What is belonging? Or rather, how? Belong-ing implies that it’s an action in movement, constantly fleeting, always changing.
How is belonging? You establish relationships with people that you can rely on and who can rely on you. You engage with certain objects in the environment. These actions can give you entry into the social, cultural, economic, and political networks that make a place, and feel that you can take some kind of role in that community. To me, this participation, as marginal or ephemeral as it may be, is the workings of belonging.
I don’t know how individual people in the various cities I visit create their belonging. I can only assume. The following images are my personal glimpses into the hidden mechanics of belonging in New York, Tokyo, and Barcelona.
Economic belonging Individuals contribute to the economic circulation of a city. This interaction creates a consumerist role for the person. Whether intentional or accidental, desired or resisted, this is one of the most basic actions of belonging to a community.
Political belonging One form of participation in these particular cities was the imposition of political speech onto the street. From protests to graffiti, private beliefs were etched onto the urban landscape. As rebellious as this is, just as a child rebels against his or her parent, to me it seemed to be a show of their belonging.
Belonging by not belonging There are those who are on the margins of participation — those who are ignored on the street, those without an imposing voice. Their ways of belonging are more invisible to me than those of anyone else. As outcasts or strangers, how do they belong? What does their presence say about the other ways of belonging? What does this say about me?
In August 2004, InTheFray published an interview with artist Josh Arseneau, along with some of his work. His artwork, inspired by news of the 2003 civil war in Liberia, portrayed the plight of child soldiers in West Africa and explored cultural connections to those children. Josh’s interest in the subject took him to the Gambia and Senegal last fall, where he gained new perspectives to apply to his future body of work. Here Josh reflects on his trip and, through photographs from his travels, gives viewers an eye into his experience.
One of the things I remember most clearly about Africa was drinking Sprite in the Banjul International Airport before leaving Gambia. It was my first cold drink in three weeks, and it was delicious.
Occasionally I realize that an exact moment, even something as banal as drinking soda, represents what it means to be alive — not just alive, but possessing vitality. For some reason, I found more of these “near-life experiences” in Africa than halfway around the world, where I am now.
Cleaning rice in the afternoon sun was one of those experiences — an instance when I felt life buzzing around me like a super-charged aura or an energy field. While I picked out the small rocks and other inedibles that had gotten into the white rice, Mariama watched me intently.
She was the daughter of Nyimah, a friend of my guide and mentor, Haruna. I had met Haruna through an English website for the guesthouse he maintains. Born in northern Senegal, he was a member of the Fula tribe and spoke five languages, despite having never gone to school.
That afternoon, he sat to my left and smoked a rolled cigarette while rocking Nyimah’s son, Pamusa, to the sound of the hard rice being sifted in its metal bowl. The sun was just starting to set over the ocean, and goose bumps prickled up through the sweat all over my body. It was a feeling that screamed, “This is what it means to be alive! This is what matters to the rest of your life — this is experience you will never again attain.”
Why rice-cleaning resounded in me so strongly remains a mystery. Perhaps it was that it differed from all of my previous knowledge of Africa. For 18 months prior, I had been researching, from a distance, child soldiers in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. All of my information had been gathered secondhand; I never talked to a child soldier, never saw one in person, and never talked to anyone whose life had been adversely affected by one.
What I did experience was haunting articles, essays, and interviews, and some of the most chilling photographs I had ever seen. Most of the material had come from online news sources and periodicals. Many of the images were appropriated from The New York Times and Getty Images. I had planned to translate all of this secondhand information into a large body of visual art that I would create — paintings, prints, and drawings — all based on, and in response to, the photos I collected from the various online sources.
When I went to the Gambia, I was on vacation, but I was still interested in following up on my research. The southern region of Senegal that borders the Gambia is Casamance — an area filled with militia fighting against the Senegalese government. One day, Haruna and I visited Alfonse, an art teacher at a French school and a farmer from Casamance. As we drank coffee and ate peanut butter on bread, I asked Alfonse about his experiences with the rebels in his home village. He became agitated while describing how young boys and men who could not afford school often turned to the rebels. They found the wealth they had always wanted at the end of their AK-47s.
