ZEKE Magazine: Fall 2018
Fall 2018 issue: Documentary in the Era of Post-Truth Where the River Runs Through: The Erosion of the Amazon Rain Forest Photographs by Call for Entries winner Aaron Vincent Elkaim Text by Enrique Gili Rhythm of the Seasons: Traveling North with the Last of the Inuit Hunters Photographs by Philippe Geslin. Text by Tori Marlan Life & War in Ukraine Photographs by Michele Cirillo, Aude Osnowycz, and Jan Zychlinski Text by Glenn Ruga Image in the Era of Post-Truth by Fred Ritchin Book Reviews
Fall 2018 issue: Documentary in the Era of Post-Truth
Where the River Runs Through: The Erosion of the Amazon Rain Forest
Photographs by Call for Entries winner Aaron Vincent Elkaim
Text by Enrique Gili
Rhythm of the Seasons: Traveling North with the Last of the Inuit Hunters
Photographs by Philippe Geslin. Text by Tori Marlan
Life & War in Ukraine
Photographs by Michele Cirillo, Aude Osnowycz, and Jan Zychlinski
Text by Glenn Ruga
Image in the Era of Post-Truth by Fred Ritchin
Book Reviews
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<strong>ZEKE</strong>FALL <strong>2018</strong> VOL.4/NO.2<br />
THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY<br />
Published by Social Documentary Network<br />
$9.95 US/$10.95 CANADA<br />
FEATURED ARTICLES<br />
WHERE THE RIVER RUNS THROUGH<br />
THE EROSION OF THE AMAZON RAINFOREST<br />
Photographs by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
RHYTHM OF THE SEASONS<br />
TRAVELING NORTH WITH THE LAST INUIT HUNTERS<br />
Photographs by Philippe Geslin<br />
LIFE AND WAR IN UKRAINE<br />
Photographs by Michele Cirillo, Aude Osnowycz,<br />
Jan Zychlinski<br />
1 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
FALL <strong>2018</strong> VOL.4/NO.2<br />
$9.95 US/$10.95 CANADA<br />
2 | RHYTHM OF THE SEASONS<br />
TRAVELING NORTH WITH THE LAST INUIT HUNTERS<br />
Photographs by Philippe Geslin<br />
Text by Tori Marlan<br />
Philippe Geslin<br />
18 | WHERE THE RIVER RUNS THROUGH<br />
THE EROSION OF THE AMAZON RAINFOREST<br />
Photographs by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
Text by Enrique Gili<br />
36 | LIFE AND WAR IN UKRAINE<br />
Photographs by Michele Cirillo, Aude Osnowycz,<br />
Jan Zychlinski<br />
Text by Glenn Ruga<br />
Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
30 |<br />
34 |<br />
Award Winners<br />
Interview with Reza<br />
by Caterina Clerici<br />
54 |<br />
Image in the Era of Post-Truth<br />
by Fred Ritchin<br />
Jan Zychlinski<br />
58 |<br />
63 |<br />
Book Reviews<br />
What’s Hot<br />
Trending Photographers on SDN<br />
On the Cover<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
from Where the River Runs Through:<br />
The Erosion of the Amazon Rainforest,<br />
featured in this issue of <strong>ZEKE</strong>. Elkaim is<br />
the winner of Social Documentary Network’s<br />
Call for Entries on Documentary<br />
in the Era of Post-Truth.<br />
Reza
<strong>ZEKE</strong><br />
THE<br />
MAGAZINE OF<br />
GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY<br />
Published by Social Documentary Network<br />
Dear <strong>ZEKE</strong> Readers:<br />
This issue of <strong>ZEKE</strong> is devoted to the exploration of post-truth.<br />
The abuse of truth is nothing new, and in itself would not lead<br />
to rebranding our era with this moniker. But combined with an<br />
internet filled with untruths that are swaying public opinion,<br />
mainstream media such as Fox News or RT (Russia Today)<br />
making up “facts,” and a new skepticism of science at a time when<br />
climate change is burning and flooding our planet, the bedrock belief in<br />
objectivity is on dangerously shaky ground.<br />
No event in recent history illustrates this better, and more<br />
dangerously, than the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the<br />
US Supreme Court following blistering and divisive testimony by<br />
Kavanaugh and his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Each is 100%<br />
certain about what happened or didn’t happen. How can this be?<br />
Either one of them is lying or one actually and erroneously believes their<br />
statement because of faulty memory. But they both cannot be right as<br />
much as 1+1 cannot equal 3. While I find Ford a credible witness, and<br />
Kavanaugh less so, facts were in short supply in this debate.<br />
Today it is too common for two sides of a debate to have<br />
diametrically opposed understanding of facts with each side being<br />
100% certain about being right.<br />
I first experienced this slippery slope on truth when in 1995 I<br />
traveled to Bosnia during the end of a genocidal war and listened<br />
to testimony of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, each of whom<br />
were convinced of the veracity of their narrative. In 1994, the<br />
Muslim residents of Sarajevo were 100% certain that it was the Serb<br />
nationalists who bombed the downtown marketplace killing 68 civilians<br />
and the Serbs were just as sure that it was the Bosnian government that<br />
did it in order to gain international support for their cause. Unlike the<br />
Kavanaugh hearings, facts were available and numerous international<br />
experts came to a unanimous conclusion that it was Serb nationalists<br />
perched on high ground above Sarajevo who did this heinous act. But it<br />
was an eye opener for me to hear first-hand Serb nationalists deny their<br />
involvement with “100%” certainty.<br />
I would hate to conclude that all truth is relative because I strongly<br />
believe in the rule of law based on evidence, science based on research,<br />
and that objective truth is essential for justice to prevail in this world.<br />
I am very grateful to the photographers in this issue of <strong>ZEKE</strong> for<br />
presenting truths about the themes they explore and also to Fred Ritchin<br />
for his essay on “Image in the Era of Post-Truth.”<br />
Glenn Ruga<br />
Executive Editor<br />
Ten Years of Telling Truth<br />
It was ten years ago this month that the Social<br />
Documentary Network (SDN) launched a website at<br />
the PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in New<br />
York. A decade later, we have presented more than<br />
3,000 documentary exhibits by more than 2,000<br />
photographers from all parts of the world exploring<br />
hundreds of diverse themes. We have also have had<br />
gallery exhibitions in locations across the US and<br />
in Europe. We have hosted educational programs<br />
involving world renowned photographers. We continue<br />
to be a strong voice for documentary photography.<br />
And in 2015, we took a bold step to launch this<br />
magazine.<br />
In the ten years since we launched SDN,<br />
digital photography has made the truthfulness of<br />
a photograph more suspect than ever. In fact a<br />
photograph today is of little more use as evidence than<br />
an illustration. But an important concept behind SDN<br />
is that a documentary project is never about just one<br />
image. Rather it is about an investigation involving<br />
many images from many angles, often over a period<br />
of months or years. Quality documentary investigation<br />
often involves a deep commitment by the photographer<br />
to research the historical backgrounds and current<br />
political climate of their themes. In other instances, it<br />
involves capturing the personal stories of the subjects.<br />
In Fred Ritchin’s article in this issue, “Image<br />
in the Era of ‘Post-Truth’“ he makes the case that<br />
documentary photographers today are using a more<br />
conceptual approach because the obvious approach<br />
of just relying on photographic evidence is no longer<br />
credible. In recent years we have seen many of the<br />
photographers on SDN doing exactly this and we<br />
encourage more of this type of exploration.<br />
SDN is proud to be celebrating our tenth<br />
anniversary and ten years of telling truth. We want to<br />
thank and celebrate the thousands of photographers<br />
who trust us to present their stories to the world and<br />
we look forward to another decade of collaboration.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 1
RHYTHM OF THE<br />
TRAVELING NORTH WITH THE LAST INUIT HUNTERS<br />
Photographs by Philippe Geslin<br />
2 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
SEASONS<br />
In<br />
the heart of Greenland, the world’s<br />
largest island, at the confluence of the<br />
bays of Melville and Baffin, are the last<br />
Inuit hunters. They still live to the rhythm of<br />
the seasons, the ice pack and the sea, the<br />
storms and the cold. They are looking for<br />
the presence of seals. Everything seems<br />
unresolved for these northern peoples<br />
living in the least populated land, where<br />
three quarters of the territory is covered by<br />
once permanent ice sheets and glaciers<br />
that are now beginning to melt due to<br />
climate change.<br />
Philippe Geslin is an ethnologist, anthropologist<br />
and photographer. “Each of my<br />
travels is a new beginning, an almost<br />
stubbornness. I am taking time, as a sensitive,<br />
curious and demanding vagabond<br />
to unfold the territories of beings and<br />
things, to reveal the backstage, to follow<br />
the meanders, to restore the sensible, the<br />
harmless. In these distant lands, it is in<br />
the imperceptible and the tenuous that we<br />
seize the universe.” Philippe uses photography<br />
as a mode of literary expression<br />
as he tries to give an accurate account of<br />
everyday life of small communities from the<br />
last hunter-gatherers of East Africa and the<br />
Maasai breeders in Tanzania to the last<br />
Inuit hunters in Greenland.<br />
“The Inuit here have so much to teach<br />
us—we who keep nature at a distance and<br />
pay the heavy price for it.”<br />
Iceberg in Nutaarmiut Bay,<br />
Upernavik District, northwest<br />
Greenland.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 3
Lars Jensen coming from a dog sled<br />
race, Kullorsuaq, Upernavik District,<br />
northwest Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
4 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 5
6 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
Summer Sky. Upernavik City,<br />
northwest Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 7
Ole Eliassen coming back from a seal<br />
hunt, Kullorsuaq, Upernavik District,<br />
northwest Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
8 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 9
Helicopter landing. Nusuaq,<br />
Upernavik District, northwest<br />
Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
10 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 11
12 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Ole Eliassen looking at seal nets<br />
on pack ice. Kullorsuaq, Upernavik<br />
District, northwest Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 13
14 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Lars Jensen preparing a bear skin<br />
for drying, Kullorsuaq, Upernavik<br />
District, northwest Greenland.<br />
Photograph by Philippe Geslin<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 15
INUIT<br />
THE<br />
On the ice-covered island<br />
of Greenland, in remote<br />
regions inhospitable to<br />
agriculture, Inuit communities<br />
of the past endured<br />
and thrived by relying on<br />
every part of the seal. The meat<br />
provided protein and nutrients;<br />
the skins, warm clothing and<br />
boots; the blubber, oil for lamps.<br />
Bones and sinew became tools<br />
and thread.<br />
By Tori Marlan<br />
Historically, subsistence<br />
hunters provided for their<br />
families while sharing the<br />
rewards of seal hunting with<br />
their communities. They participated<br />
in the global economy<br />
Photographs by Philippe Geslin<br />
as early as the 18th century,<br />
bringing sealskins to colonial<br />
trading posts.<br />
Today, as always, “seals are<br />
very important for Inuit,” says<br />
Hans Rosing, an Inuit hunter.<br />
But since the mid-20th century,<br />
AND THE DECLINE OF<br />
SUBSISTENCE SEAL<br />
HUNTING IN GREENLAND<br />
Inuit communities across the<br />
Arctic have experienced rapid,<br />
dramatic changes to their<br />
way of life. Health and social<br />
problems have ensued, including<br />
increased rates of poverty,<br />
alcoholism, alcohol-related<br />
violence, and suicide.<br />
Though seal hunting is still<br />
widely practiced and remains<br />
central to Inuit identity and<br />
culture, it is no longer a means<br />
of survival—or, even, a viable<br />
profession.<br />
“Maybe there are still a few<br />
full-time seal hunters with wives<br />
who work in schools or hotels,<br />
where she makes the money,”<br />
says University of Versailles<br />
anthropologist Jean-Michel<br />
Huctin. But in Greenland, he<br />
says, most have moved on to<br />
fishing.<br />
Rosing is one of them.<br />
Though he sells seal meat to<br />
nursing homes and municipal<br />
institutions, he also relies on<br />
income from fishing, Greenland’s<br />
main industry.<br />
Across the Arctic, subsistence<br />
seal hunting has been<br />
declining for decades, facing<br />
the triple threat of modernization,<br />
politicization, and climate<br />
change.<br />
Modernization<br />
Life changed significantly for<br />
Greenlanders after Danish<br />
colonial rule ended and the<br />
island became part of Denmark<br />
in 1953. Policies promoting<br />
cultural assimilation forced the<br />
Inuit, the majority population,<br />
from their seasonal settlements<br />
(which were formed according<br />
to migratory paths of the<br />
animals they hunted) into<br />
permanent ones—and, as a<br />
consequence, into town-based<br />
jobs. Modernization continued<br />
at a faster pace after Denmark<br />
granted Greenland self-governance<br />
in 1979 and the island<br />
took control of its internal<br />
affairs.<br />
16 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
Though seal hunting is still<br />
widely practiced and remains<br />
central to Inuit identity and<br />
culture, it is no longer a<br />
means of survival—or, even,<br />
a viable profession.<br />
Today, about a quarter of<br />
Greenland’s 56,000 residents<br />
call the capital city, Nuuk,<br />
home. The rest live in coastal<br />
towns and small settlements,<br />
some with populations under<br />
100 people. Most settlements<br />
are shrinking, as people leave<br />
for educational institutions or to<br />
be near hospitals. Nuuk, whose<br />
population almost doubled<br />
from 1979 to 2014, now has<br />
gourmet restaurants, hotels, a<br />
university, museums, and an<br />
international airport.<br />
Knud Geisler Larsen,<br />
a teacher in the town of<br />
Upernavik, says that many<br />
residents “lived mainly by<br />
hunting and fishing when they<br />
lived in the villages” but now<br />
work wage-based jobs.<br />
“It’s hard to be a hunter<br />
today without having access<br />
to some kind of salary or<br />
income,” says Søren Thue<br />
Thuesen, associate professor<br />
of Eskimology and Arctic<br />
studies at the University of<br />
Copenhagen.<br />
That’s partly because hunting<br />
requires capital investment.<br />
Inuit hunters have incorporated<br />
modern technologies into their<br />
practice ever since they procured<br />
rifles at colonial trading<br />
posts. Today snowmobiles and<br />
boats with outboard motors are<br />
common in most regions, and<br />
hunters across the Arctic use<br />
satellite phones and GPS units<br />
to improve safety.<br />
This equipment is expensive,<br />
and many can only continue<br />
hunting by working day jobs.<br />
They hunt now on weekends or<br />
holidays or whenever they have<br />
spare time, says Thuesen, so<br />
they can “fill their freezers for<br />
the winters.”<br />
Younger generations, especially<br />
city dwellers, do that less<br />
often. Hunting territories near<br />
cities can get crowded. “Think<br />
