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A church choir sings during a sparsely attended Sunday mass in Shushi. Shushi was primarily an Azeri city of cultural significance. Once home to 30,000 people, only 3,000 people call it home now.
My article When a Country Is Not a Country about Narayan Mahon’s series Lands In Limbo just went up on Vantage, for Medium.
Mahon travelled to Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, Nagorno Karabakh, and Somaliland — five nations that are not formally recognised by the international community as states.
Lands In Limbo defies genre. It is partly documentation, but not complete documentary. Some of the images look like news photos but Mahon has a stated artistic intent. Here is an inquiry about huge geopolitical forces in a globalized 21st century … but it is based upon momentary street photos and portraits.
“I wanted to see what these countries’ national identities looked like, [learn] what’s it’s like to live in such an isolated place,” says Mahon.
Read the full article and see Mahon’s image large at Vantage.
Friends enjoy an afternoon on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia. Much of the Abkhaz coastline is littered with rusting ships and scrap metal.
An Abkhaz man, known as “Maradona,” yells obscenities about Georgian politicians and declares the freedom of Abkhazia.
A man walks into a small store in the center of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh. Stepanakert lost nearly half it’s population to forced deportation of Azeris during the breakaway war.
A man stands among snow covered pig heads in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh.
Karabakhi soldiers stand guard at a war memorial in Kharamort, a village that was once evenly populated by ethnic Azeris and Armenians. The village is now half the size since the Azeris fled and their homes were burned.
During and after the breakaway war with Azerbaijan, Karabakhi-Armenians burned and destroyed not only Azeri villages and town quarters but also desecrated Azeri muslim mosques and cemeteries. This is common practice throughout the Caucasus, used as a deterrence for people wanting to return to their homes.
Men and women walk through the bustling central market in Hargeisa, passing war-damaged buildings.
Shabxan, a young Somali girl living in rural Somaliland, does chores in the home.
A young Somali boy checks himself out and fixes his hair in the mirrors of a small barbershop in Hargeisa.
My article Surreal Photos from Inside the “Fake Vacation” Industry about Reiner Riedler’s series Fake Holidays just went up on GONE, the travel section of Medium:
It’s hot, the water’s warm, and blue skies stretch as far as the eye can see. Which actually isn’t very far at all since, all sensory evidence to the contrary, we’re indoors — clustered inside a giant plastic globe in one of the oldest industrial centers of Northern Europe.
Read the full piece and see some nice big images here.
Prison Obscura is currently at the mid-point of its New York showing at Parsons The New School of Design. At this moment, I wanted to share with you a few installation shots made by Marc Tatti for Parsons.
I also took the opportunity to re-issue the Prison Obscura catalogue essay (originally published by Haverford College) on Medium. Read Can Photographs of Prisons Improve the Lives of Prisoners?
I have hi-res images of all artworks and installation shots. Should you need any, drop me a line.
Enjoy the weekend!
All images: Marc Tatti.
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Stuart Griffiths was a kid when he went to Northern Ireland, in 1988, as a fresh recruit of the British Army. His first Christmas as an adult was spent on base. He dropped a tab of acid.
In the book Pigs’ Disco, Griffiths details his time serving for queen and country, his fear, boredom and struggle see what could possibly follow. I wrote about the body of work for Vantage, the new photography “collection’ published by Medium.
“At the turn of the nineties, Britain reveled in rave culture. From Bognor to Bangor, loved-up youth danced until dawn in clubs and beyond. A decade before cell phones, pill-popping kids were convening mass-raves in farmers’ fields and empty warehouses by word of mouth.
If there was one place you’d think this euphoric wave could not breach, it’d be the barracks of the British Army. But you’d be wrong. Pigs’ Disco details Griffiths’ drug addled misadventures from 1988 to 1993 while stationed, for the most part, in Northern Ireland as a paratrooper with Her Majesty’s finest.”
Read the full story: Tripping On Acid While In Her Majesty’s Service (Medium)
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The book Pigs’ Disco, by Stuart Griffiths is published by Ditto Press.
Anonymous. Pinhole photograph made by girls incarcerated at Remann Hall, WA, in a workshop facilitated by Steve Davis.
On November 20, 1989, the United Nations passed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The treaty banned Juvenile Life Without Parole (JWLOP) and other harsh sentencing practices, such as trying children in adult courts. Along with Somalia and South Sudan, the U.S. remains one of the few nations that has not ratified the treaty. 25 years after the passage of such a landmark treaty, the U.S. incarcerates more children than any other nation.
IN CONVERSATION WITH BRYAN STEVENSON
This is the context in which we should listen to lawyer Bryan Stevenson. On the occasion of the release of his new book Just Mercy, I’ve edited and republished a Prison Photography interview with Stevenson from late 2012 on Medium. I paired Stevenson’s words with decade-old pinhole photos made by girls incarcerated at Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Facility, WA.
Stevenson is founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He has fought racial and economic inequality in the criminal justice system for a quarter of a century including wins at the U.S. Supreme Court for fair treatment of children, and successful exonerations of wrongfully convicted men. For the moneyed-class at TED, he spoke truth to power. For everyone else, he appeared on The Daily Show.
A NOTE ON MEDIUM
You can find our conversation on Medium, which is a place I’ve been experimenting with. I intend to use it mostly to republish some of the best of archive stuff on Prison Photography and to cross post relevant new articles too. The main advantage, for me, at Medium is the display of images larger than appear here on Prison Photography‘s 7-year old WordPress template!
Please, take a peek at the Prison Photography on Medium.
Prison Photography 