Alfonse said it wasn’t uncommon to see them robbing people at checkpoints, taking everything but the victims’ clothes, and then driving off in the stolen car. He said the rebels had forgotten what they fought for; some of the younger ones never even knew. What they knew was the power of a gun waved in someone’s face.
Alfonse’s stories of his hometown struck me, but registered as secondhand — I was still only experiencing the child soldiers from a distance. When I returned home, I flipped through the hundreds of photos I had taken. Compared to my research, the photos, at first, seemed horribly mediocre. They were images of daily life in the village of Katchikally, where I lived with Haruna — views of Tuman Street, the pier where the fishing boats docked, and children in the neighborhood. They represented the banality of daily life, and, I came to believe upon reflection, the most alive kind of experience.
I realized then that the appeal of cleaning rice was its quiet completeness as a process of living. In John Dewey’s book, Art as Experience, he writes that experience may be of “tremendous import … or it may have been something that, in comparison, was slight, and which, perhaps because of its very slightness, illustrates all the better what it is to be an experience.”
Dewey also writes, “Nothing takes root in the mind when there is no balance between doing and receiving.” I thought about how the final act of consuming the rice qualified cleaning it as an actual experience. And I wondered whether translating my research on the child soldiers into art qualifies it as an experience as meaningful and important as simply helping to get dinner ready.
It was clear to me then that my new body of work would try to combine these disparate experiences on the canvas — the experiences I lived, and those I translated in the safety of my studio. The new work would be done from photographs — my own and the hundreds I discovered during my research. As I turned all these photos into drawings, paintings, and prints, would my lived experience show as more authentic than my secondhand experience? And what would the experience of the viewer be, who sees these lived and secondhand images on the same picture plane?
Mary Ann Finch sits “Rolf” down on a makeshift massage table — a plastic crate — and digs her gentle fingers into his back and neck, releasing years of knots and tension. For a moment, Rolf’s ocean-weathered face seems to relax. Since his wife died, alcohol has taken its toll on the 49-year-old who lives in one of the city’s homeless camps.
While most San Franciscans edge away from the poor and the homeless, people like Rolf, Finch has devoted her career to touching them and training others to do the same.
After a trip to India in 1997, Finch, a massage practitioner, opened the Care Through Touch Healing Institute, a clinic and school devoted to massaging the homeless. While abroad, she studied and observed Mother Teresa, the late Roman Catholic nun and well-known humanitarian. Finch was so moved by Mother Teresa’s work with the poor that she decided to use her “caring touch” skills to help the underprivileged and homeless back in San Francisco.
Hands-on massage is just the first step in Finch’s work. She uses touch as a vehicle to make contact with her clients, to elevate their self-esteem, and to eventually assist them in finding shelters, rehabilitation programs, and jobs.
The institute is located on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin District, but Finch can be found at a number of locations around the city, including homeless shelters, recovery and drop-in centers, residential hotels, or simply “working the streets.”
Finch also finds time to train interns from around the world on the art of massage. After an intense and lengthy workshop, the interns head out to local spots to begin their work lifting the spirits of the poor, the ailing, and the forgotten.
Sister Elsie and Sister Mary Ellen, both graduates of Finch’s program, are Catholic nuns who came to San Francisco after working to build clinics and schools in developing countries. They will take pillows and towels to a local men’s shelter and, after a brief greeting, begin to massage the “untouchables.” The client will sit under a pair of healing hands, his head lowered, with a look of ease and relief slowly appearing on his face. Some clients drift off while others speak quietly to their caregivers, identifying particular physical pains to focus on, or sometimes voicing personal concerns. After 20 minutes or so, time is up. Reluctantly, the grateful client says goodbye while the next client sits down for “care through touch.”
Following one such session with Sister Elsie, a client stands up to say goodbye. Before leaving, he asks for one more favor.