also smart phones and the<br />
digital revolution,” says Huctin,<br />
pointing out that, like people<br />
everywhere, many are now<br />
drawn to activities that keep<br />
them indoors.<br />
For Larsen—who hasn’t<br />
hunted in 15 years and eats<br />
mostly store-bought items—<br />
traditional foods, such as seal,<br />
whale skin, or reindeer, are<br />
considered a treat.<br />
“We still crave for<br />
Greenlandic food when we<br />
have not had, for example,<br />
seal for a period,” he says.<br />
“Then it is always good to<br />
know someone who hunts.”<br />
Politicization<br />
Animal protection and conservation<br />
groups launched wildly<br />
effective anti-sealing campaigns<br />
in the 1970s and 80s. Global<br />
governments responded to the<br />
campaigns. The US banned<br />
seal products in 1972. Europe<br />
followed suit a few years later,<br />
banning products made from<br />
seal pups. Global demand for<br />
sealskin plummeted, and the<br />
commercial market—which<br />
enabled Inuit hunters to be<br />
economically self-sufficient in<br />
the modern era—collapsed.<br />
Although the activists had<br />
meant to target Canadian<br />
commercial sealers, Inuit communities—who<br />
hunt sustainably<br />
(and don’t hunt pups)—suffered<br />
grave cultural and economic<br />
injury.<br />
From 1983 to 1985, the<br />
average income of a seal<br />
hunter in Resolute Bay, an Inuit<br />
hamlet in the Canadian Arctic,<br />
dropped from $54,000 to<br />
$1,000.<br />
“Greenpeace apologized,<br />
but it was too late,” says Huctin.<br />
Other activist groups took<br />
up the mantle when new<br />
markets opened in the 2000s<br />
in countries such as Russia and<br />
China. The market’s revival<br />
was short-lived. Russia outlawed<br />
the baby harp seal hunt,<br />
and the EU extended its ban to<br />
all seal products, with an Inuit<br />
exemption. Reeling from historical<br />
damage, Canadian and<br />
Greenlandic Inuit sued the EU,<br />
to no avail.<br />
The EU ban—and vocal<br />
Inuit opposition to it—<br />
persists. Even if it were to be<br />
overturned, it is doubtful that<br />
subsistence hunting could ever<br />
make a comeback.<br />
Climate Change<br />
Arctic seals need thick ice.<br />
They find food near it, and they<br />
use it as a platform on which to<br />
rest, give birth, and nurse their<br />
young.<br />
Hunters also need the ice to<br />
be thick—to support the weight<br />
of their dogs or snowmobiles.<br />
Nowadays they regularly<br />
encounter ice that’s broken, too<br />
thin, or watery for hunting safely.<br />
Last year was the second<br />
warmest on record in<br />
the Arctic. According to a<br />
2017 report by the National<br />
Oceanic and Atmospheric<br />
Administration, the ocean temperature<br />
continues to rise, and<br />
sea ice gets thinner every year.<br />
Seasonal ice coverage is<br />
also an issue. Rosing says the<br />
sea used to freeze in October<br />
where he hunts. Now that happens<br />
in December or January.<br />
In some regions, the ice disappears<br />
by April, when it used to<br />
stay solid until June or July.<br />
As the habitat and behavior<br />
of marine animals change as<br />
a result of climate change, so<br />
does hunters’ access to them.<br />
Hunters must travel farther<br />
offshore by boat in summer,<br />
spending more money on gas<br />
and more time on the hunt.<br />
The Inuit are well-acquainted<br />
with climatic variations. Some<br />
speak of a time in the 1920s or<br />
30s when the sea didn’t freeze<br />
at all. But disruptions to their<br />
routines come rapidly now, and<br />
more often. This presents challenges,<br />
but also opportunities<br />
for a culture that’s survived by<br />
being adaptive.<br />
In southern parts of<br />
Greenland, where the climate<br />
supports agriculture, the growing<br />
season has lengthened.<br />
New crops, such as potatoes,<br />
are now grown locally. Some<br />
small-scale mining is taking<br />
place, and the prospect of a<br />
growing industry makes some<br />
hopeful that it will provide<br />
good jobs for younger generations.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 17
WHERE THE RIVER RUNS<br />
THE EROSION OF THE AMAZON RAINFOREST<br />
Photographs by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
In 2007, Brazil’s President Lula da<br />
Silva announced the construction of<br />
over 60 major hydroelectric projects<br />
in the Amazon rainforest, with Belo<br />
Monte Dam at the forefront. The energy<br />
generated would fuel mining initiatives<br />
and power cities thousands of miles away.<br />
Nearing completion, Belo Monte will be<br />
the fourth largest dam in the world. It has<br />
displaced over 20,000 people. Indigenous<br />
groups such as the Xilkrin are strongly resisting<br />
the building of these dams. In January<br />
<strong>2018</strong>, the Brazilian government announced<br />
a major shift away from its policy of building<br />
mega-dams in the Brazilian Amazon, a result<br />
of the staggering environmental and social<br />
costs.<br />
Hydroelectric dams are touted as clean<br />
and renewable sources of energy, but large<br />
dams are often anything but, with hundreds<br />
of square miles of land flooded and complex<br />
river ecosystems permanently transformed.<br />
In the Amazon, they release huge amounts<br />
of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas,<br />
while new infrastructure opens the forest to<br />
increased logging, mining, and agriculture.<br />
The result is the erosion of the Amazon rainforest<br />
and the sacrifice of communities that<br />
depend on the river and forest ecosystems<br />
for their way of life. The emergency plans<br />
created devastating impacts on the customs<br />
and way of life of these self-sustaining<br />
cultures. The Bacaja River, a tributary of the<br />
Xingu River that the people depend upon for<br />
fish and transportation, has severely dried<br />
since the completion of the Belo Monte Dam,<br />
impacting the water quality and affecting the<br />
health of the community.<br />
Aaron Vincent Elkaim is a documentary<br />
photographer currently based in Toronto,<br />
Canada. He studied cultural anthropology<br />
at the University of Manitoba and later<br />
pursued photojournalism. His clients include<br />
The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME<br />
<strong>Magazine</strong>, The Wall Street Journal, HUCK,<br />
Macleans, The Canadian Press and The<br />
Globe and Mail.<br />
Since 2011, he has committed himself<br />
to exploring narratives where people still<br />
connected to the natural world are being<br />
impacted by industrial development. He cofounded<br />
the Boreal Collective, a team of 12<br />
internationally-based photojournalists. While<br />
highlighting important human and environmental<br />
issues, Aaron addresses the need to<br />
protect the natural world by revealing our<br />
profound connection to it.<br />
Munduruku women bathe and do<br />
laundry in a creek by the village of<br />
Sawre Muybu, on the Tapajós River<br />
in Para, Brazil. The Munduruku<br />
are a tribe of 13,000 people who<br />
live traditionally along the river<br />
and depend on fishing and the<br />
river ecosystem for their livelihood.<br />
They have been fighting against<br />
government plans to construct a<br />
number of hydroelectric dams on<br />
the Tapajos River in the Amazon<br />
rainforest that would flood much of<br />
their traditional lands.<br />
18 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
THROUGH<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 19
A fire lit by a rancher burns on the side of highway BR-163,<br />
north of Novo Progresso, Para, Brazil. The BR-163 runs<br />
from the agricultural state of Mato Grosso to the transport<br />
hub of Santarem in Para, Brazil. From there, soy and corn<br />
are exported by boat through the Amazon River to international<br />
markets. The opening of the highway has created<br />
widespread deforestation in the Amazon, with about 95<br />
percent of all deforestation occurring within 50 kilometers of<br />
highways or roads.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
20 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
A Munduruku indigenous girl with her pet monkey in the village<br />
of Sawre Muybu, on the Tapajós River in Para, Brazil,<br />
in traditional paint preceding a ceremony the day after an<br />
action in coordination with Greenpeace in protest of plans<br />
to construct a series of hydroelectric dams on their river in<br />
Para, Brazil. The Munduruku are a tribe of 13,000 people<br />
who live traditionally along the river and depend on fishing<br />
and the river ecosystem for their livelihood.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 21
Juruna from the Paquicamba Indigenous Reserve at a public<br />
audience where riverine communities were able to voice their<br />
grievances to the Public Ministry and Norte Energia, the consortium<br />
in charge of building the Belo Monte Dam. The Juruna live<br />
on the stretch of the Xingu River in Para, Brazil known as the Big<br />
Bend, which has had 80% of its flow diverted by the dam impacting<br />
their fishing, river navigation and overall sustainability. They<br />
are now fighting to stop the proposed Belo Sun gold mine that<br />
would be 11km away from their village and would be the largest<br />
gold mine in the country.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
22 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
A child from the Xikrin village of “Pot crô” on the banks of the Rio Bacaja, in<br />
Para, Brazil. The rivers name means “the water that runs in river is the same<br />
as the blood that flows through our veins.” The Xikrin are a warrior tribe that<br />
strongly resisted the Belo Monte Dam. During an “emergency plan” enacted<br />
by Norte Energia between 2011-2013, the company gave each indigenous<br />
community 30,000 reais ($10,000 US dollars) per month. The emergency<br />
plan created devastating impacts to the customs and way of life of these<br />
self-sustaining cultures with many abandoning their crops and activities for<br />
processed foods and television.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 23
Ana De Fransesca and her son Thomas visit the Belo Monte Dam site, which will be<br />
completed in 2019 on the Xingu River in Para, Brazil. De Fransesca is an anthropologist<br />
who has been working for a local NGO, Instituto Socioambiental, while doing her<br />
PhD on the displaced riverine communities and fishermen impacted by the dam.<br />
Belo Monte is the world’s fourth largest hydropower project, yet is considered one<br />
of the least efficient in the history of Brazil, producing only 10% of its 11,233 MW<br />
capacity during the dry season between July and October. On average it will produce<br />
only 39% of capacity throughout the year. The project has displaced over 20,000<br />
people while impacting numerous indigenous and riverine communities in the region.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
24 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
December 11, 2016. Caboco Juruna from the Juruna village of Miratu in the Paquiçamba Indigenous Reserve<br />
on the Volta Grande do Xingu, fishes for Acarí fish on the Xingu River in Para, Brazil. This part of the Xingu River<br />
has had 80% of its water flow blocked by the newly completed Belo Monte Dam, severely damaging the fishing<br />
livelihoods of the people. The Juruna are now worried that the construction of the proposed upstream Belo Sun<br />
Gold Mine, which will be the largest open pit gold mine in Brazil, will further damage their river and way of life.<br />
While the environmental impacts of Belo Monte are still being analyzed, licensing processes for the mine haven’t<br />
taken into account any potential cumulative impacts on the river or the people who live upon it.<br />
Belo Sun had its environmental licensing suspended in February of 2017 due to lack of consultation with the<br />
Juruna. The company claimed they didn’t need to do an impact assessment with the Juruna because Brazilian law<br />
only requires it within a 10km zone. The village of Paquiçamba is 11km away from the proposed mine.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 25
An Extractavist family from the traditional riparian village of Mangabal on the<br />
Tapajós River. Extractavists came to the forests generations ago during Brazil’s<br />
rubber boom and continue to live a traditional way of life. Many survive on<br />
harvesting sustainable natural products such as rubber, nuts, and oils from<br />
the forest. While they historically fought with the neighboring Munduruku<br />
indigenous people, they have come together in the fight against the dams that<br />
would flood both of their territories. Forty-three dams have been planned for the<br />
Tapajos River Basin in hopes of turning it into a soy corridor for barges from<br />
Mato Grosso State to ports on the Amazon River.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
26 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Members of the Munduruku indigenous tribe walk on a sandbar on the<br />
Tapajós River as they prepare for a protest against plans to construct<br />
a series of hydroelectric dams on their river in Para, Brazil. The tribe<br />
members used the rocks to write ‘Tapajós Livre’ (Free Tapajós) in a large<br />
message in the sand in an action in coordination with Greenpeace. After<br />
years of fighting, in 2016 the Munduruku were successful in lobbying the<br />
government to officially recognize their traditional territory with a demarcation.<br />
This recognition forced IBAMA, Brazil’s Environmental Agency, to<br />
suspend the environmental licensing process for the 12,000 MW Tapajós<br />
hydroelectric complex, due to the unconstitutional flooding of their now<br />
recognized land.<br />
Photograph by Aaron Vincent Elkaim<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 27
The women of the Upper Omo River Valley in Ethiopia are traditionally known<br />
for their lip plates and intricate scarification patterns and often decorate themselves<br />
with white clay and flowers on their head. The Gibe III hydroelectric<br />
dam will affect these tribal communities that depend on the river for their<br />
survival. Photo by Louisa Seton.<br />
DAM-<br />
AGED<br />
LIVES<br />
THE EFFECTS OF<br />
HYDROPOWER<br />
ON INDIGENOUS<br />
POPULATIONS<br />
By Enrique Gili<br />
Dams are touted as a cheap<br />
source of power and a muchneeded<br />
form of renewable<br />
energy for developing nations.<br />
Often left out of this equation<br />
are indigenous groups, who have<br />
the least to gain and the most to lose,<br />
when a watershed is flooded due to<br />
dam construction.<br />
Once a symbol of human ingenuity,<br />
recent events show that dams built<br />
for the ages are often shortsighted<br />
in their execution. For example, a<br />
technological marvel like the massive<br />
Glen Canyon Dam in northern<br />
Arizona, built during the mid-20th<br />
century, now sits half empty due to<br />
prolonged droughts linked to global<br />
warming.<br />
In the United States alone,<br />
there are more than 87,000 dams<br />
recorded in the federal government’s<br />
inventory. Across the country, many<br />
of these dams no longer serve any<br />
useful purpose and thousands have<br />
been deemed unsafe by dam safety<br />
experts. No comprehensive database<br />
on the number of obsolete dams<br />
worldwide exists, but the number is<br />
likely to be much higher.<br />
At present there are an estimated<br />
800,000 dams of various<br />
sizes around the world. New dams<br />
continue to be built with relatively<br />
few being decommissioned due to<br />
obsolescence.<br />
Recent studies indicate there<br />
are additional reasons for concern.<br />
Dam projects have unintended<br />
consequences for wildlife and for the<br />
