All posts by Laura Pohl

 
Photo Essays

Oppressed and still on press

A Bhutanese newspaper remains in circulation despite enormous odds.


T.P. Mishra shifts his load of 1,000 newspapers from one shoulder to the other. Someone honks at him. He gracefully navigates through the maze of cars, motorcycles, and people competing for space in the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal.

No staffers are paid, and the paper’s monthly budget of 2,500 Nepali rupees (about $40) is contributed by the staff’s editors, many of whom work as teachers. Subscriptions and advertisements are impossible.

Most of the newspaper’s readers are refugees who have lived in camps near Damak, in eastern Nepal, for the last 17 years. They are legally barred from officially holding jobs in Nepal, which means they have little disposable income. In addition, the paper cannot solicit advertisements, since it is technically an illegal publication; Nepalese law does not allow foreign-owned media — like The Bhutan Reporter — to publish their Nepali newspapers and magazines in the country.

“I always feel responsible to the 23 correspondents stationed in camps and other associate editors
stationed in Kathmandu,” said Mishra. “They have been sweating a lot selflessly, therefore the very frequent question I receive is that whether the paper will give continuity to its hard-copy print.”

Sometimes the answer Mishra gives is “no.” The paper, which began printing in 2004, skips publishing at times due to lack of funds. Back in March 2007, The Bhutan Reporter nearly ceased to exist until a story about the newspaper’s plight appeared on Media Helping Media, an online portal for news about freedom of the press in transitional countries. An 11th-hour donation from the World Association of Newspapers saved the newspaper for three months. More recently, a donation from an individual kept the paper afloat through this past February.

Despite the financial hardships, the paper’s reporters and editors remain steadfastly dedicated to
journalism.

During a summer editorial meeting at one of the refugee camps, reporters told Mishra that he must find a way to continue publishing The Bhutan Reporter because it was the one thing they had to look forward to in their lives.

“I go to Damak by bicycle to bring [the] newspaper to camps,” said Puspa Adhikari, one of the paper’s special correspondents, referring to the town about an hour’s bicycle ride from the Beldangi refugee camps. “I face lots of difficulties; I have ambition to become an international journalist.”

Adhikari’s dream is the same dream as many of the paper’s other reporters. But a lack of educational resources and opportunities may keep their dreams from becoming reality. Most of The Bhutan Reporter’s staff do not have formal journalism training, and indeed, this is sometimes reflected in the newspaper’s stories; they do not always name sources or attribute information. Readers, too, have suggestions for improving the newspaper.

“If this paper could add more reporters, they could give more fresh news from on the spot. It is lacking this,” said Kapil Muni Dahal, a 10th-grade Nepali language teacher at a school inside one of the seven refugee camps.

Despite this lack of fresh news, Dahal said, “I share the paper with other people whenever I get it. I read it among the group and translate it into Nepali, and the people listen and interact.”

It’s that commitment to readers like Dahal and his friends that keeps Mishra and the rest of The Bhutan Reporter staff working on the paper month after month. Their dream is to transform the newspaper into a bimonthly publication, and more.

 “We have been working, keeping the aim that one day we will reach establishing this paper as the leading paper of Bhutan,” said Mishra.

 

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Photo Essays

Relics

200702_Image_02cr.jpgDetroit’s transition from past to present.


Concept

As technology spreads into the future, the obsolete are left behind. New things are created, while past creations decay. Nature begins to take apart what man once struggled to assemble. There is a threshold that is hard to pinpoint, when a manmade object becomes nature again. The difference between the two becomes blurred, and the beauty of this transition becomes visible: Concrete cracks with plant life. Iron and steel bleed rusty stains. Years of paint stratify walls. Wood warps and buckles to the elements. Trees grow upon the tar roofs of skyscrapers. Detroit is this transition.

Through the RELICS installation, man once again alters nature by extracting these objects, interrupting their return to the earth, and using them to create a contemporary museum of natural history. Patrons of this reliquary room sensually engage the history of Detroit, encompassed by energy and information. The viewer is overloaded by input, not unlike the artist’s own experiences while exploring forgotten sites. The senses are flooded, and one becomes fully aware of his/her surroundings — in the present moment — triggered by objects of the past.

Like everything and everyone, Detroit is moving and changing through time. Transiting cycles of birth, death, and rebirth; the City is our creation, and therefore, reflects our behavior. In the 300-some years since being named “the strait,” Detroit has gone from pure marshes and forests teeming with wildlife, to expanding farmland and industry that expended and veiled the fertile ground, to a state of post industrial wasteland with a waning population. Inhabitants have steadily fanned out of the core in a concentric pattern, leaving the civic center for nature to reclaim with infinite persistence. Now, a state of renaissance and rebirth is blossoming in the city’s core, and the natural cycle continues. The RELICS installation attempts to capture this state of transition and present the viewer with questions regarding art, history, and time — especially the dramatic changes over the last 100 years. How long, in this ever-changing landscape of our present world, does it take for something to be forgotten?