“Come find out about the tragic events of November 3, 1979 — the Greensboro massacre,” said the voicemail. What Greensboro massacre?! I’d been living in Greensboro for two years and had never heard of this “massacre.” And November 3? That’s my birthday! So, my interest piqued, as a sophomore at Guilford College, I went to the presentation to find out about this massacre.
On November 3, 1979, five people were killed and ten wounded on the streets of Greensboro, North Carolina. The Communist Workers Party had organized a march and an educational conference against the Ku Klux Klan. They had just begun gathering on the corner of Carver and Everitt streets, putting signs together and singing songs with their children, when a caravan of seven cars pulled up and stopped in front of them. Members of the KKK and the Neo-Nazi party calmly stepped out, loaded their guns and shot into the crowd.
There were no police present because the chief had given all the officers assigned to the march an “early lunch,” although the chief was nearby and on dispatch with the grand master of the Klan. A member of the FBI was in the lead truck of the Klan caravan with a copy of the CWP’s parade permit, which he had easily obtained because it had been furnished to him by the chief of police.
After the Klan had killed those whom they were there to kill, they left. Then the cops showed up immediately after the Klan had driven away. During the trials the police claimed they were late because there was confusion about the starting point of the march, but everyone else seemed to find the location without any problems.
It was all on caught on tape because of the newscasters who were present, but not a single member of the Klan spent a day in jail. One of the demonstrators however, did do jail time, for allegedly using “foul language” after his friends had been shot to death.
The more I found out about the Greensboro Massacre, the more I just sat, stunned, in disbelief. I needed to be involved with this, to do something towards change. I began volunteering at the Truth and Reconciliation Project, which was really inspiring because I was working around the survivors. When I became a senior and it was time for me to decide on a thesis topic to complete my bachelor of fine arts degree in painting, I chose the Greensboro Massacre. I wanted to educate other people about it and to share my outrage, so I did it the best way I knew how: through my paintings.
I did more research and the more I found out, the more I wanted to know. I read books written by survivors, poured over the articles on microfiche from the local paper, watched the documentaries, and contacted survivors. It was as if layers of corruption and cover-up were being slowly pulled back until this vulgar heart had been exposed.
I began painting like I had never painted before. I felt connected to the survivors when I worked on paintings of them. I felt like a part of the story. I stayed up through the nights working, pots of coffee making their way through my bloodstream. And when I did sleep I had nightmares about the Klan coming to get me, about being in jail, about friends being killed. I worked through the nightmares and through everything. I just painted and painted and painted. While working on my thesis I met many of the survivors, one of them being Marty Nathan, who had started the Greensboro Justice Fund (GJF) out of the ashes of the Greensboro Massacre.
Because of Marty and my attachment to justice seen over the tragic events of November 3, I moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, where Marty runs the GJF out of her house. November 3, 2004, was my 23rd birthday and the 25th anniversary of the Massacre. The march, which had been so crudely halted, was completed. In Greensboro, roughly 1,200 people assembled to “transform tragedy into triumph.” We marched for racial and economic justice, for the right to dissent, and for those who lost their lives defending justice 25 years ago.
Working on it was an incredible experience. I focused on the college mobilization —writing public service announcements for radio stations, organizing a benefit show, putting up signs, talking to students, emailing, and stuffing envelopes.
As I stood near the front of the march, looking back over the endless torrent of people, I was proud, because I had been a part of it.
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CONTRIBUTOR >
The writer and artist Aliene de Souza Howell, InTheFray.com Contributor
Worshippers kneel on pine needles in front of open Coke bottles and melting candles. Colored ribbons hanging from pointed straw hats cover their faces. Faded wooden saints wearing silk stare from behind glass cases. Clouds of incense muffle the chants of the Tzotzil villagers in San Juan Chamula Chiapas, as busloads of Europeans wear a path in the tile. The tourists outnumber the locals, but they have come to witness the religious ceremonies of indigenous Mexicans.