people living downstream. Among<br />
them, dams disconnect rivers from<br />
floodplains and turn rapids into<br />
still waters, resulting in a loss of<br />
biodiversity. According to the World<br />
Wildlife Fund, freshwater populations<br />
of fish and other species have<br />
declined by 80 percent since 1970<br />
worldwide, causing fish stocks to<br />
plummet in once vibrant locations like<br />
the Columbia River in Oregon and<br />
the Danube River flowing through<br />
central and eastern Europe.<br />
Why do stakeholders persist<br />
despite evidence of harm? Dams<br />
allow cities to thrive and are a<br />
boon to energy-starved regions of<br />
the world. In short, hydropower<br />
and irrigation bring the promise of<br />
progress to developing countries,<br />
while boosting the prestige of elites<br />
who can deliver large-scale projects.<br />
“Politicians like to have monuments<br />
named after them and a dam is a<br />
testament to their power,” says James<br />
Dalton, director of the water program<br />
with the International Union for<br />
Conservation of Nature.<br />
Indigenous<br />
Consequences<br />
Such a rationale has had serious<br />
consequences for indigenous people<br />
whose territories straddle dam sites.<br />
An estimated 40 to 80 million people<br />
have been directly displaced worldwide<br />
and an additional 470 million<br />
people have been impacted further<br />
downstream, according to a joint<br />
report titled Lost in Development’s<br />
Shadow:The Downstream Human<br />
Consequences of Dams, published<br />
by Brian D. Richter, Director of the<br />
Global Freshwater Program of The<br />
Nature Conservancy and other freshwater<br />
experts.<br />
Those affected include indigenous<br />
people, along with farmers,<br />
pastoralists, and fishermen who have<br />
had their livelihoods affected, if not<br />
destroyed by dams, jeopardizing<br />
their physical, cultural and spiritual<br />
wellbeing in the process.<br />
Dams also continue to be built<br />
without the free, prior and informed<br />
consent of affected indigenous<br />
groups. There have also been<br />
28 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
instances of violence directed<br />
against protesters of dam<br />
projects.<br />
For instance, the murder<br />
of the renowned indigenous<br />
leader of the Lenca people in<br />
Honduras, Berta Caceres, made<br />
global headlines. Caceres<br />
and two members of the Civic<br />
Council of Popular Indigenous<br />
Organizations (Copinh) were<br />
killed. Others reported assassination<br />
attempts in the weeks<br />
and months following her<br />
murder in 2016.<br />
On a global scale, 1,400<br />
dams are planned or are<br />
under construction, in locations<br />
once deemed too remote or<br />
impractical to be feasible. In<br />
Asia, Africa and Latin America,<br />
numerous proposed dam<br />
projects are on rivers that flow<br />
through indigenous territories<br />
and across national boundaries,<br />
raising potential waterbased<br />
conflicts between nations<br />
and among tribal groups competing<br />
for scarce resources.<br />
The Nile River, for example,<br />
is one of the more contentious<br />
areas of the globe. Ethiopia<br />
has built and plans to build several<br />
more dams on tributaries<br />
of the Nile in its uplands. This<br />
will divert water from countries<br />
downstream, including Egypt.<br />
Contributing to the tension<br />
is drought and a growing<br />
population more dependent on<br />
a water source that may be on<br />
the wane.<br />
According to published<br />
accounts, the Gilgel Gibe II and<br />
III Dams on the Omo River in<br />
Ethiopia have upended the lives<br />
of 200,000 farmers, fishermen<br />
and herders who depended on<br />
the natural flow of the river for<br />
their livelihoods. The people<br />
of lower Omo River now face<br />
food shortages and governmentsponsored<br />
modernization<br />
schemes that encroach upon<br />
their ancestral lands.<br />
According to observers,<br />
Ethiopia’s headlong rush into<br />
the Renaissance Dam will have<br />
serious implications for Egypt.<br />
Water shortages will continue<br />
to plague the region in the<br />
decades to come and the dam<br />
will exacerbate shortages in<br />
Egypt by an additional 25<br />
percent, the Geological Society<br />
of America estimates.<br />
In the Middle East, issues<br />
surrounding water, oil and<br />
politics are equally volatile.<br />
Mona Salavi believes an<br />
ecological disaster is unfolding<br />
inside Iran. As a member of<br />
the Ahwazi Arab minority in<br />
Iran and project officer for the<br />
Underrepresented Nations and<br />
People Organization, an NGO<br />
based in Brussels, she speaks<br />
from past experience.<br />
In a part of the world fractured<br />
along religious and ethnic<br />
lines, the ability to control the<br />
flow of freshwater takes on a<br />
political dimension. “Water and<br />
politics are linked,” she says.<br />
The Gibe III Dam is the highest dam in Central Africa. At 240 meters high, it will produce<br />
1879 MW of energy. Studies says that once completed, the cost of the dam will be 15% of<br />
the annual GDP of Ethiopia, becoming the biggest investment project ever made in all of the<br />
African continent. Photo by Fausto Podavini.<br />
The Karo tribe is the smallest ethnic group in the Omo River Valley. They are considered skillful<br />
herdsmen, farmers and masters of body painting. The Gibe III Dam threatens to damage traditional<br />
types of farming, known as “flood-retreat agriculture.” Photo by Vlad Karavaev.<br />
Salavi fled Iran due, in part,<br />
to the battle over water in the<br />
Al-Ahwaz province of southwest<br />
Iran. One of the few historically<br />
verdant places inside the<br />
country, the region is in the<br />
process of being turned into<br />
a wasteland because of dam<br />
construction, she contends.<br />
The province now has more<br />
than 14 dams which diverted<br />
free-flowing rivers away from<br />
the arable region, subjecting the<br />
Ahwazi minority to the imminent<br />
risk of water shortages.<br />
At the same time, the Iranian<br />
government has promoted the<br />
production of sugar, a waterintensive<br />
cash crop, displacing<br />
200,000 to 250,000 Arabs in<br />
the Ahwazi region.<br />
Despite their differences, the<br />
roughly 370 million indigenous<br />
people scattered around the<br />
globe share many of the same<br />
problems. In many instances,<br />
they have few allies at the<br />
national and international<br />
levels and are up against<br />
powerful forces working<br />
against them.<br />
“Environmental activists<br />
often support indigenous<br />
causes, working alongside<br />
them in claiming rights and<br />
environmental justice. As such,<br />
both environmental activists<br />
and indigenous organizers<br />
frequently fall victim to state-led<br />
repression of demonstrations<br />
and peaceful protests, as well<br />
as of corporate interests,“<br />
Mona Salavi says.<br />
Touted as guardians of<br />
forests and protectors of rivers,<br />
indigenous leaders are<br />
often placed in the crosshairs.<br />
The watchdog group Global<br />
Witness warns that violence<br />
against activists is likely to<br />
continue because land grabs<br />
and the infrastructure needed<br />
to operate dams place indigenous<br />
groups at odds with the<br />
demands of the 21st century.<br />
A 2017 report published<br />
by Global Witness concluded<br />
indigenous leaders, along with<br />
environmental activists and<br />
wildlife rangers, are being<br />
killed at almost a rate of four<br />
per week worldwide. In 2016,<br />
the tally came to 200 victims—<br />
more than double the rate from<br />
five years ago.<br />
FOR MORE INFORMATION<br />
International Union for<br />
Conservation of Nature<br />
www.iucn.org<br />
Water Alternatives<br />
www.water-alternatives.org<br />
World Wildlife Fund<br />
www.wwf.org<br />
International Rivers<br />
www.internationalrivers.org<br />
Global Witness<br />
www.globalwitness.org<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 29
AWARD WINNERS<br />
HONORABLE MENTIONS<br />
FROM SDN’S CALL FOR ENTRIES ON<br />
DOCUMENTARY IN THE ERA<br />
OF POST-TRUTH<br />
Taha Ahmad<br />
A Displaced Hope<br />
The Ferozshah fortress built<br />
in the Indian capital Delhi in<br />
the 18th century remains a<br />
ruin nestled between a cricket<br />
stadium and the city’s ring<br />
road. It is within these ruins that<br />
we find genie worship. Genies<br />
are supernatural creatures<br />
created out of fire, according<br />
to the Islamic texts. Thousands<br />
of people gather here every<br />
Thursday: praying, writing letters,<br />
giving money and lighting<br />
lamps to impress the genies for<br />
a better life. This has become<br />
a money-making mechanism<br />
for the self-proclaimed Godmen<br />
in the fort to exploit the misfortunes<br />
of the people who do not<br />
have the tools of education to<br />
question these practices and<br />
political agendas.<br />
Taha Ahmad is a documentary<br />
photographer based in Delhi,<br />
India. He developed an interest in<br />
documentary photography while<br />
pursuing his bachelor’s degree.<br />
He feels photography has a strong<br />
influence in creating and developing<br />
discourse for the future. His<br />
photographs are framed in a way<br />
that preserves their reality, which<br />
he feels is undergoing an everlasting<br />
change.<br />
30 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
DOCUMENTARY IN<br />
THE ERA OF POST-<br />
TRUTH JURORS<br />
Scott Brennan<br />
Indigenous Autonomy<br />
in Mexico<br />
This photographic project<br />
focuses on two indigenous<br />
populations that are working<br />
to enact social and<br />
environmental justice in the<br />
face of some of the world’s<br />
most dangerous elements of<br />
organized crime and corruption.<br />
The communities<br />
are Santa Maria de Ostula<br />
and Cherán K’eri, both in<br />
the notoriously violent state<br />
of Michoacán in southern<br />
Mexico. These two municipalities<br />
have begun social<br />
movements of ethnically<br />
and culturally indigenous<br />
peoples establishing semiautonomous,<br />
grassroots<br />
governments in response to<br />
rampant violence, corruption,<br />
environmental degradation<br />
and the failure of the<br />
social contract.<br />
Scott Brennan is originally<br />
from New York and has been<br />
living in Mexico since 2010.<br />
His main interest in photography<br />
is documenting the struggles<br />
of indigenous groups in<br />
Latin America and their ongoing<br />
fights to defend their territories<br />
and cultures. He graduated<br />
with a master’s degree<br />
in 2005 from The London<br />
College of Communication in<br />
photojournalism and documentary.<br />
This project is fiscally<br />
sponsored by The Blue Earth<br />
Alliance and this year won<br />
first place for Pictures of the<br />
Year International’s Community<br />
Awareness Award.<br />
Barbara Ayotte<br />
Alice Gabriner<br />
Kurt Mutchler<br />
Quentin Nardi<br />
Niama Sandy<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 31
AWARD WINNERS (Continued)<br />
Javier Fergo<br />
Europes’ South Frontier<br />
Crossing the Mediterranean<br />
Sea from Morocco to Spain is<br />
the fastest-growing sea route<br />
into Europe, according to<br />
the United Nations, and the<br />
number of migrants taking this<br />
route has tripled in the past<br />
few months. The dramatic<br />
situation in Libya, with higher<br />
casualties than the case of<br />
Spain, might be shadowing<br />
this growing issue. Spain<br />
holds an infamous second<br />
position on death toll in their<br />
waters, surpassing Greece.<br />
Spanish authorities are struggling<br />
to cope with the amount<br />
of people arriving. Spanish<br />
coastguards rescue people<br />
on a daily basis, mainly in<br />
the area between the Strait of<br />
Gibraltar and in the Alboran<br />
Sea.<br />
Born in Jerez, Cádiz, Spain in<br />
1980, Javier Fergo has been<br />
keen on the arts, film and photography<br />
since childhood. In 2005<br />
he completed a Higher National<br />
Diploma in Photography at City<br />
of Bristol College, UK. Soon<br />
after, he moved back to Jerez,<br />
Spain, to start contributing to<br />
local and national newspapers<br />
including El País, El Mundo,<br />
ABC, and Público and internationally<br />
through the Associated<br />
Press, The Wall Street Journal,<br />
and The Washington Post.<br />
32 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 33
Interview<br />
WITH REZA DEGHATI<br />
by Caterina Clerici<br />
Reza Deghati (Reza) is a French-<br />
Iranian photographer. Over almost<br />
40 years, he has worked as a foreign<br />
and war correspondent for Newsweek,<br />
TIME <strong>Magazine</strong>, LIFE, Paris Match<br />
and Stern, among many others. He<br />
teaches photography to children in<br />
refugee camps and disadvantaged<br />
neighborhoods and communities<br />
in dozens of countries through the<br />
numerous NGOs he has founded.<br />
Caterina Clerici: Why did you want<br />
to become a photographer and how did<br />
you get started?<br />
Reza: Since a very young age, I’ve<br />
always been disturbed to see homeless<br />
people, barefoot kids and poor families<br />
in my hometown of Tabriz, in Iran. I<br />
was always asking “Why do people<br />
not react, why don’t they help?” At<br />
age nine, I witnessed a mob of kids<br />
that were pushing out from the school<br />
a barefoot kid that was the same age<br />
as I was. He was crying and saying<br />
“Please, I just want to see what a school<br />
looks like.” I tried to interfere but both<br />
of us were beaten by the kids and<br />
pushed out. It shocked me a lot. Later, I<br />
was trying to explain to the director of<br />
the school and the teachers what had<br />
happened, and nobody cared. So I<br />
thought maybe I wasn’t able to explain<br />
it with my language and I should show<br />
them a painting or a drawing of it.<br />
For two years I tried to learn how to<br />
paint and draw just to show the social<br />
injustices that I was seeing around me.<br />
At age 13, my father, who had one<br />
of the first big box Kodak cameras, let<br />
me try it. When I looked through the<br />
Mario Epanya<br />
viewfinder, I asked him “Everything you<br />
see here will be in the picture?” and<br />
he said “Of course!” and this was the<br />
reason I got a camera and started taking<br />
pictures. I was teaching myself, there<br />
was nobody around to explain to me<br />
how it worked, so it took a lot of years<br />
to learn. When I started at 14, I always<br />
looked for two things: beauty, but also<br />
social injustice. My thought was: “If I<br />
show it to people, maybe they’ll be able<br />
to change it.”<br />
CC: What was the focus of your<br />
photography in the early years?<br />
Reza: I liked beauty and family, but also<br />
looking around in the streets for things I<br />
thought people would react to if they saw<br />
them. When I was 16, I thought I could<br />
have a role in the high school paper.<br />
This was during the Shah’s regime in Iran<br />
and I had no idea what “secret police”<br />
meant. I made my first magazine, which<br />
was called Butterfly, and two days later I<br />
was arrested and all the magazine issues<br />
confiscated. My mum was beating me<br />
very badly and telling me “You shouldn’t<br />
touch newspapers and magazines anymore.”<br />
I was 16, that was 50 years ago,<br />
and from that moment I’ve done exactly<br />
the opposite.<br />
I photographed again social injustice<br />
and poverty in Tehran — the homeless,<br />
the drug addicts — and learned<br />
how to print the photographs. At night<br />
I would go out and put the black and<br />
white pictures with the little captions on<br />
