 – 18 months of their life. The Bedford Hills nursery has existed in some form since 1901 and was created to help foster a stronger attachment between mother and infant, improve parenting skills and reduce a mother’s chances of recidivism,” says Vidyalankara.
Qiana did a short interview with Neelakshi last year.
Previously, I have noted the work of Patricia Aridjis and Angela Shoemaker, both of whom have documented maternity and motherhood while incarcerated.
PETE BROOK ON MEDIUM PETE BROOK’S TUMBLR ‘PHOTOGRAPHY PRISON’
Prison Photography 