Who are these “indigenous people” of Latin America, and what does it mean to be an Indian? Few countries in Latin America have tribal registries based on bloodline, and most do not have established reservations. Is the answer in the way people dress, the language they speak, the religion they practice, or the color of their skin? Is it valid to fear that indigenous ways of life are vanishing?
These questions are hard to answer, but need to be explored.
The lines that once separated the “indigenous” from the “Latins” are blurring. Hundreds of years ago, the Spaniards came to key cities of economic and geographic importance. They rarely ventured out of these established areas, allowing indigenous communities to develop in relative isolation. Today, however, cultural isolation is rare. As transportation continues to improve, migration occurs and languages disappear; cultures merge. Now only the extremes are obviously identifiable as “white” or “indigenous.” The majority lie somewhere in the middle.
The term “vanishing culture” is frequently used to describe a process that has been occurring for centuries. Cultures are fluid and in a constant state of change. What we now think of as “signs” of the indigenous, such as round, black hats on Aymara women, may not have been recognizable to the same tribes hundreds of years earlier. Many of these “signs” are imports from non-indigenous cultures. I show this cycle of cultural change by photographing isolated indigenous populations, peoples living in mixed cultures, and areas where Indians have become extinct.
For nine years, I photographed in areas of Latin America with large indigenous populations. I worked with Maya in Southern Mexico and Guatemala, Aymara in Bolivia, Quechua in Peru and Ecuador, Tarahumara in Northern Mexico, Guaraní in Argentina and Paraguay, Yagua in the Amazon, and Nivacle in Paraguay, to name just a few. I photographed the vanishing and merging cultures in twelve countries, from the southernmost city in the world in Tierra del Fuego, where the native populations were annihilated, to the Tarahumara cave dwellers of the Copper Canyon on the Mexico-Texas border.
These fifteen images are a small sampling of a larger project. They are documents of street life that show how people live, work, and lead their daily lives. The photographs show the merging of the Indian and Latin cultures and the changing ways of life. They question what it means to be indigenous.
Yagua Indian children paint their face with seeds before performing ritual dances. (Pebas, Peruvian Amazon)
They say there is a city of dolphins at the bottom of the Amazon waters. A lost city. Time passes slowly down there. One day below equals one year above. The pink dolphins of the Amazon don’t have enough mates. So the male dolphins swim to the surface and steal Amazonian women, and the female dolphins steal handsome men. If you stay underwater and live the dolphin life, time appears normal. But when you return to the surface, your village is gone, and a modern city has taken its place. Your family and friends are dead. Eventually, you age as you should and turn to dust as your long-dead ancestors.
They call the pink dolphins “witches”—bad, pink witches.
A Tarahumara Indian gives directions to a hiker in the Copper Canyon. (Posadas Barrancas, Mexico)
He gives a hiking tourist directions on how to reach the bottom of the deepest canyon in the world. Then the Tarahumara sits on his bench on the rim of the Copper Canyon and carves a stick and a ball. His shadow points the way.
Quechua women line up to buy meat at a roadside stand. (Calderón, Ecuador)
Like musical notes, the pigs hang in an uneven line. Women inspect and decide on their favorite slabs. A cat hides around the corner, hoping for handouts. A man humming and whittling sticks waits for his wife to shop.
An Aymara Indian woman quietly crosses Lake Titicaca on a boat. She is making a pilgrimage to Copacabana on Easter to pay homage to the Virgin of Copacabana. (Lake Titicaca, Bolivia)
Easter morning on Lake Titicaca. A baby monkey grasps a necklace charm with a fuzzy image of the Virgin of Copacabana. Aymara Indian women in shiny skirts tease children by chasing them down the street with a stuffed frog that has colored stars on its back. Street vendors sell strings of fresh roses for twenty cents and images of the Virgin in barnacle-covered oyster shells. Believers pray for new homes while drunk, chanting priests perch faded plastic houses on their heads.