the walls of the university, to show how<br />
people were living in poverty. That was<br />
from when I was 19 to 22, when I was<br />
also a student in architecture and fine<br />
arts. I was arrested again and spent<br />
three years, from 22 to 25, in prison,<br />
where I was tortured for five months<br />
for photographing and showing this<br />
[reality.] Then I came out of the prison<br />
just one year before the revolution and<br />
decided to quit architecture and become<br />
a photographer.<br />
CC: What would you describe as your<br />
mission as a photographer?<br />
Reza: I really didn’t come to photography<br />
trying to make an art of it. For me,<br />
photography is a tool to connect with<br />
people and create empathy. It’s a universal<br />
language, everybody understands<br />
it. I don’t know much about the technical<br />
aspects of it, the software, I only<br />
My mission is to make people<br />
take responsibility for what<br />
they see.<br />
—Reza<br />
focus on how photography can bring<br />
change to communities and how we can<br />
use photography as a tool for social<br />
change. My mission is to make people<br />
take responsibility for what they see.<br />
CC: As a photographer documenting<br />
Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,<br />
have you noticed any changes in the<br />
mainstream media narrative about this<br />
region, since you started working there?<br />
Reza: I have been working as a<br />
professional since 1979, which makes<br />
it almost 40 years now. The big change<br />
came around 15 years ago, when we<br />
started moving towards digital: the<br />
communication became immediate<br />
and a lot of people got access to these<br />
tools. Before that, in most cases, we<br />
were the only witnesses of the whole<br />
story. We felt we had a much bigger<br />
mission and people were trusting us<br />
more. The digital era has changed it<br />
completely: the number of people who<br />
take pictures, write or broadcast has<br />
multiplied by millions. Also, local people<br />
have access to media coverage of their<br />
own destiny and see that what is shown<br />
and told in the big media is not always<br />
the reality, because the media is run<br />
by governments and corporations with<br />
their own agendas. We have very few<br />
independent newspapers and magazines<br />
Photo by Reza. Afghanistan. Panjshir Valley. 1985. Portrait of<br />
Commander Massoud (1953-2001) during the Soviet invasion of<br />
Afghanistan (1979-1989).<br />
34 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
Photo by Reza. Afghanistan. Nuristan Province. 1985. Afghan children imitate the photographer by holding their hands in<br />
circles in front of their eyes.<br />
today and even they show a mainstream<br />
point of view, so we (photographers and<br />
journalists) have now become the target<br />
of the people who are unhappy with the<br />
reporting, because they immediately see<br />
what’s happening.<br />
From my very first trip to Afghanistan<br />
during the Russian invasion in 1983<br />
and onwards, I realized that the<br />
mainstream media was not able to tell<br />
the whole story. We come for a few<br />
days or a few weeks even, and we have<br />
our newsroom waiting for us in Paris,<br />
New York or London, and we have to<br />
come up with something to feed the<br />
beast. That’s how I thought, “What<br />
if I teach people how to tell their own<br />
stories?” That’s how I started doing the<br />
very first refugee training in 1983 in<br />
a camp in Pakistan with seven Afghan<br />
refugees. I bought the cameras myself<br />
in the Peshawar market, I bought the<br />
film, I workshopped with them, I left<br />
the cameras with them and told them<br />
to keep photographing and if they saw<br />
another photographer coming, to give<br />
them the photographs they had taken.<br />
From that moment, I’ve devoted half of<br />
my time and my income volunteering to<br />
help people tell their own stories. Only<br />
taking pictures is not enough.<br />
Recently, I was in the Panjshir valley<br />
in Afghanistan, where they were<br />
commemorating the assassination of<br />
Massoud, the head of the resistance<br />
against the Russians, Al-Qaeda and<br />
the Taliban until he was killed two days<br />
before 9/11. The day after he was<br />
assassinated by two Al-Qaeda operators<br />
who posed as TV cameramen pretending<br />
to interview him, his people printed<br />
a few thousand photographs of the<br />
portrait of Massoud I had taken and<br />
sent it to the frontline for each soldier.<br />
Everybody said those portraits helped<br />
them resist until the coalition forces<br />
came and the bombardment started and<br />
the Taliban was defeated. There are a<br />
lot of stories like this, about how a single<br />
photograph can have an impact on<br />
history.<br />
CC: How have you tried to get your<br />
audience more involved in topics that<br />
drive your photography, particularly<br />
refugees, migration and displacement?<br />
Do you believe in a “refugee fatigue,”<br />
just as there is war or poverty fatigue,<br />
and what can be done to still get people<br />
to empathize and sympathize with<br />
refugees?<br />
Reza: This is a challenge I have faced,<br />
like all media, with all kinds of crises:<br />
fatigue is not only created by the<br />
story covered by the media, but by<br />
the corporations or governments that<br />
don’t want the story talked about. My<br />
first action is deep respect for both the<br />
people I photograph and those who<br />
are going to see my work. I always feel<br />
like I’m trying to bring them together. If<br />
you’re arrogant, people will see you’re<br />
there for your reputation and don’t<br />
care about them. Honesty is transmitted<br />
through your photographs.<br />
Photography is an art and it’s not<br />
because I’m a photojournalist that I’m<br />
not an artist: whatever I’m covering,<br />
even if it’s a war, I always try to have<br />
a perfect composition and to make<br />
it beautiful. What I believe is most<br />
important is to help people get over<br />
their fatigue to make it personal. We<br />
have all seen so many pictures of boats<br />
carrying people — similar colors, similar<br />
clothes, similar faces, some drowning,<br />
some getting help — and it’s normal<br />
that after a while we are not shocked<br />
anymore. Make it personal, tell the story<br />
one by one, create empathy between<br />
the people who look at the pictures and<br />
those who are photographed. The way I<br />
do it is through portraits: they’re all very<br />
simple, on the spot and spontaneous.<br />
“The eyes are the windows of the soul,”<br />
and I’m trying to get those souls out.<br />
Another way to get people interested<br />
again is training refugee children to<br />
photograph the daily life in the camps.<br />
In the past five years I started trainings<br />
with Syrian and Yazidi children. They<br />
became the camp reporters and I’m<br />
publishing their photos around the world<br />
and this has a very different effect on<br />
people. Professionals already have<br />
a preconceived idea of what kind of<br />
picture will show the refugees, while the<br />
children just show their daily life.<br />
CC: How would you define being an<br />
“involved photographer” and do you<br />
think there are any ethical issues in<br />
being both a journalist and an activist?<br />
Reza: I really don’t think that journalism<br />
and activism are different. By all means<br />
any journalist who is looking for the truth<br />
is an activist, especially at a time where<br />
major corporations and governments<br />
are trying to cover it up. For me,<br />
there is no interference between my<br />
photography and my NGO work. One<br />
example is creating an independent<br />
media and cultural centre in Kabul,<br />
which I opened just a few days after the<br />
fall of the Taliban in September 2001.<br />
In 17 years, we have trained over<br />
1,500 Afghans to become journalists,<br />
photographers, filmmakers, a lot of them<br />
women, and helped them create their<br />
own media, such as Afghan Women’s<br />
Voices. We can bring more change not<br />
only through our photographs but giving<br />
voice to people who don’t have it.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 35
Photograph by Jan Zychlinski<br />
From Ukraine’s War Childen<br />
Children in a former Soviet-era<br />
Children’s Camp now occupied<br />
by a Baptist Church and refugees.<br />
Saoporoshje (East Ukraine). 2016<br />
36 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
LIFE AND WAR IN<br />
UKRAINE<br />
Photographs by<br />
Michele Cirillo<br />
Aude Osnowycz<br />
Jan Zychlinski<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 37
38 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Photograph by Jan Zychlinski<br />
From Ukraine’s War Childen<br />
Two girls dancing in the hall of an<br />
old Soviet “Children Camp” in Kiev.<br />
No music, no audience, just in their<br />
own reality. 2015<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 39
40 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Affected by an ongoing war, the loss<br />
of the Crimea to Russian aggression,<br />
and endemic corruption, Ukraine,<br />
a geopolitically important country<br />
straddling Europe and Russia,<br />
remains hopelessly divided. Despite<br />
the Euromaidan protests four years ago that<br />
overturned a pro-Russia government and the<br />
more recent Minsk Protocol aiming to reduce<br />
hostilities, the country remains in a stalemate.<br />
The war in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine<br />
between pro-Russian militias and government<br />
and paramilitary forces has resulted in more<br />
than 9,300 deaths.<br />
Michele Cirillo, in his exhibit “Forgotten<br />
War” shows the realities of this war-torn<br />
quagmire--the destruction of homes and<br />
soldiers with lost limbs. But like in all conflict<br />
zones, life manages to move on. Aude<br />
Osnowycz’s portraits from her exhibit<br />
“In the Shadow of an Empire” show us a<br />
Ukraine with its rich culture of ballerinas,<br />
rock stars, activists, and youth militias. Jan<br />
Zychlinski’s “Ukraine’s War Children”<br />
delves deeper into the question of refugees<br />
and internally displaced persons from Crimea<br />
and Donbass, where the war rages on with<br />
pro-Russian separatists. People are living in<br />
container settlements, rented flats, old sanatoriums,<br />
kindergartens, dormitories or some in<br />
huts in the middle of nowhere. Amongst them,<br />
there are lots of children—a generation at<br />
war with so many different expectations and<br />
perspectives.<br />
Photograph by Michele Cirillo<br />
From Forgotten War<br />
A house damaged by artillery shelling in<br />
Slavyansk (Donetsk region, Ukraine). The<br />
Minsk Protocol was not enough to stop the<br />
war at the borders of Donbass and Luhansk,<br />
marking, since the begin of the conflict, more<br />
than 9,300 deaths, countless casualties, a<br />
spread of violence, unpunished rapes and<br />
attacks on journalists.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 41
42 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Photograph by Michele Cirillo<br />
From Forgotten War<br />
Kiev Military Hospital. Dmytro Kotov,<br />
41, was injured by a mine in 2014.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 43
44 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Photograph by Aude Osnowycz<br />
From In the Shadow of the Empire<br />
Two young soldiers from a Russian elite<br />
military unit during Paratroopers Day,<br />
Donetsk (self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s<br />
Republic). August 2017.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 45
Photograph by Aude<br />
Osnowycz<br />
From In the Shadow of the<br />
Empire<br />
Young girl practicing her shooting<br />
skills during a Cossack patriotic<br />
youth camp, Cherkassy, Ukraine.<br />
August 2017.<br />
46 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 47
48 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL <strong>2018</strong> 2015
Photographs by Aude Osnowycz<br />
From In the Shadow of the Empire<br />
Left: Member of activist band FEMEN,<br />
strongly opposed to the Putin regime,<br />
posing in a park. Kiev, Ukraine, August<br />
2017.<br />
Below: Young Ukrainian soldier,<br />
Ukrainian front line, Ukraine.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> APRIL FALL 2015/ <strong>2018</strong>/ 49
50 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
Photographs by Aude Osnowycz<br />
From In the Shadow of the<br />
Empire<br />
Left: Ballet student during rehearsals<br />
at Donetsk Opéra. Despites hostilities,<br />
The Donetsk Opera has been working<br />
since the beginning of the conflict and<br />
still continues to please the eyes of<br />
the citizens, Donetsk (self-proclaimed<br />
Donetsk People’s Republic). August<br />
2017.<br />
Below: Guitarist of a punk band during<br />
a clandestine concert in a winery in<br />
downtown Donetsk. In Ukraine, on both<br />
sides of the frontline, young people<br />
often aspire to return to a semblance<br />
of normal life and continue their fight<br />
against the old Soviet-era shackles,<br />
Donetsk (self-proclaimed Donetsk<br />
People’s Republic). August 2017.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 51
UKRAINE<br />
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE<br />
By Glenn Ruga<br />
With contributions<br />
by Joseph Lim and<br />
Anne Sahler<br />
Above: A kitchen in an overcrowded<br />
refugee flat in Kiev. 2014. Photo by Jan<br />
Zychlinski from Ukraine’s War Children.<br />
The Ukrainian crisis is<br />
a story about Russian<br />
aggression, a divided<br />
nation, domestic corruption,<br />
and common people<br />
caught in the middle. The<br />
crisis has produced not only<br />
a conflict between the deeply<br />
divided east and west, but also<br />
a deep sense of disillusionment<br />
among Ukrainian youth.<br />
The recent Ukraine crisis<br />
began in November<br />
2013 when President Victor<br />
Yanukovych pulled out of<br />
the Ukraine-European Union<br />
Association Agreement that<br />
would have strengthened<br />
cooperation between Ukraine<br />
and the 28 EU member states.<br />
However, according to the<br />
Lithuanian president’s office<br />
hosting an EU summit to finalize<br />
the pact, Yanukovych was<br />
pressured to pull out of the<br />
agreement by the Kremlin.<br />
On December 17, 2013,<br />
Yanukovych instead signed<br />
an Action Plan with Russia<br />
in which Russia agreed to<br />
buy $15 billion in Ukrainian<br />
Eurobonds and supply natural<br />
gas at a lower price. This<br />
immediately set off protests by<br />
youth who looked to the west<br />
(the EU) as their future.<br />
An investment of capital<br />
from either the EU or<br />
Russia was vitally important<br />
to Ukraine that year as<br />
industrial production fell by<br />
4.9%. Moreover, natural<br />
gas prices were hiked by the<br />
Russian natural gas provider,<br />
Gazprom, after it discovered<br />
that officials in Ukraine were<br />
stealing gas and failing to pay<br />
off debts. Public opinion was<br />
starkly split between the EU<br />
(39%) and the Russia-headed<br />
Eurasian Customs Union<br />
(37%). However, EU-friendly<br />
western Ukraine citizens,<br />
centered around the capital<br />
of Kiev, were outraged after<br />
Yanukovych didn’t deliver<br />
on his promise to join the EU<br />
agreement.<br />
The 2014 Ukrainian<br />
Revolution (also called the<br />
Euromaidan Revolution) was<br />
organized by the Maidan<br />
People’s Union, the ultra-nationalist<br />
Right Sector, and other citizens<br />
who mobilized on social<br />
media in favor of Ukraine<br />
signing the agreement with the<br />
EU. The protestors called for<br />
