The Aftermath Project

I recently received a copy of War is Only Half the Story, Volume II, a publication by The Aftermath Project run by the photographer Sara Terry. The Aftermath Project is a non-profit organization that aims to tell "the other half of the story of conflict" through photographs of post-conflict situations. This latest publication includes work by the winner (Kathryn Cook) and finalists (Natela Grigalashvili, Tinka Dietz, Pep Bonet and Christine Fenzl) of their 2008 grant.

A lot has been written (some on this blog) about the desperate state of photo-journalism as both newspapers and magazines continue their steep decline. A number of reports from the recent Visa pour l'image festival in Perpignan stopped just short of saying that photo-journalism is a dying profession. The situation is bad in many ways—photographers have fewer and fewer outlets for in-depth stories—but I think that it is precisely because it is so dire that initiatives like the Aftermath Project are sprouting out from within the cracks. Dispatches magazine is another great example of an initiative that produces in-depth and in-context stories.

Aftermath is focused on post-conflict situations: a subject which is rarely considered to be newsworthy and may not have the immediate photographic gratification of the extremes of conflict. But if initiatives like these can survive, and even thrive, we won't be burying photo-journalism quite yet.

The book is on sale here. The Aftermath Project also holds a yearly grant competition open to working photographers worldwide covering the aftermath of conflict. The next deadline for applications is 2 November 2009.

The ten commandments of culture

I just found out that France has a Council for Artistic Creation and that Marin Karmitz (a producer, distributor and founder of MK2 cinemas) runs it. Apparently Karmitz's position is complementary to the minister of culture: he is not involved with the macro stuff but is supposed to "innovate, experiment and push the boundaries", particularly for young artists. In a country where "youth" has become a dirty word, this strikes me as refreshing. Yesterday at the Musée du Quai Branly, he put forward the 10 commandments of his cultural programme. You can see the full list here (en français of course); some of them are tremendously vague (make Paris the global capital for art), others a bit pedestrian, but there were a few that I found particularly interesting:

Event to "raise the visibility of young people's inventiveness" In summer 2010 young artists (under 30) from all artistic disciplines will be given carte blanche to take over major public spaces (parcs, train stations, factories, monuments and even a few chateaux), however they feel like it.

Youth orchestras in rough areas France are essentially going to copy Venezuela's hugely successful youth orchestra programme initiating 500 young people (aged 7-15) to classical music and giving them in-depth training.

Nomad film school A "nomad" film school will be set up early next year on a barge in one of France's many rough urban areas with the aim of creating a "cinema of the streets". The project will involve around 20 young people (aged 18-25) that will get 1.5 years to make a first film. The director of the school will be Abdellatif Kechiche, the director of La graine et le mulet (The Secret of the Grain), one of my favourite films of last year, and the barge will be the one he used in that film.

Witnesses to hunger

The French newspaper, Le Monde, recently ran an article on a photographic project that is taking place in Philadelphia, called Witnesses to Hunger. In 2008, a public health researcher from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Mariana Chilton, gave 40 single mothers a camera and asked them to document their lives and their struggle to get by. Chilton says that she could no longer handle just dealing with statistics and wanted to find a way to bring some of the reality of these daily struggles to light.

There have been many projects similar to this one over the years and increasingly it seems that the major news networks are relying entirely on the public to send them in content for their news stories. However, as opposed to the CNN ireport's and other 'citizen journalist' programmes, it takes long-term issues that get very little news exposure and gives those that are directly affected the opportunity to document their experiences. In so doing it also aims to give the public some form of deeper understanding of what exactly it can mean to be poor in America today.

From a photographic perspective it is interesting to see shots like these on such a major issue. I found that their total lack of artfulness and the fact that the project does not try to summarise such a complex issue in a handful of images, adds to its potency. Also the use of the web-album format, which seems almost universally devoted to holiday snapshots and friends posing at parties, gives these images a personal touch and somehow brings the viewer closer to these mothers.

Interestingly all of the women who were given these cameras kept them, except for one, and although she sold the camera, she bought several disposable cameras to continue participating in the project.

The mus-mus @Paris project

The mysterious mus-mus collective have just launched their @Paris project online. The project was based on the idea of finding out how photographers today see Paris and think about the Paris they see." There are some big names in here (Stephen Shore, Alec Soth) but also a lot of discoveries. I did find a lot of interesting material (Céline Clanet's image above is a favourite), but overall I felt slightly frustrated. Paris has become a difficult city to photograph because of its past, but for me, as a group, these photographs did not sufficiently get under the skin of the city. The website also includes texts by Darius Himes and Ulrich Baer, which are worth a read.

mus-mus @Paris project

It seems like Paris may be having a bit of a revival as a photographic subject with Eggleston's Paris commission for the Fondation Cartier and now this: mus-mus, the mysterious people behind the @600 project, are back with the @Paris project. As for @600, this project will collect images of Paris by photographers from all over the world taken any time before 14 July 2009.  For the jury they have managed to secure the services of Stephen Shore and Gil Blank. (via Mrs Deane)