One of the first helicopters to land in Baños, Ecuador, is greeted by a crowd of screaming and laughing people. Baños is the gateway to the Amazon Basin in Ecuador. (Baños, Ecuador)
Blades slice thin air and squeeze between mountain peaks. Crowds race down cobbled streets toward the soccer field. Boys spin in circles with arms outstretched and little girls squeal and scream. Parents giggle and sprint ahead of the crowd. The helicopter descends, and the twirling boys push each other closer to the blades. An elegant leg steps out, and a rich visitor comes to town.
Three Aymara Indian women, guests at a wedding, stand covered with confetti outside the chapel. (La Paz, Bolivia)
Confetti drips like melting snow from hats onto sour shoulders. The day is festive, but they are not. The bride walks out. A guest lifts a hat to sprinkle the woman with more flakes. But nothing touches their faces.
A Garifuna man and child stare at the sea. Their ancestors were shipwrecked slaves who swam to freedom and mixed with local Indians. (Roatan, Honduras)
They stare at the sea. Their ancestors came on that sea—slaves—shipwrecked to short freedom and then shuttled to an island off Honduras. These are the Garifuna. They dance with the wind.
Clouds blanket the Andes Mountains above a church. (Baños, Ecuador)
View from a damp hotel window. I lift off my blanket as the clouds unveil the town.
Gerónimo walks to work through the morning fog near a Chiapan army base and a newly discovered Mayan ruin. (Outside Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico)
Gerónimo carries a pickaxe on his neck and smiles with a chipped tooth. He steps into the mist while his feet break muddy reflections. In the distance, army drums echo tunes of revolution.
Chiapans enter the Cathedral of San Cristobal on “Human Rights Day” to celebrate the twenty-five years of service of Bishop Ruiz, a supporter of Chiapan Zapatistas and voice of the Indians. (San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico)
Two priests in white satin robes plant their feet in front of towering church doors. Patrons gaze from the plaza below while the priests stand silently for photos. Children with gladiolas and men carrying wooden St. Christophers on their shoulders bow their heads as they pass the priests. Shoe-shining Indian boys giggle behind the robes. Three lambs carved out of papayas with furry fruit hair greet people as they enter the church.
A drunk man collapses on the steps of Guadalupe Church in San Cristobal de las Casas. (San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico)
Dozens of steps on the way to heaven. A drunk walks a few and dreams the rest.
Children enjoy lighting fires in honor of their city’s patron saint during the week-long Fiesta de San Martín. Otavalo is a mestizo town surrounded by Indian villages. (Otavalo, Ecuador)
They light tires and cardboard boxes. They run through the flames protected by the spirit of Saint Martín. Children giggle. Parents smile. Fumes rise to heaven.
Several families gather for a Mother’s Day celebration in a small Amazonian village. (Tamichiacu, Peruvian Amazon)
She’s sixty-four and dances like Chubby Checker. Green ruffles at the bottom of her dress twirl when she squats, wiggles her hips, and raises her arms. It’s Mother’s Day on the Amazon, and she shouts her motherhood as she celebrates with her family. She guzzles the beer-egg milkshake and opens her eyes wide. “You drink half, and I drink half,” she insists as she passes the bottle covered with lipstick smudges the color of cotton candy. “For Mother’s Day. To the mothers!”
Two young girls stand by a tree in the old city of Quito. Quito was founded in the 1500s on top of the ruins of a major Inca city. (Quito, Ecuador)
Winding streets and twisted trees in the Old City. The Virgin of Quito looks over the city from the highest peak, guarding the children who stare through those branches.
A skull welcomes people to the end of the earth, where the indigenous Fuegians were annihilated. (Tierra del Fuego, Chile)
Tierra del Fuego. The Land of Fire, where before they were extinct, the Fuegians warmed themselves by flames. Tierra del Fuego. The End of the World.
Neither the landscape nor the people in North Vietnam appeared to have suffered through ten years of war. The following images were taken during a month-long journey following the path of the Red River from Hanoi to Kan Cau, a Chinese border village.