Yanukovych to resign and end<br />
the oppression against activists<br />
and opposition leaders.<br />
Protests Turn Violent<br />
Although protests in 2014<br />
began peacefully, they quickly<br />
became riots after demonstrations<br />
were suppressed<br />
violently by police units.<br />
When the Ukraine government<br />
passed anti-protest laws<br />
in 2014, masked protesters<br />
held regional administration<br />
buildings hostage and clashed<br />
with law enforcement. Unable<br />
to silence the revolution,<br />
Yanukovych finally signed the<br />
Agreement on Settlement of<br />
Political Crisis in Ukraine in<br />
Young cadet in parade costume at Kiev military academy. December 2016.<br />
Photo by Aude Osnowycz from In the Shadow of the Empire.<br />
52 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
i<br />
a<br />
Gdansk<br />
Poznan<br />
Brno<br />
Liepaja<br />
Bratislava<br />
HUNGARY<br />
Gyor<br />
Debrecen<br />
Budapest<br />
Pecs<br />
Klaipeda<br />
Bydgoszcz<br />
Sea<br />
Titograd<br />
Szeged<br />
Lodz<br />
Wroclaw Breslau<br />
Kaliningrad<br />
Olsztyn<br />
ec Kralove<br />
Krakow<br />
Ostrava<br />
Tirane<br />
P OLAND<br />
S LOVAKIA<br />
LITHUANIA<br />
Sovietsk<br />
Vilnius<br />
Warsaw<br />
Arad<br />
Riga<br />
agreb<br />
Timisoara<br />
CROATIA<br />
Novi Sad<br />
ka<br />
Belgrade<br />
BOSNIA<br />
t<br />
Sarajevo<br />
Mikhaylovgrad<br />
Ionian Sea<br />
YUGOSLAVIA<br />
ALBANIA<br />
erranean Sea<br />
Cluj<br />
Lvov<br />
LATVIA<br />
Lida<br />
Lutsk<br />
Bucharest<br />
Botosani<br />
ROMANIA<br />
Daugavpils<br />
Braila<br />
Pleven<br />
BULGARIA<br />
Sofia<br />
Minsk<br />
BELARUS<br />
MOLDOVA<br />
Chisinau<br />
Vitebsk<br />
Vinnitsanitsa<br />
Varna<br />
Constanta<br />
Mogilev<br />
Odessa<br />
February 2014.<br />
Burgas<br />
Skopje<br />
However, he<br />
Stara Zagora<br />
fled Titov the Veles country for Russia that<br />
MACEDONIA<br />
Istanbul<br />
same month,<br />
Xanthi<br />
halting all plans<br />
Thessaloniki<br />
to salvage the EU Association Bursa<br />
Ioannina<br />
Agreement<br />
Aegean<br />
and<br />
Sea<br />
GREECE Larisa cancelling<br />
Lesbos<br />
all<br />
Agrinion<br />
provisions promised from<br />
Izmir<br />
Russia Patrai through the Ukrainian-<br />
Peloponnesus Athens<br />
Russian Action Plan.<br />
Soon after Yanukovych’s<br />
Rhodes<br />
resignation, Khania pro-Russian<br />
Iraklion<br />
Crete<br />
protests began in eastern and<br />
southern parts of Ukraine.<br />
Historically, territories of<br />
eastern Ukraine were administered<br />
by Russia and became<br />
a republic under the Soviet<br />
Union. In 1991, following the<br />
demise of the Soviet Union<br />
and a failed coup attempt<br />
by Soviet hardliners, the<br />
government signed the Act of<br />
Declaration of Independence<br />
of Ukraine, establishing an<br />
independent state. Although<br />
many Ukrainians wished to<br />
maintain sovereignty, regions<br />
in eastern Ukraine such as<br />
Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk<br />
were linguistically and culturally<br />
affiliated with Russia and<br />
felt that Ukraine and Russia<br />
should unite into a single state.<br />
The Kremlin’s active involvement<br />
in Ukraine ultimately<br />
divided the country. During the<br />
2014 Revolution, the Kremlin<br />
provided Yanukovych with military<br />
support to suppress protesters.<br />
In March, Russian soldiers<br />
without insignias invaded<br />
the Crimean parliament<br />
building, held a referendum<br />
on independence with Russian<br />
Kiev<br />
Antalya<br />
Smolensk<br />
Voronezh<br />
UKRAINE<br />
Zaporozhye<br />
Crimea<br />
Kaluga<br />
Orel<br />
Kharkov<br />
Black Sea<br />
Rostov<br />
Moscow<br />
RUSSIA<br />
Donbass<br />
RUSSIA<br />
Voronezh<br />
V<br />
Krasnodar<br />
Sochi<br />
sympathizers, and annexed<br />
Crimea. Similar referendums<br />
Zonguldak<br />
were held by pro-Russian and<br />
anti-government Ankara groups in<br />
Donetsk TURKEY and Luhansk, which<br />
L. Tuz<br />
mobilized combatants alongside<br />
paramilitaries groups<br />
coming across Adanathe border from<br />
Russia. What ensued was the<br />
Aleppo<br />
Nicosia war in Donbass, in which the<br />
Cyprus<br />
SYRIA<br />
Kremlin allegedly provided<br />
tanks and “humanitarian convoys”<br />
to separatist members<br />
to prolong the conflict and<br />
0<br />
expand its territorial influence.<br />
Although, cease fires were<br />
0<br />
500 KM<br />
negotiated through the Minsk I<br />
Parallel scale at 50˚N 0˚E<br />
and II Agreements, fighting still<br />
continues to this day.<br />
20˚E 25˚E 30˚E 35˚E 40˚E<br />
EU Responds to<br />
Russian Aggression<br />
The EU responded to Russia’s<br />
aggression by imposing various<br />
restrictive measures against<br />
Russia. On top of cancelling<br />
high-level diplomatic meetings<br />
and limiting access to EU<br />
capital markets, the European<br />
Council also imposed asset<br />
freezes on 155 people and 44<br />
entities because their actions<br />
undermined Ukraine’s territorial<br />
integrity, sovereignty and<br />
independence.<br />
The outcomes of the revolution,<br />
the ongoing war, and<br />
international disputes have<br />
been disproportionately harmful<br />
to ordinary citizens. Since<br />
2014 when the war began<br />
Poti<br />
Gorkiy<br />
the UN estimates that 23,500<br />
people have been injured and<br />
10,000 people killed. Even<br />
after cease fire provisions from<br />
the Minsk Agreement, mortar<br />
50˚N<br />
shells fly between government<br />
territory and the self-declared<br />
People’s Republic of Donetsk.<br />
In war zones, people live without<br />
central heating. Collapsed<br />
infrastructure such as bridges,<br />
roads, 45˚N and public buildings<br />
aren’t repaired because of<br />
fear of more shelling. Worse,<br />
professionals such as lawyers,<br />
judges, and doctors, have<br />
Tbilisi<br />
left war-torn regions, leaving<br />
the inhabitants in precarious<br />
conditions.<br />
40˚N<br />
Moreover, widespread<br />
corruption is still pervasive<br />
throughout Ukraine. According<br />
to investigative reporters with<br />
Mosel<br />
the Al Jazeera TV, Yanukovych<br />
along with his corrupt oligarch<br />
cronies, appropriated $1.5<br />
billion through off-shore businesses<br />
registered in Scotland.<br />
A logbook confiscated by<br />
500 Miles<br />
the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption<br />
Bureau suggests that<br />
Yanukovych disbursed $1.4<br />
million worth of bribes on a<br />
daily basis. Even following the<br />
revolution, corruption is still<br />
endemic as seen from nepotism<br />
in the judicial system and<br />
irregular payments in the tax<br />
Volgograd<br />
Ordzhonikidze<br />
L. Van<br />
Yerevan<br />
55˚N<br />
administration. In the medical<br />
industry, for example, patients<br />
pay bribes to doctors to get<br />
intensive care and medical<br />
equipment. There is even a<br />
Ukraine corruption park that<br />
displays the sheer pervasiveness<br />
of corruption.<br />
In midst of such circumstances,<br />
Ukrainian youth hold<br />
a critical role. Twenty-six-yearold<br />
Yulia Marushevska, an<br />
activist who appeared on the<br />
viral video ‘I am a Ukrainian’<br />
during the 2014 Revolution,<br />
was appointed as Chief of<br />
Odessa Customs with the goal<br />
to make customs more transparent.<br />
However, according to a<br />
nationwide poll produced by<br />
the New Europe Center, 65%<br />
of respondents aged between<br />
14-29, are “not interested at<br />
all” in Ukrainian politics. The<br />
unpopularity of civil activism<br />
(only 6% of respondents) is<br />
concerning. The New York<br />
Times suggests that Svyatoslav<br />
Vakarchuk, a famous rock<br />
singer whose songs became<br />
protest anthems during both the<br />
2004 and 2014 revolutions,<br />
will be a strong candidate for<br />
president. Whether he will<br />
choose to participate or not,<br />
Ukraine needs role models like<br />
him to lead its next generation<br />
and rebuild its country.<br />
In Severodonetsk (Luhansk region of Ukraine) it is not uncommon to find Soviet-era<br />
missiles and artillery used during the recent war in the Donbass. Photo by Michele<br />
Cirillo from Forgotten War.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 53
IMAGE IN THE ERA OF<br />
POST-TRUTHBy Fred<br />
What is the role of the journalistic or<br />
documentary photograph for maintaining<br />
the public record and enabling constructive<br />
social change in this era labeled<br />
“post-truth”?<br />
Ritchin<br />
An exhibition at the UN in March 2015 of<br />
nearly two dozen of the 55,000 photographs<br />
of tortured and killed Syrian prisoners taken by<br />
“Caesar,” the code name of a former Syrian<br />
military police photographer. Syrian President<br />
Assad commented to Yahoo News on the<br />
photos, “You can forge anything these days.<br />
We are living in a fake news era.” Photo by<br />
Lucas Jackson.<br />
54 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
In the first 466 days of his presidency, Donald<br />
Trump made 3,001 false or misleading<br />
claims. “Seventy-two times, the president<br />
has falsely claimed he passed the biggest tax<br />
cut in history — when in fact it ranks in eighth<br />
place,” the Washington Post reported on<br />
May 1, <strong>2018</strong>. “Fifty-three times, the president<br />
has made some variation of the claim that<br />
the Russia probe is a made-up controversy. (If you<br />
include other claims about the Russia probe that are<br />
not accurate, the count goes to 90.) Forty-one times,<br />
the president has offered a variation of the false<br />
claim that Democrats do not really care about the<br />
Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals<br />
program that Trump terminated.”<br />
As well as his disdain for the truth, Trump’s<br />
frequent attacks on the press as providers of “fake<br />
news” further undermine the functioning of democracy,<br />
dependent upon a credible press to report on<br />
issues and events so that citizens can decide how<br />
to vote and their political representatives on how to<br />
govern. Elsewhere, authoritarian leaders increasingly<br />
borrow from Trump’s attacking strategy,<br />
describing as “fake news” that which can be construed<br />
as criticisms of their policies. For example,<br />
a January 25 piece in the Guardian asserts that<br />
“In February, an Amnesty International report said<br />
the Syrian government had killed at least 13,000<br />
people in a military prison between 2011 and<br />
2015. Assad disputed the report. ‘You can forge<br />
anything these days,’ Assad told Yahoo News.<br />
‘We are living in a fake news era.’”<br />
THE AGE OF THE IMAGE<br />
Simultaneously, we are living<br />
in the Age of the Image with<br />
billions of photographs and<br />
videos uploaded daily, trillions<br />
available online, yet we are<br />
not sure what they mean, how<br />
they help, or whether they can<br />
be believed. Is that “selfie” a<br />
self-portrait, an exploration of<br />
identity, or a form of branding<br />
formulated to increase someone’s<br />
status online? Is that a<br />
photograph of an actual event,<br />
or a fabricated image made to<br />
The cover from a 1982 issue of<br />
National Geographic in which imagemanipulation<br />
software was employed for<br />
the first time in mainstream media—in this<br />
case to relocate one of the pyramids of<br />
Giza behind another so as to fit it on the<br />
magazine’s cover.<br />
simulate a photograph of an event that never happened?<br />
And we are left asking, in this era of social<br />
media, of strident opinions and media bubbles, of<br />
frequent and often unfounded allegations of “fake<br />
news,” what is the role of the journalistic or documentary<br />
photograph for maintaining the public<br />
record and enabling constructive social change in<br />
this era labeled “post-truth”?<br />
A 1990 book of mine, In Our Own Image: The<br />
Coming Revolution in Photography, argued that<br />
the imaging software being created then would<br />
allow us to re-create the world, and ourselves, “in<br />
our own image,” using the myth that “the camera<br />
never lies” to camouflage purposeful deceits. My<br />
thinking was provoked, in part, by the 1982 cover<br />
image of the mainstream publication, National<br />
Geographic, in which image-manipulation<br />
software was employed to relocate one of the<br />
pyramids of Giza behind another to make a<br />
vertical image from a horizontal photograph so<br />
as to fit it on the magazine’s cover. Two years<br />
later the modification was explained to me by<br />
the magazine’s editor as, in his opinion, merely<br />
the retroactive repositioning of the photographer<br />
a few feet to one side so as to get another<br />
point of view. Surprisingly, in 1982 National<br />
Geographic seemed to have already embraced<br />
a kind of photographic time travel. In the digital<br />
environment the “decisive moment,” photographer<br />
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous formulation of “the<br />
simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second,<br />
of the significance of an event as well as of a<br />
precise organization of forms which give that event<br />
its proper expression,” could now happen any time<br />
after the initial moment itself.<br />
Less sanguine and concerned about the enduring<br />
integrity of the journalistic photograph, National<br />
Geographic’s director of photography said that the<br />
introduction of such a technique was “like limited<br />
nuclear warfare. There ain’t none.” In any case, the<br />
reader had not been informed of the modification,<br />
and a series of highly publicized alterations of<br />
cover images in other publications (Time, TV Guide,<br />
Newsday, etc.) that would follow contributed to<br />
public skepticism concerning the photograph’s<br />
witnessing function. Given this erosion of trust, the<br />
photojournalistic community did little in response<br />
to bolster public confidence in the photograph,<br />
refusing to take these challenges seriously.<br />
But the issue was not only one of digital modifications.<br />
While photographs have always been<br />
interpretive, constructions dependent upon the<br />
knowledge and intuition of the photographer who<br />
makes the picture, the widespread use in journalistic<br />
publications of photographs of staged events as if<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 55
If we are now no longer of the<br />
opinion that “a photograph in<br />
and of itself is going to make<br />
any difference,” then why make<br />
photographs?<br />
they were spontaneous, and of imagery that<br />
emphasized the spectacular without providing<br />
context, were similarly deleterious to<br />
photography’s role as a social referent.<br />
So, for example, after the 2011 killing<br />
by US forces of Osama bin Laden, mastermind<br />
of the September 11 attacks a decade<br />
before, a historic retaliation that was supposed<br />
to be a partial resolution to a nation’s<br />
enduring pain, President Barack Obama<br />
said: “It is important to make sure that very<br />
graphic photos of somebody who was<br />
shot in the head are not floating around as<br />
an incitement to additional violence—as<br />
a propaganda tool.” House Intelligence<br />
Chairman Mike Rogers concurred with<br />
the president’s contention but added:<br />
“Conspiracy theorists around the world will<br />
just claim the photos are doctored anyway.”<br />
And Obama agreed: “Certainly there’s no<br />
doubt among Al-Qaeda members that he<br />
is dead. . . . And so we don’t think that a<br />
photograph in and of itself is going to make<br />
any difference. There are going to be some<br />
folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is,<br />