RELICS aims for a communication with viewers regarding what we, as civilized creatures, are creating, destroying, and leaving behind. It is meant to spark reveries and inspire conversation with strangers, and simply, to overwhelm viewers with the sheer mass of information, memory, and energy generated by thousands of relics of the future.

Logistics

At last count, over 400 wooden “boxes” make up the reliquary walls that create this installation. Each box measures 18” x 18” on the face, with a 12” depth. The boxes are made of medium-density fiberboard, 6 tons of it, and assembled in a chasing pattern with wooden screws and glue. The content of each box is secured by a variety of adhesives and hardware, whether recessing within the cube or protruding beyond the face. Each box rests upon those below, and is secured to the others and a supporting wall (unless free standing). Box construction places all weight upon the vertical boards, with added strength from wall to wall, or box to box pressure. Weight of individual units varies from about 10 to 100 pounds, with the heaviest being in the minority. The entire installation is modular and adaptable to any space, utilizing each site individually, but a large area with high ceilings is ideal. The boxes are open to the elements and human contact — naturally, they may change through travel and exposure. Some have been sold, others have been destroyed and/or recycled, and new boxes continue to be created. The installation is reconfigured and updated according to location and theme; hence, a detailed architectural plan of the potential exhibition area is necessary to determine the size and dimensions of this reincarnation.

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Blog

Tales of courage


issue banner

Think World War II concentration camps. Think Cambodian killing fields. Now think Rwandan genocide. In this week’s special issue on coping, University of Chicago sociology PhD candidate Rachel Rinaldo‘s story Genocide’s deadly residue details the courageous life of one survivor and the various ways in which Rwanda and its citizens are coping with orphaned children, a high HIV rate among women survivors, and an uncertain justice system — amongst other grave concerns — following the traumatic aftermath of the mass killings of April 1994.

Meanwhile, as we reflect on the Rwandan genocide, ITF Contributing Writer Jairus Victor Grove takes philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy’s book War, Evil and the End of History OFF THE SHELF and asks why some atrocities make headlines, while others, such as the unfolding genocide in the Sudan, are left in the dark in Sudan and the wars that history left behind.

But you don’t have to cross U.S. borders to uncover unenviable battles and admirable stories of perseverence. Other courageous tales of coping come from people like Hildie Block, who writes about the slow onslaught of multiple sclerosis — the same disease that killed her father — in her essay The specter, and Marley Seaman, who describes a close college friend’s struggles with his chemotherapy treatments in Stealing his veins. Meanwhile, a young boy diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) just tries to make it through the day in Sun-A Kim‘s photo essay A good day for Grant: Living with ADHD.  For a fictional look at coping, check out ITF Contributing Editor Sierra Prasada Millman‘s review of The Pearl Diver, Jeff Talarigo’s debut novel about a Japanese woman living with leprosy, in Destroyer of myths.

On a lighter note, ITF Contributing Writer Russell Cobb finds that coping doesn’t always have to involve death or disease. In his essay Mad dog and glory, Cobb illuminates the sometimes funny cultural differences between playing American football while living in Paris versus playing American football as a kid in Oklahoma.

And, as always, our beloved cartoonists Tak Toyoshima and Mikhaela Reid bring us a good laugh with their comic strips.

Stay tuned for more: On Monday, September 20, we’ll publish provocative pieces penned by our columnists, Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs and Henry Belanger, as well as a photography essay on Brazilian cowboys by Alexandra Copley.

Thanks for reading. We hope you had a wonderful extended weekend!

Laura Elizabeth Pohl
Art Director
Columbia, Missouri

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Blog

Searching for an elusive Christmas


My parents and I just took a walk around their southeastern Virginia neighborhood and I was struck by the excess of everything that this holiday generates. Yes, I realize this isn’t at all a new cultural phenomenon, but I feel I’m seeing the situation with fresh eyes since I spent the last two Christmases living in a country without a Christian majority. In my parents’ neighborhood dozens of homes are dripping in millions of — admittedly dazzling — lights. I like those lights, I do. But I even saw a brite-lite-looking Santa Claus perched from a basketball hoop. Funny, true, but is that really necessary? Every trash can and recycling bin is stuffed with paper, boxes and ribbons. A sign the economy is recovering? We can only hope. Anyway, from discussions with friends I get the feeling that every generation thinks the one before it experienced more meaningful Christmases. Reading at least to the middle of this article and you’ll see it just ain’t so.

—Laura Pohl

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Photo Essays

Homes for the displaced

Rebuilding a country devastated by civil war, one house at a time.


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