The photographs illustrate a return to an extreme fundamental way of life. From the coal workers on the river bank to the land owners near Ninh Binh to the women selling produce in the Hanoi market to the colorful Hmong tribe in the far north, the Vietnamese have kept their heritage and pride using only what the land has to offer.
Artist Statement
As an artist, I aim to capture emotions portrayed in the human face. Born and raised in Israel, I have witnessed extensive suffering and tragic events since childhood. During my mandatory military service, I vowed to make peace my main objective in life.
I chose Vietnam for the diversity it provides. Fifty-four ethnic groups have maintained traditions, identities and peace after two decades of war. The Vietnamese have created a harmonious culture that has woven its ethnicity into a beautiful, multicolored, multi-cultural quilt.
Traditional customs relating to the essential needs of any individual and community are the strength and security within their quilt and their country. My goal is to produce work that inspires peace as the Vietnamese were an inspiration to me. Although, we are of many different cultures, races, religions and nationalities, there are elements that tie us together.
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CONTRIBUTOR >
The writer and photographer Uzi Ashkenazi, InTheFray.com Contributor
For another child it would be a typical day at school. But for Grant, a seven-year-old coping with attention deficity hyperactivity disorder, it's a day of frustration and loneliness.
Today was a very good day for Grant,” Kay McNeil, a teacher at Mary Paxton Keeley Elementary School, said on Wednesday, May 5, 2004. “We’ve been working on his not hitting other kids. For a week and a half, he hasn’t hit anyone.”
Seven-year-old Grant Lanham was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when he was three. He has been taking medication for it ever since.
Nowadays so many children have been diagnosed with ADHD that there is public concern about potential widespread over-diagnosis. However, Grant’s parents think he cannot function in school without taking his medicine.
When Grant was first diagnosed with ADHD, the Lanhams already knew what to do. Jordan, Grant’s older brother, was given the same diagnosis eight years ago after a teacher told the Lanhams that their son could not sit still in his seat at school. At that time, the boys’ father, Geoff, realized he had suffered the same difficulties during his own childhood. Four years ago, Geoff Lanham was also diagnosed with ADHD, a hereditary disease.
“When Grant was about three years old, he was twice as bad as Jordan and he would run into the street after you said to him to stop and wait for an adult. He was constantly moving and on the go,” said Grant’s mother, Pam Lanham.
Grant visits his doctor every three months to make sure his medication is working the way it should, and to make sure he is gaining weight properly, because his medication suppresses his appetite. The Lanhams say medication helps Grant keep himself more in control.
Although children with ADHD have problems concentrating on tasks at school because of their hyperactivity, many are smart and surprisingly creative. Sometimes Grant spends hours reading books or building Legos at home. He likes science and math, and surprised his teacher and parents with verbiage unusual for seven-year-olds.
“His mind is always looking at things in different ways,” Pam Lanham said. “I wish we could channel all of Grant’s energy into something constructive.”
One problem for children with ADHD seems almost counterintuitive: an excess of attention, or hyper-focusing. It is hard for Grant to shift his attention from one thing to another. He is a happy boy at home because he is usually free to indulge in whatever he is interested in whenever he feels the interest. However, if Grant is interrupted, he gets frustrated and yells.
Grant also has some problems with group socializing. At school, Grant not only lacks concentration in class and excessive focusing, he also shows aggressive behavior on account of his impulsivity.
“Children with ADHD cannot function with other children sociably,” McNeil said.
Grant sometimes gets frustrated and pushes other children when they do something he doesn’t like.
“ADHD children have a very short fuse and get angry very quickly and they don’t realize they are angry,” Geoff Lanham said.
One day, Grant kicked the father of one of his classmates at school. After Grant threw a fork at a girl in lunchtime, he had his lunch at the principal’s office — alone.
“He doesn’t have any friends,” Pam Lanham said. “That’s probably the hardest part of the whole thing.”