you will not see Bin Laden walking on this<br />
earth again.”<br />
WHAT ARE PHOTOGRAPHS<br />
GOOD FOR?<br />
If we are now no longer of the opinion<br />
that “a photograph in and of itself is<br />
going to make any difference,” then why<br />
make photographs? And if too contested,<br />
too inflammatory, too malleable, too<br />
questionable, too much implicated in an<br />
image war to be useful to the public as<br />
evidence of a very major event, what are<br />
photographs good for? Such skepticism<br />
also helps to explain why in recent years,<br />
with the exception of two images of very<br />
small children, the 2015 photograph<br />
by Nilüfer Demir of the drowned threeyear-old<br />
Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, and<br />
the <strong>2018</strong> photograph by John Moore of<br />
two-year-old Honduran migrant Yanela<br />
Sanchez hysterically crying at the US<br />
border, there have been few photographs<br />
that have attained the iconic status<br />
necessary to focus the world on critical<br />
issues (some photos may go momentarily<br />
“viral,” but soon fade from public<br />
consciousness, in part due to a lack of a<br />
“front page” to sustain them). In this media<br />
environment innovative strategies that are<br />
less dependent upon the previous century’s<br />
belief system in the inherent power of the<br />
photograph need to be formulated as well.<br />
Furthermore, this era of photographs<br />
made malleable via Photoshop and other<br />
software may very soon seem like a<br />
moment of comparative innocence. In the<br />
very near future it will become increasingly<br />
easy to synthesize from scratch not<br />
only photographs but also video and<br />
audio, so that the results will be nearly<br />
indistinguishable from the actual thing.<br />
Work is being done in laboratories in<br />
many countries, much of it with artificial<br />
intelligence, to provide inexpensive tools to<br />
create realistic photographic-like portraits<br />
of non-existent people, to produce videos<br />
realistically portraying non-existent events,<br />
and to synthesize speeches that sound<br />
like they come from the mouths of world<br />
leaders (one such recently synthesized<br />
speech online, simulating the voice of<br />
President John F. Kennedy, was the one he<br />
was to give the day he was assassinated<br />
in Dallas).<br />
IF ANYTHING CAN BE REAL,<br />
NOTHING CAN BE REAL<br />
A recent discussion concerns the ethically<br />
challenging advent of “deepfakes” of<br />
female celebrities, their faces composited<br />
onto those of others performing in sexually<br />
explicit videos. Soon this software is<br />
expected to be made more efficient and<br />
easier to use, available for widespread<br />
use. And the potential to use this kind of<br />
software to place prominent people in a<br />
variety of situations, such as having a world<br />
leader seem to declare war or confess<br />
to corruption, will create a multitude of<br />
challenges. Whether such software has<br />
actually been utilized or not, its existence<br />
will call into question much of what we<br />
view online, hear on the radio, watch<br />
on television, or read in our newspapers<br />
and magazines. As one deepfakes user<br />
commented, “If anything can be real,<br />
nothing is real.” Or, as technologist Aviv<br />
Ovadya, who has recently gathered<br />
a consortium of colleagues in the tech<br />
industry to try to combat fake news and<br />
camouflaged bots, asked, “What happens<br />
when anyone can make it appear as if<br />
anything has happened, regardless of<br />
whether or not it did?”<br />
This challenges the functioning not only<br />
of journalism, but of democratic institutions.<br />
As Zeynep Tufekci stated in a recent issue of<br />
Wired magazine, “The most effective forms<br />
Photograph from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp by Edmund Clark from “Guantanamo: If the Lights Go Out.” Example of<br />
a photograph emphasizing a conceptual approach to using documentary images.<br />
56 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
of censorship today involve meddling with<br />
trust and attention, not muzzling speech<br />
itself.” In this vein, software that allows<br />
the public to easily synthesize realisticlooking<br />
people and events requires a strong<br />
response from institutions that take authenticity<br />
seriously. But after recently reporting<br />
on the use of artificial intelligence to create<br />
fake videos, New York Times writer Kevin<br />
Roose remarked: “And there’s probably<br />
nothing we can do except try to bat the<br />
fakes down as they happen, pressure social<br />
media companies to fight misinformation<br />
aggressively, and trust our eyes a little less<br />
every day.”<br />
But if we cannot trust our eyes in this<br />
age of image, what then will be able<br />
to rely upon? On an institutional level,<br />
considerably more has to be done by<br />
publications and photographers themselves<br />
to verify media and assure the readers of<br />
its integrity. Should there be a labeling<br />
system that is strictly enforced among<br />
reputable publications and photographers<br />
to categorize photographs, such as<br />
“reportage,” “photo illustration,” “photo<br />
opportunity,” “altered photograph,” and<br />
so on, similar to one that I proposed in the<br />
1990s with a group of colleagues? The<br />
“four corners project” that I have been<br />
working on would allow photographers<br />
to use each of the photograph’s corners<br />
to add supplementary information online,<br />
including their own code of ethics, the<br />
backstory, image context and links to other<br />
websites. And there are many other ideas<br />
that need to be urgently investigated.<br />
One of the productive responses to<br />
this evolving media climate by a number<br />
of photographers is to rely less upon the<br />
assumption of the photograph’s inherent<br />
veracity and more upon a slower accumulation<br />
of evidence via a number of media,<br />
photography included, that ultimately<br />
provides insights into an underlying<br />
process rather than concentrating primarily<br />
on its symptoms. It is not a new approach,<br />
but one that is now much more broadly<br />
practiced. Philip Jones Griffiths’ 1971<br />
book, Vietnam Inc., can be considered a<br />
pioneer in this effort, showing the decisionmaking<br />
process among military leaders,<br />
juxtaposing the relatively unseen pilots<br />
with their victims, explaining how young<br />
girls are introduced into the sex trade, and<br />
undermining his own dramatic, at times<br />
heroic black-and-white imagery captions<br />
From Mathieu Asselin’s “Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation,” a book that resulted from a documentary process conducted<br />
for five years throughout Vietnam and the United States which portrays a comprehensive portrait of the ancient and current<br />
practices of the Monsanto Corporation and their environmental practices.<br />
that he wrote pointing out the absurdity<br />
of what he depicts: “US combat troops<br />
arrive, outnumbering the enemy 3 to 1 and<br />
possessing the most sophisticated military<br />
hardware; the job seemed easy. Earlier,<br />
spirits were high among the troops, intoxicated<br />
as much by the spectacle of their<br />
own strength as by the cold beer delivered<br />
to them daily.”<br />
There are many photographers today<br />
exploring massive social ills with more of a<br />
conceptual documentary approach — from<br />
chemical poisoning by Monsanto (Mathieu<br />
Asselin) to torture at Guantanamo (Edmund<br />
Clark, Debi Cornwall) to the blue skies<br />
over 1,078 World War II concentration<br />
camps (Anton Kusters), drones as weaponized<br />
surveillance (Tomas van Houtryve),<br />
and the satellites monitoring us (Trevor<br />
Paglen). Utilizing techniques of the artist,<br />
journalist and documentarian, much of this<br />
work is published in books and shown in<br />
exhibitions as well as appearing in various<br />
publications.<br />
And there are some interesting metrics as<br />
well: Gideon Mendel’s photographic work<br />
on a pilot program to provide HIV-positive<br />
South Africans with anti-retroviral medicine<br />
is credited by UNAIDS with encouraging<br />
contributions that allowed eight million<br />
people to get life-saving treatment, and<br />
Magnum’s Access to Life project that<br />
highlighted the work of eight photographers<br />
raised $1 billion for a similar goal.<br />
More recently, a screening at a 2015<br />
fundraising conference in Kuwait of a virtual<br />
reality film on the life of a 12-year-old<br />
Syrian refugee, “Clouds Over Sidra,” is<br />
reported to have raised $3.8 billion for<br />
relief efforts; the use of virtual reality<br />
is becoming more widespread among<br />
humanitarian organizations attempting to<br />
get potential donors and others to empathize<br />
with the plight of those in difficult<br />
circumstances.<br />
Paradoxically, and hopefully, there are<br />
more media strategies than ever before at<br />
our disposal while the media’s credibility<br />
is under widespread attack. Ways must be<br />
found to help restore the requisite referents<br />
necessary for society to function, and to<br />
provide a greater understanding of crucial<br />
processes that currently remain largely<br />
opaque. At this point a reactive stance,<br />
simply covering events in traditional<br />
ways while contemplating the growing<br />
morass, is insufficient. It is apparent that<br />
newer strategies, including hybrid ones<br />
that will take advantage of the enormous<br />
and largely untapped visual resources of<br />
social media, must be devised to engage a<br />
wary, divided, confused, and increasingly<br />
exhausted public.<br />
The media revolution is only beginning.<br />
Fred Ritchin began writing on photography<br />
and digital imaging in 1984 for<br />
the New York Times <strong>Magazine</strong>. Since<br />
then he has authored three books on the<br />
subject: In Our Own Image: The Coming<br />
Revolution in Photography (1990), After<br />
Photography (2008), and Bending the<br />
Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and<br />
the Citizen (2013), the latter exploring<br />
media strategies for social change. He is<br />
Dean Emeritus of the International Center of<br />
Photography.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 57
BOOK<br />
REVIEWS<br />
ON ABORTION<br />
By Laia Abril<br />
Dewi Lewis <strong>2018</strong><br />
196 pp./ £ 35.00<br />
Laia Abril is a deft excavator, a<br />
cultural anthropologist disguised as a<br />
multimedia artist, utilizing the light of<br />
photography to illuminate historical human<br />
encounters often left in the dark. The<br />
first chapter of On Abortion, “A History<br />
of Misogyny,” delves into abortion with<br />
the focus on the repercussions of lack of<br />
access. On Abortion, Abril’s third book, is<br />
a palimpsest, making visible the layered<br />
marks wrought over millennia on the<br />
individual bodies of women, and on the<br />
body collective of the female gender, born<br />
with a biological imperative to reproduce<br />
our species.<br />
A compilation of portraits, documentary<br />
photographs, film stills, advertisements,<br />
legal documents and testimonies honor<br />
the horrific truth and undeniable impact of<br />
the incessant war on women’s bodies. The<br />
book’s pages are unnumbered reflecting<br />
the timelessness and vast expansiveness of<br />
both the number of years and the number<br />
of lives scarred, or killed, due to unwanted<br />
conception. Abril documents modes of<br />
contraception: from three-month-old sheep<br />
intestines utilized to form a condom tied to<br />
a penis with string, to the ancient acidic<br />
interventions including crocodile dung<br />
inserted into the vagina, to the still-present<br />
use of piercingly sharp metal cervical stem<br />
pessaries inserted into uteruses — our<br />
archaic and life-threatening manner of<br />
preventing the impact of mating persists.<br />
Abril utilizes images with select and<br />
concise text thoughtfully and skillfully<br />
entwining the historical and the unfathomable<br />
with a consistent lens of fact. One<br />
hundred and thirty eight countries restrict a<br />
woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion.<br />
Annually, 21.6 million women experience<br />
unsafe abortions resulting in 47,000<br />
women dying. Prohibition does not stop<br />
the practice of terminating a pregnancy, it<br />
does force women to endanger their lives.<br />
The United States has seen conviction of<br />
foeticide as recently as 2015, and 37<br />
states require parental involvement (if not<br />
consent) for women under 21 years of age<br />
to obtain a legal abortion.<br />
A photo of the pre-abortion letter sent<br />
to her boyfriend by a 28-year-old Brazilian<br />
school teacher is paired with a photo<br />
of the clinic where she died having the<br />
procedure. A glossy-paged double spread<br />
ultrasound screengrab is of a fetus within<br />
a nine-year-old Nicaraguan mother. The<br />
male fetus is her father’s child, the result of<br />
his repeated incest begun when she was<br />
seven years old. Eight other countries do<br />
not consider rape to be a legitimate reason<br />
to abort. Five nations prohibit abortion<br />
under any circumstance.<br />
Within this macabre reality, Abril,<br />
leaves no layer untouched or hidden. She<br />
introduces us to activists, we read transcripts<br />
of threatening calls made by antiabortion<br />
terrorists to abortion clinicians,<br />
and we see the portraits of practitioners<br />
who have been jailed or murdered for providing<br />
legal health services. We learn of<br />
the US advocacy group All Girls Allowed.<br />
And we are grateful that for a decade,<br />
the Dutch advocacy group, Women on<br />
Waves, provides global site-specific<br />
resources and online education, answering<br />
over 10,000 emails a month in 17<br />
languages. Abril’s brave visual narrative is<br />
a necessary exhumation.<br />
—J. Sybylla Smith<br />
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF<br />
MISS WISH<br />
By Nina Berman<br />
Kehrer Verlag <strong>2018</strong><br />
268 pp./$55<br />
Nina Berman’s An Autobiography<br />
of Miss Wish is an extraordinary<br />
documentary book that brings<br />
forth the hard truths of sex trafficking, violence<br />
against women, drug addiction and<br />
incarceration. This is a collaborative work<br />
with Kimberly Stevens, formerly Cathy,<br />
“Miss Wish,” whose story is told here.<br />
Nina firmly believes that in order to go<br />
deep into a project like this one, covering<br />
addiction and these difficult issues,<br />
it is essential to have it be collaborative.<br />
Otherwise the potential for missteps,<br />
exploitation and miscommunication around<br />
expectations can be harmful and explosive.<br />
The fact that Kim has been writing all<br />
of her life and making art around her story<br />
makes this a unique collaboration between<br />
subject and photographer.<br />
In 1990, Nina went to London where<br />
she met Kim (then Cathy) who, along with<br />
other street kids and castaways, was hustling<br />
to get by. Nina photographed for two<br />
weeks learning bits and pieces of Cathy’s<br />
story. Upon leaving she gave Cathy her<br />
phone number and address and promised<br />
to keep in touch. Cathy sent Nina her diary<br />
and over time Nina amassed an archive<br />
of Cathy’s psychiatric reports, identification<br />
cards, drawings, letters and writings.<br />
Six months after they met, Cathy won a TV<br />
music contest and with the prize money<br />
visited Nina in New York City. This is where<br />
their long-term relationship began.<br />
Cathy came back to New York City in<br />
