I like media sharing sites. My favorite place to overdose on hip? Dropular. By now, I’ve pretty much learned to block out the glossy nudies for pretentious assholes to jerk off to sexploitation of white women high-budget porn. Which is probably the nicest way I can put it.
However, when I see photos of children and adults from the 3rd world alongside images of naked titties, cars, and furniture, I throw up a little in my mouth. Apparently Southeast Asian families are the hottest thing since vintage gadgets and band posters. In an attempt to understand who is responsible for this shit and why they think it’s okay, I’ve done some digging on my favorite haunts (mostly Flickr and Wikipedia) and also pulled from my good old-fashioned edumacation and life experiences.
First off, I understand that many of these photographers are well-intentioned and see themselves as helping the people in their photos. They claim to raise awareness and also seem to be interested in ending poverty, in an abstract and patronizing sort of way. And I get that not every photographer is necessarily exploiting their subjects. Photography, film and art in general are valuable components to broader actions one might take to pursue justice.
That being said, there’s a fine line between art and exploitation, activism and voyeurism. Too often, I feel like artists with good intentions fall flat because they don’t substantiate their work with context, critique or action (an artist statement with links to a few Western charities doesn’t count).
So what I’d like to know is: besides running amok and taking photos of poor people (which directly benefits you more than it does anyone else), how are you doing your part? Do you work actively to highlight not only peoples’ tragedies, but their lives as actual people with families, personalities, and voices of their own? Do you spend an equal amount of time documenting resistance to exploitation (there’s a lot of that) and the crimes that perpetrators of poverty continue to get away with (lot of that too)? How much compensation does each photographed person receive? Do they receive a cut when and if you cash in on their images? And by compensation, I mean the actual worth to you and not the amount that others have gotten away with paying.
By raising awareness, do you mean you stick your photos on Flickr with a link to your portfolio, or that you work proactively to educate yourself and others about poverty, the dynamics of power between and among the 3rd and 1st worlds, the continued pillage of the 3rd world via rampant cultural commodification and exploitation of labor and resources (which Western artists have historically engaged in and continue to benefit from)? What are you doing to ensure justice against poverty in your own country?
Some might say this is unrealistic. There’s only so much one person can do, and that much is true. But there are artists who’ve managed to do it (to the left, a clip from Plan Colombia by the Beehive Collective– and I think we can all agree that “raising awareness” is much harder than skipping into the jungle with a camera, donning indigenous garb, and otherwise engaging in practices that are at best silly, and at worst exploitive. Not to mention that high-minded talk needs to be accounted for; you either take responsibility or ditch the preachery and proudly own up to being a trendy 1st world thief.