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ORGANIZATIONS >
Children & Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder URL: www.chadd.org
Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health URL: www.ffcmh.org
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry URL: www.aacap.org
An interview with artist Josh Arseneau, who painted portraits of Liberian youth for his Pacific Northwest College of Art senior thesis, one of which was exhibited at InTheFray’s recent benefit in Manhattan.
According to Human Rights Watch, the largest human-rights organization based in the United States, there are as many as 300,000 children participating in armed conflicts in more than 30 countries worldwide. While many are forcibly recruited, others are pushed into conflict by economic or social reasons. Deadly weapons, such as AK-47s, are placed in the hands of children only eight years old. Last summer, news of Liberia’s civil war made American papers, bringing with it photographs of children who had become involved in the conflict. Inspired by those images, artist Josh Arseneau immersed himself in the subject of child soldiers, which became the focus of his senior thesis. The result is an engaging portfolio of artwork that portrays the plight of these children in West Africa through various media. In the process of exploring cultural connections with his subjects, Josh revisited his own childhood to compare and contrast it with the lives of the child soldiers. In doing so, he discovered points of commonality through human emotions and symbols of childhood, which he shares with viewers through his work. Josh recently graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art, where he received the C.S. Price award for best painter.
The interviewer: Kenji Mizumori, InTheFray Campus Liaison The interviewee: Josh Arseneau, artist
This series of photographs were taken by children living and working in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam as part of the Street Vision. Vietnam’s economy is gradually shifting from a centrally planned socialist system to a market-based one. The rapid economic development has greatly widened the gap between the rich and poor, with the greatest effects being felt in the countryside. Driven from their rural homes by poverty, neglect, and the lure of profits, children are drawn to the cities in droves. Once there, with little or no welfare infrastructure to fall back on, they are forced to take on menial minimum wage jobs and often find themselves living on the streets.
Street Vision one of the many projects begun by Photo Voice, an international non-profit founded by Anna Blackman in 1998, based in London. Photo Voice has projects all over the world that teach photography to disenfranchised groups and people living on the fringes of society. Photo Voice aims to use photography as a weapon of economic and social empowerment, not only providing a marketable technical skill that will be useful in the future but also as a means of communication and self-representation.
Founded in 1998 and based in Ho Chi Minh City, Street Vision now exists as an in independent non-governmental organization (NGO) managed by the Ho Chi Minh Welfare Foundation (HCWF) and is partners with fellow NGO Education for Development. Each year Street Vision enrolls 20 working and street children into its photojournalism workshop, teaching them photography skills and organizing apprenticeships with local photographers. Over 20 participants have gone on to pursue professional photography careers. Exhibits of the children’s work have been held both locally and abroad, serving the dual purposes of fostering understanding within their own communities and increasing awareness and lobbying for change abroad.
All of the photographers have shared brief snippets of their life story as fitting captions for this piece, most in their own words.
Images for this photo essay were part of an exhibition held in London. All images are available for purchase with profits going towards the Street Vision Project. For more information on purchasing prints, please email Ho Chi Minh City Child welfare Foundation at hcwf@hcm.vnn.vn.
Hoping to kill off the ghosts of Abu Ghraib, President Bush wants to tear down the now infamous Iraqi prison. But getting rid of Abu Ghraib won't ameliorate the trauma — at least not for the tortured, who struggle with their pasts on into the present.
Investing the time to learn about the horrors of torture is in no way pleasant. In recent times, the world has endured terrorist attacks in the United States, merciless bloodshed in the Middle East, and continued instability across the globe. Why now pay attention to yet another crisis, that of torture survivors languishing in refugee camps in Africa, when we have real problems at home? In an era when our duty of compassion has been tested over and over again, why should we be willing to look at truly horrific photos, an offense to the senses, documenting the worst horrors of human existence?
Beginning on February 12, 2004, and continuing until the California Supreme Court forced it to stop on March 11, the city of San Francisco issued more than 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Five of those couples are presented here and have been together from as few as three to as many as 19 years, and all expressed awe at having participated in such a historical event, the beginning of a civil rights revolution.