1993 fearing for her life if she returned<br />
58 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
to London. From that time on Nina hardly<br />
photographed but Cathy became a friend<br />
and part of Nina’s family. In 2007, Cathy<br />
was in ill health due to HIV and drug use<br />
and was incarcerated in Rikers Island<br />
prison. It was after this that Nina starting<br />
photographing again with no purpose<br />
other than to record Cathy’s life.<br />
All the while Cathy was writing her<br />
own book and asked Nina if she could<br />
get it published. Nina wasn’t sure but<br />
began to consider how they could craft<br />
this together. In 2014, during a two-week<br />
residency at Blue Mountain Center for artists<br />
working on stories of sexual violence<br />
and human trafficking (that she was also<br />
doing), she went through her archive and<br />
worked out some ideas for this book.<br />
Nina often asked Cathy if she was sure<br />
she wanted to do this, and asked her to<br />
write down her reasons for wanting this<br />
published. Part of the letter she wrote is<br />
in the book explaining her reasons. For<br />
Nina, this was more important than any<br />
legal consent form.<br />
As documentary makers we need to<br />
talk to the people we are working with<br />
and openly lay out what it is we are trying<br />
to do. With our involvement, sometimes<br />
the protagonist might think they can find<br />
some notoriety, get on TV, get rich or get a<br />
new life. As Nina made clear, Cathy had<br />
none of these wishes. She knew the book<br />
wouldn’t make her life perfect.<br />
Nina was clear that Cathy/Kim could<br />
have her say over what she did and<br />
didn’t want to reveal. And Nina was very<br />
protective and insisted that certain names<br />
and references be blacked out, that some<br />
of Kim’s secrets should be kept private.<br />
She did not want to risk Kim’s safety. The<br />
only thing Kim was adamant about was a<br />
photo of her by the Cathedral of St John<br />
on 110th Street in Manhattan. She hated<br />
it and wanted it out. As Nina pointed out,<br />
It must have reminded her of something<br />
really bad.<br />
This situation is unique on many levels.<br />
If Nina gets paid, Kim gets half. Kim never<br />
expected or asked for this but she is an<br />
artist and Nina believes she should have<br />
something for her part in this.<br />
Kim’s drawings and writing, their text<br />
messages and letters, and Nina’s photographs,<br />
bring depth and poignancy to the<br />
harrowing inhumane details of this story.<br />
On pages 212-213 there is a drawing by<br />
Kim of a life she dreams of - a bedroom of<br />
her own with a dog, above that is a photograph<br />
by Nina of an amulet of an angel<br />
with Kim’s hand, blurred, gesturing. This<br />
kind of subtle photography is what brings<br />
humanity to Kim and her story.<br />
There are many difficult scenes<br />
depicted in Kim’s drawings and many<br />
moving photographs by Nina as well. But<br />
she did not want to photograph the obvious—<br />
Kim smoking crack, exchanging sex<br />
for drugs, etc. As Nina points out,<br />
“Kim is pictured in some ways very<br />
straight forward. She’s looking fragile, in<br />
crisis, sick. She’s messed up, lying in the<br />
street. How can you see the depth of that<br />
person and lead the viewer into the story<br />
with these images?”<br />
What Kim is searching for is to be seen<br />
as a human being. What Nina wants the<br />
viewer to come away with is that this is a<br />
person who has been looking for love and<br />
support all her life, who was looking for<br />
adults to protect her. What does it mean to<br />
be lonely and to seek out love? One of the<br />
takeaways she is hopeful for is that people<br />
will now look at a person on the street and<br />
not judge but empathize.<br />
At the end of the book Kim writes, “My<br />
eyes are streetwise and if you look closely,<br />
you will see the pain in my eyes. My eyes<br />
are the way into my memories of fear and<br />
everything I’ve seen, and somewhere in<br />
there is the real me.”<br />
—Lori Grinker<br />
MEXICO: Between Life and<br />
Death<br />
by Harvey Stein<br />
Kehrer Verlag, <strong>2018</strong><br />
176 pp./$45<br />
It is a pleasure to view Harvey Stein’s<br />
new photography book, Mexico:<br />
Between Life and Death. This striking<br />
publication offers Stein’s street photographer<br />
aesthetic combined within a<br />
documentary framework. He has selected<br />
one hundred and fifty-seven pictures from<br />
fourteen trips between 1993 and 2010.<br />
In New York, Stein has had a forty-plus<br />
year career as a photographer of life on<br />
the street. He is also well known for his<br />
teaching, most recently at the International<br />
Center of Photography. Originally influenced<br />
by the 1967 New Documents show<br />
at the Museum of Modern Art, he and<br />
other dedicated educators have helped<br />
mythologize the American street as an<br />
open studio for making photographic art.<br />
In Mexico: Between Life and Death, Stein<br />
has exemplified the legendary lure of the<br />
street by directing his camera at Mexico’s<br />
most dramatic festivals.<br />
Stein is a sophisticated picture maker.<br />
By photographing in black and white,<br />
he neutralizes the friction of contrasting<br />
colors. Documenting the world in shades<br />
of gray pushes his pictures toward a traditional<br />
street shooter aesthetic. In addition,<br />
he often under-exposes the white-hot sun to<br />
emphasize gorgeous skin tones and telling<br />
details outlined in shadow. He is adept<br />
at sorting his crowded frames into dark<br />
and light fragments. In his pictures, facial<br />
expressions pop out of the darkness and<br />
dramatic body language can hide in the<br />
shadows. Stein’s skilled vision expresses<br />
the mystery of Mexico.<br />
These duotone images become a visual<br />
text on how to transform what is in front<br />
of the lens into a successful picture. A possible<br />
distraction in the foreground can be<br />
the subject, the frame, or lead the eye into<br />
a composition. He keeps his camera close<br />
to the action; it seems to parade along<br />
with the Mexican people he is picturing.<br />
Stein brings his inclusive New York<br />
vision to portray Mexico in all its kinetic<br />
magnificence.<br />
—Frank Ward<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 59
N.O.K: NEXT OF KIN<br />
By Inbal Abergil<br />
Essays by Carol Becker, Maurice Emerson<br />
Decaul, Fred Ritchin and Stephen Mayes<br />
Daylight Books<br />
Two Volumes, 111 pp. each/$45.00<br />
The first indication that this is not a<br />
typical photography book is the<br />
format. N.O.K.: Next of Kin, by<br />
Inbal Abergil, is printed as two separate<br />
volumes held together with elastic cord.<br />
Part I contains only photographic plates.<br />
Part II, only text.<br />
The text is a series of faithfully transcribed<br />
personal stories—of mothers,<br />
fathers, wives, sisters, brothers, and other<br />
family members of men and women who<br />
were killed in action, from Iwo Jima to<br />
Iraq. Abergil interviewed 18 Gold Star<br />
families across the US for this project.<br />
Their unscripted, candid reflections touch<br />
on the moment they learned their loved<br />
one had died, their struggles with loss,<br />
and their powerful memories.<br />
This choice of format—the stories<br />
collected in their own volume rather than<br />
appearing in a single volume with the photographs—gives<br />
them the intended weight.<br />
The photographs complement these<br />
personal stories—they don’t overpower<br />
them. Printed at a small scale (some only<br />
four inches wide), the photographs suggest<br />
faithful documentation, intentionally devoid<br />
of any interpretation by the artist.<br />
The photographs are of the things the<br />
soldiers left behind, carefully preserved,<br />
cherished by their families.<br />
Some of the possessions photographed<br />
are markers of a career spent in the military—newspaper<br />
articles, uniforms, boots,<br />
medals. But these objects alone don’t<br />
tell the story of a life. As one woman<br />
interviewed by Abergil—the sister of a<br />
fallen soldier—notes: “My dad says […]<br />
when he looks up at his medals, he starts<br />
thinking ‘What did you become to me?<br />
Pure medals?[,,,] I told you to not try to be<br />
a hero because the heroes end up in the<br />
cemetery.”<br />
There are more images of mundane,<br />
day-to-day possessions, markers of a full<br />
life: a handmade ornament on a Christmas<br />
tree, a cigar, a harmonica, an album of<br />
baseball cards, a box of old toy cars.<br />
Most of the photographs are extremely<br />
close-up—the numbers on a football jersey,<br />
a pearl necklace, and a watch completely<br />
fill the frame. This treatment gives a sense<br />
of the preciousness of the object, how it<br />
is being held in memory, all that it now<br />
represents.<br />
There are a handful of wide-format<br />
images—a corner of a bedroom with a<br />
backpack on the floor and a snowboard<br />
in the corner, a living room that has been<br />
converted into an altar to a lost son, a view<br />
of a bedroom with a photograph on the<br />
bedside table. These wider views explore<br />
loss in a different way, and perhaps in a<br />
way that is more accessible to the viewer.<br />
In a room where a soldier’s possessions<br />
are still laid out as he or she might have left<br />
them, death seems even more incongruous.<br />
A room in which a family has carefully laid<br />
out cherished objects makes clear the loss<br />
they live with every day.<br />
But all the photographs convey one<br />
coherent message: that the possessions<br />
of a loved one—the things they touched,<br />
wore, played with, wrote, loved—take<br />
on profound meaning in their absence.<br />
Abergil’s photographs, in partnership with<br />
the honest and moving personal testimonies,<br />
tell a story of loss, the struggle to<br />
make sense of it, and the attempt to find<br />
one’s way in its wake.<br />
—Jenna Mulhall Brereton<br />
46750<br />
by João Pina<br />
FotoEvidence, <strong>2018</strong><br />
146 pp./$60<br />
46,750 is the number of homicides<br />
in Rio de Janeiro between 2007<br />
when Rio won the FIFA World Cup<br />
bid and 2016 when it hosted the World<br />
Cup games. The extraordinary personal<br />
photographs in João Pina’s book, 46750,<br />
belie the title. These photographs are not<br />
statistics, rather they are real people living,<br />
working, and dying in real favelas as this<br />
city and nation struggle with poverty, drugs,<br />
gangs, and preparing for a signature international<br />
event—World Cup soccer.<br />
To put this in perspective, Rio does<br />
not list on the top 50 homicide rates of<br />
cities in the world. The homicide rate in<br />
Brazil is far below that of El Salvador,<br />
Honduras, Jamaica, South Africa, and the<br />
US Virgin Islands. But at an average of<br />
4,600 homicides per year, this is still more<br />
than ten times the number of homicides in<br />
New York City—a city with a much larger<br />
population.<br />
No matter. 46,750 is a sobering<br />
statistic. Approximately 25% are the result<br />
of police action and the remainder from<br />
gang and other criminal action. 46,750<br />
people with loved ones. 46,750 people<br />
who through circumstances not of their<br />
own making, live in a city that pits law<br />
enforcement against residents living in<br />
poverty and find themselves involved<br />
with, forced into, or seeking out gangs for<br />
protection, identity, and financial support.<br />
Police officers who seek out decent paying<br />
jobs often end up being the target of gangs<br />
in a city they are trying to keep safe.<br />
60 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
This is the background for the gritty,<br />
bold, beautifully composed, and humancentered<br />
black and white photographs<br />
that make up this masterly designed and<br />
produced book by Pina. His photographs<br />
walk us through a city alive with soccer,<br />
samba, funk, prisons, gangs, police raids,<br />
corpses, and lovers, all watched over<br />
by the statue of Christ the Redeemer on<br />
a 2,300 foot peak overlooking the city.<br />
The product of Pina’s work though only<br />
begins with the photos. The book itself is<br />
a brilliantly designed stage. Interspersing<br />
the pages of photos are black uncoated<br />
paper leaves with numbers from 1 through<br />
46,750 printed in white opaque ink. The<br />
only color in the book is the deep red<br />
cover and a handful of narrow pages<br />
interspersed throughout the book and<br />
printed with the same red ink on one side<br />
and overprinted with poignant poems by<br />
Vivian Salles. The most gruesome photos<br />
are embedded in foldouts forcing the<br />
reader to open up a gatefold to reveal<br />
the horror—details of one of the 46,750<br />
homicides.<br />
The art of making a black and white<br />
documentary photo is painstaking, and<br />
Pina makes it look obvious and easy. On<br />
page 8-9 is one of the signature images<br />
in the book. According to the caption,<br />
“Policemen from the DRAE (Civilian Police<br />
Division Against Weapons and Explosives)<br />
carry the body of a young man, while two<br />
children coming back from school look at<br />
the scene….” But this is not only a news<br />
photo. The composition, the gestures,<br />
the facial expressions, the tonality, the<br />
cropping, make this a classic work of<br />
composition worthy of any Renaissance<br />
painting.<br />
Today when photographers and publishers<br />
are seeking ways to expand on the<br />
experience and meaning of a traditional<br />
two-dimensional photograph, they can<br />
look to how Pina has done this brilliantly<br />
with 46750.<br />
—Glenn Ruga<br />
UNDOCUMENTED:<br />
Immigration and the<br />
Militarization of the U.S.-<br />
Mexico Border<br />
by John Moore<br />
powerHouse Books/Getty Images, <strong>2018</strong><br />
176 pp./$50<br />
Everyone has seen the iconic picture.<br />
The image of a young Honduran<br />
girl crying at the border in Texas as<br />
she and her mother were searched by US<br />
border agents. Featured on the cover of<br />
Time <strong>Magazine</strong>, it has become a symbol<br />
of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration<br />
policies and represents the thousands of<br />
children who were separated from their<br />
parents this summer. As I write this review,<br />
nearly 500 migrant children remain in<br />
detention separated from their families. But<br />
there is much more than this one image<br />
to John Moore’s work. Undocumented is<br />
an extraordinary volume of photographs<br />
taken over ten years of documenting the<br />
immigration crisis along the entire length<br />
of the border. It is unflinching, honest<br />
and leaves no stone unturned. And every<br />
American should read it.<br />
The book is structured as a six-part<br />
story beginning with the origins of flight<br />
from impoverished and violent Central<br />
American neighborhoods; moving on to<br />
the decision to embark on the perilous<br />
journey north through harsh conditions;<br />
the militarized border and the agents who<br />
monitor it; life in detention with its stark,<br />
chain-link enclosures and cement floors;<br />
and finally, the deportation back. In this<br />
unending journey of misery, Moore is an<br />
optimist, ending with the hopeful pageantry<br />
of the naturalization ceremonies for<br />
the newest Americans.<br />
While Moore’s images don’t hold back<br />
from showing brutal violence, he manages<br />
to find beauty in the sunset over Zone 18,<br />
one of the most dangerous neighborhoods<br />
in Guatemala City, or in his gorgeous night<br />
shots—illuminated by the ambient light of<br />
flashlights, klieg lights, or the moon.<br />
Two-page color spreads are shot<br />
from the point of view of the migrants,<br />
documenting what they see as they push<br />
through thick forests or perilously ride atop<br />
moving freight trains to reach the border.<br />
Other spreads show the perspective of US<br />
agents enforcing laws, high atop the border<br />
in their surveillance helicopters and drones.<br />
The center of the book features full bleed<br />
color spreads without captions showing<br />
the rugged beauty of this cruel and<br />
thankless terrain—aerial views of the Rio<br />
Grande, the border fence snaking through<br />
scrublands and canyons, and the Imperial<br />
Sand Dunes-—hiding the stark choices<br />
that lurk below. From the perspective of<br />
the US border control, Moore shows the<br />
exasperation on the migrants’ faces as<br />
agents close in on them at night.<br />
Moore doesn’t take sides in this book.<br />
He includes trifolds of portraits “to put a<br />
human face on a complex story,” silhouetted<br />
against black backgrounds of<br />
immigrants from Central America, gang<br />
members whose faces are covered by<br />
handkerchiefs, border patrol agents,<br />
inmates, Dreamers, protesters, and finally,<br />
new Americans. He shows how undocumented<br />
immigrants live ordinary lives in<br />
tidy houses, share meals, and work the<br />
farm fields in back-breaking jobs. Their<br />
kids, like all kids, play on trampolines.<br />
Moore “dealt all the players the<br />
measure of respect they deserve” in this<br />
continuing tragic narrative. The book is<br />
largely apolitical except for the jarring<br />
photo of the lush green golf course on<br />
the border, showing the stark economic<br />
disparities while giving a nod to President<br />
Trump’s favorite pastime.<br />
John Moore reminds us that we must<br />
look beyond the headlines and the<br />
statistics. We all have a migration story<br />
somewhere in our family history. In many<br />
ways, their story is ours.<br />
—Barbara Ayotte<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 61
Contributors<br />
Photographers<br />
Taha Ahmad is a documentary<br />
photographer based in Delhi, India. He<br />
believes photography has a strong influence<br />
in creating and developing discourse for the<br />
future. Currently, he is covering issues related<br />
to his community, people and his memories.<br />
He is the recipient of The Documentary<br />
Project Fund/Award <strong>2018</strong>, among others.<br />
Scott Brennan is a photographer living in<br />
Mexico since 2010. His principal interests<br />
are in documenting the rise of social movements<br />
and the processes of territory defense<br />
in rural and indigenous regions of Latin<br />
America. His work has appeared in the New<br />
York Times, Time <strong>Magazine</strong>, BBC and has<br />
been used by Amnesty International.<br />
Michele Cirillo is a photographer based<br />
in Rome, Italy who is interested in using<br />
photography to tell stories focusing on human<br />
rights issues, identity and health from around<br />
the world and how the geopolitical changes<br />
of recent years relate to minorities, conflicts<br />
and marginality.<br />
Aaron Vincent Elkaim is a documentary<br />
photographer currently based in Toronto,<br />
Canada. He focuses on narratives where<br />
traditional culture and environmental degradation<br />
collide. Since 2011, he has committed<br />
himself to exploring colonialist narratives<br />
where people still connected to the natural<br />
world are being impacted by industrial development.<br />
Aaron addresses the need to protect<br />
the natural world by revealing our profound<br />
connection to it. Aaron is the winner of<br />
SDN’s Call for Entries on Documentary in the<br />
Era of Post-Truth.<br />
Javier Fergo is a freelance photographer/<br />
photojournalist and multimedia storyteller<br />
based in Spain. He contributes to national<br />
newspapers such as El País, El Mundo, ABC,<br />
Público and internationally to The Wall Street<br />
Journal, The Washington Post and others.<br />
Philippe Geslin is an ethnologist who<br />
studied at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole des<br />
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.<br />
He has contributed to the development of<br />
anthropotechnology through numerous fields<br />
of research and intervention in Africa, Asia,<br />
Latin America and Greenland.<br />
Aude Osnowycz graduated with a<br />
master’s degree in geopolitics and began her<br />
photojournalism career in 2011 when she<br />
spent four years documenting the impacts of<br />
the Arab Spring in the Maghreb and Middle<br />
East countries for various French and international<br />
magazines. She is currently working<br />
on a long-term project about Russian borders,<br />
using an artistic and personal approach,<br />
questioning the Slavic soul and her family<br />
history.<br />
Writers<br />
Barbara Ayotte has served as a senior<br />
strategic communications strategist, writer<br />
and activist for leading global health, human<br />
rights and media nonprofit organizations,<br />
including the Nobel Peace Prize- winning<br />
Physicians for Human Rights and<br />
International Campaign to Ban Landmines.<br />
Barbara is SDN’s Communications Director<br />
and is Editor of <strong>ZEKE</strong> magazine.<br />
Caterina Clerici is an Italian journalist and<br />
photojournalist for American and Italian<br />
online publications, mainly covering news,<br />
social and political issues at a national and<br />
international level and diaspora communities<br />
in the US.<br />
Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering<br />
environmental issues in Southern California<br />
and beyond. His focus is the intersection<br />
between nature, science and technology with<br />
a twist of food politics.<br />
Lori Grinker is an award-winning<br />
photographer, artist, educator and filmmaker.<br />
Her projects revolve around the themes<br />
of history, culture and identity. She is the<br />
author of Afterwar: Veterans from a World in<br />
Conflict, and The Invisible Thread: A Portrait<br />
of Jewish American Women. Her third book,<br />
Mike Tyson, will be published by Powerhouse<br />
Books. She is an adjunct professor of<br />
photography at New York University’s Arthur<br />
L Carter Graduate Journalism program, on<br />
the faculty of the ICP, and teaches workshops<br />
around the world.<br />
Joseph Lim is a Film and Media Major<br />
student at Tufts University. He currently works<br />
for the Tufts Daily as an editorialist and a<br />
former investigative journalist covering the<br />
off-campus housing crisis. He is a blogger<br />
and poet, passionate in writing profile stories<br />
of the people he meets.<br />
Tori Marlan is an award-winning independent<br />
journalist whose stories expose abuses<br />
of power, illuminate subcultures, and profile<br />
fascinating but unheralded people. Her work<br />
has been published by many outlets, including<br />
Pacific Standard, The Atavist <strong>Magazine</strong>,<br />
BuzzFeed News, the Texas Observer, The<br />
Marshall Project, and The Walrus <strong>Magazine</strong>,<br />
among others. She was previously a staff<br />
writer for the Chicago Reader.<br />
Jenna Mulhall-Brereton is both a<br />
photographer and a professional in the<br />
philanthropy sector—two passions that are<br />
fueled by her travels throughout the world.<br />
Fred Ritchin began writing on photography<br />
and digital imaging in 1984 for the<br />
New York Times <strong>Magazine</strong>. Since then<br />
he has authored three books on the<br />
subject: In Our Own Image: The Coming<br />
Revolution in Photography (1990), After<br />
Photography (2008), and Bending the<br />
Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and<br />
the Citizen (2013), the latter exploring<br />
media strategies for social change. He is<br />
Dean Emeritus of the International Center of<br />
Photography.<br />
Glenn Ruga is the Executive Editor of<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> magazine and founder and director<br />
of the Social Documentary Network (SDN).<br />
From 2010-2013, he was the Executive<br />
Director of the Photographic Resource Center.<br />
From 1995-2007 he was the Director, and<br />
then President, of the Center for Balkan<br />
Development. Ruga is also the owner and<br />
creative director of Visual Communications, a<br />
graphic design firm located in Concord, MA.<br />
J. Sybylla Smith is an independent<br />
curator with more than 25 solo or group<br />
exhibitions featuring over 80 international<br />
photographers exhibited in the US, Mexico,<br />
and South America. An adjunct professor,<br />
guest lecturer, and thesis advisor, Sybylla has<br />
worked with the School of Visual Arts, the<br />
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Wellesley<br />
College, and Harvard University.<br />
Frank Ward is a professor of visual art at<br />
Holyoke Community College, Holyoke, MA.<br />
In 2012, he gave workshops in Central Asia<br />
as a Cultural Envoy for the US Department<br />
of State. In 2011, he was awarded an Artist<br />
Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural<br />
Council for his photography in the former<br />
Soviet Union. He has received numerous<br />
awards for his work in the former Soviet<br />
Union, former Yugoslavia, Tibet, India, and<br />
Puerto Rico. He is represented by Photo Eye<br />
Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.<br />
62 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
WHAT’S HOT!<br />
TRENDING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHERS<br />
ON SDN<br />
Of the hundreds of exhibits submitted to SDN<br />
each year, these four stand out as exemplary<br />
and deserving of further attention.<br />
Carol Allen Storey: Out of the Shadows: Abandoned Teen<br />
Mothers, Rwanda. A tragic epidemic of teen pregnancies is<br />
permeating the population in Rwanda. Over 17,000 were<br />
pregnant in 2016. Vulnerable girls as young as 13 find themselves<br />
in this unwarranted circumstance. Many as a result of rape and<br />
others through ignorance of engaging in sexual activities without<br />
protection. They are left with the awesome responsibility of<br />
becoming a mother when they are still children.<br />
Ann Sophie Lindström: Don't Fence Me In. Horses give<br />
young people confidence, self-esteem, and hope, especially<br />
in a neighborhood like North Philadelphia where the pull of<br />
the streets is so strong horses have become a blessing. Here<br />
a minority of African American low-income people created<br />
a safe harbor through keeping horses in this high-crime<br />
neighborhood.<br />
Amilton Neves: Godmothers of War, Mozambique tells the<br />
story of Mozambican women who were sponsored by the<br />
Portuguese government to provide moral support to the soldiers<br />
fighting on the frontlines during the war for independence.<br />
Many of these women were rewarded with influential positions<br />
in society and some were given houses by the Portuguese<br />
government. In 1974, when the war ended these women were<br />
ostracized for their role in supporting the colonial forces.<br />
Marco Sadori: The Hidden Face of Life in Nepal. The project<br />
is an investigation of Nepal's identity today and its social<br />
condition. Beyond the widespread stereotype of Nepal as an<br />
exotic place of calm, peace and happiness, there is a very<br />
complex reality, where the identity is not well defined. A place<br />
where poverty, marginalization, and homelessness are all part<br />
of the human landscape.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>/ 63
SDN is ten! Your support matters as we enter<br />
our second decade of telling truth.<br />
For ten years, SDN has been reaching<br />
out to documentary photographers<br />
from all parts of the globe to tell<br />
stories and show images that you do<br />
not see elsewhere—images of real<br />
people experiencing the real joys<br />
and struggles of daily life. Stories that<br />
matter.<br />
We started out as a website in 2008<br />
and in 2015 began publishing <strong>ZEKE</strong><br />
magazine, allowing us to present<br />
visual stories in a print form with<br />
greater in-depth writing.<br />
Some of the stories we have presented on SDN<br />
and in <strong>ZEKE</strong> include the migration and refugee<br />
crisis, the war in Syria, women in the workplace,<br />
climate change and global warming, maternal<br />
health in Africa and Haiti, and life in Vietnam today.<br />
Since 2008, we have presented more than 3,000<br />
exhibits on our website by more than 2,000<br />
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Your support will allow us to continue<br />
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“SDN has been publishing stories by photographers<br />
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voices from around the world. A look back at SDN’s<br />
archive reveals a deep trove of global talent and<br />
storytelling.”<br />
—Amy Yenkin<br />
Former Director, Documentary Photography Project,<br />
Open Society Foundations<br />
“Under continued pressure to sustain news and<br />
documentary, the Social Documentary Network is a<br />
masterful bastion staunchly showcasing the labors<br />
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—Lou Jones<br />
Founder, panAFRICAproject<br />
www.socialdocumentary.net<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong>THE MAGAZINE<br />
OF GLOBAL<br />
DOCUMENTARY<br />
www.zekemagazine.com<br />
64 / <strong>ZEKE</strong> FALL <strong>2018</strong>
<strong>ZEKE</strong><br />
<strong>Fall</strong><br />
THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY<br />
Published by Social Documentary Network<br />
Donors to SDN’s Tenth Anniversary<br />
Campaign<br />
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<strong>2018</strong> Vol. 4/No. 2<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> is published by Social Documentary Network (SDN), an<br />
organization promoting visual storytelling about global themes.<br />
Started as a website in 2008, today SDN works with thousands<br />
of photographers around the world to tell important stories<br />
through the visual medium of photography and multimedia. Since<br />
2008, SDN has featured more than 3,000 exhibits on its website<br />
and has had gallery exhibitions in major cities around the world.<br />
All the work featured in <strong>ZEKE</strong> first appeared on the SDN website,<br />
www.socialdocumentary.net.<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong><br />
Executive Editor: Glenn Ruga<br />
Editor: Barbara Ayotte<br />
Social Documentary<br />
Network<br />
Founder & Director: Glenn Ruga<br />
Communications Director:<br />
Barbara Ayotte<br />
Intern: Joseph Lim<br />
SDN Advisory Committee<br />
Lori Grinker, New York, NY<br />
Independent Photographer and<br />
Educator<br />
Catherine Karnow, San Francisco,<br />
CA<br />
Independent Photographer and<br />
Educator<br />
Ed Kashi, Montclair, NJ<br />
Member of VII photo agency<br />
Photographer, Filmmaker, Educator<br />
Reza, Paris, France<br />
Photographer and Humanist<br />
Molly Roberts, Washington, DC<br />
Senior Photography Editor,<br />
National Geographic<br />
Jeffrey D. Smith, New York NY<br />
Director, Contact Press Images<br />
Jamey Stillings, Sante Fe, NM<br />
Independent Photographer<br />
Steve Walker, Danbury, CT<br />
Consultant and Educator<br />
Frank Ward, Williamsburg, MA<br />
Photographer and Educator<br />
Amy Yenkin, New York, NY<br />
Independent Producer and Editor<br />
<strong>ZEKE</strong> is published twice a year by<br />
Social Documentary Network<br />
Copyright © <strong>2018</strong><br />
Social Documentary Network<br />
ISSN 2381-1390<br />
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