While gay and lesbian couples were being married at City Hall, visible changes in most areas of the city were less noticeable. Even in the Castro, signs of the change were subtle. From signs in store windows and window displays to seeing male couples in tuxes and female couples in wedding dresses running to take public transportation to City Hall, it all seemed so natural and unremarkable.
But the important visual impact wrapped around City Hall during those first few days; the impact of that scene is undeniable. Seeing couples joyfully standing in line for hours to do something most Americans take for granted, removed the debate over same-sex marriage from the theoretical; it gave the issue a human face, a diversity of human faces. It also took the second-class status of civil unions out of the equation for a few weeks while straight and gay couples stood side by side and had their relationships deemed legally equal.
Some have compared the prohibition on gay marriage to Jim Crow segregation, and what has happened in San Francisco to the Montgomery bus boycott. But while some similarities exist, I believe the more appropriate parallel is to voting rights. Historical arguments against extending voting rights to males without property, blacks, and women have all hinged on the idea that expanding the voting franchise would somehow diminish those rights for those already in possession of them.
The same arguments of diminishment of quality have been used against extending the franchise of marriage to gays and lesbians, as if many heterosexuals haven’t already done much to demean the institution. Wouldn’t seeing thousands of people scrambling for the rights you take for granted somehow increase your esteem of those rights? Perhaps what social/religious conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage fear most is that the thin veneer of what has passed for truth on this argument will be torn away by reality and is why conservative legal groups fought so stridently to stop San Francisco’s same-sex marriages as quickly as possible. Each day that gay marriages were being performed, opposition was eroding. Hearts and minds were being changed.
February 12 is National Freedom to Marry Day. But on February 12, 2004, unlike prior years, protesters already in wedding garb were welcomed into San Francisco’s City Hall and offered the marriage licenses they had been denied for so long.
Kate and Susan were married on the first day. Kate remarked that: “By the end of the afternoon, it felt like everybody we knew was there getting married. It was like this huge party in addition to a political act in addition to a personal act of commitment.”
Huong and Alison were also married on February 12 with their 17-month-old son, Theryn, in tow. Most couples exchanged rings, jewelry, or other keepsakes. Huong and Alison passed Theryn between them. Mabel Teng, the City Assessor who conducted their ceremony, said she had never seen that before. Alison remembers how she felt that day. “There was just this wonderful overwhelming sense of love and excitement and change, like all of a sudden these people were having their first taste of freedom,” she said.
Zack and Steve, together for three years, were married on Friday, February 13. In talking about the day they were married, Steve exclaimed, “This is a wonderful city!” The pair wanted to be photographed at The Palace of Fine Arts, a special location for them, where they hope to have the reception.
After a quick trip to Tiffany & Co. for wedding bands, Tim and Justin stood in line on Valentine’s Day. They would have to come back the next day to get married, which they did gladly. The couple, who had previously registered as domestic partners, mentioned how different it felt this time. “When we got our domestic partnership, there were actually couples there getting married. It was a very different feel for the couples getting married than it was for us,” one said. But that was not the case this time; this time they were the ones getting married.
Carolyn and Mona, together for 19 years, stood in line for seven hours on February 16 despite Carolyn’s recent surgery. “[The line] was wrapped all around City Hall … People [were] honking and waving and [giving] thumbs up and congratulations and taxis driving around every 10 to 15 minutes saying free rides for newlyweds … and then all the people coming by and giving us food and drink and umbrellas … people coming to help us celebrate. … It was a wonderful, wonderful day,” Carolyn recalls.
Carolyn tells the story of how, while standing in the final hallway leading to the clerk’s office, the high ceilings and marble walls began to reverberate with people singing, “Chapel of Love.” At that moment, a song from the American pop culture dustbin took on a new and poignant significance. “I didn’t realize how meaningful it would be to have the support of community,” Carolyn said.
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