Gimme your opinion for free
Dear teeming mass of viewers,
These are some images from Sebastião Salgado’s photoessay, Terra/Land. They all feature people and events associated with the Movimento sem Terra/Landless Movement of Brazil. I’m still thinking and writing about them as part of my thesis. What do you think of them? How do they make you feel? Why is this? Estou curioso.
You can see more of them here, and here.
Hello hello Ann,
I see you’ve had no comments… poo viewers. I’ve had poo bulk email recipients as well. Tho it is really hard to answer your questions.
In the first image I see mass displacement and the second mass protest. Certainly the volume speaks loudly in the first two and the personal pain of the young girl is clear in the third. I think of struggle and desperation and feel sad. I know that these images really only capture a moment which conveys so much – yet I can’t imagine the day to day issues faced by the people in the pictures. So I have a sense of wonder about how people survive. It is actually amazing that so many do. And although we think of the numbers of casualties, when I look at these pictures I also think of the number of memories that are created.
Looking at the pictures from Vietnam is interesting – because in one sense I’ve had sensory overload over the last few weeks and I think in some instances the brain stops working properly. It may take me a while to process some of the things that I’ve seen and heard, but it is also interesting looking at these pictures and to be living among poor people who have suffered great tragedies over decades and to watch them build a life and pursue a good life, particularly as so many people still carry all the of memories of leaving their family home and suffering over so many years of being in danger - it really wasn’t very long ago.
Good luck with more responses… hopefully I’ve broken the ice! :]
M. xx
Comment by Melissa — 6/7/2007 @ 3:09 pm
the last one reminds me of anne geddes work. but not as good. couldn’t they have dressed her up as a flowerpot or an adorable lamb or something?
Hope this helps.
xxx matrine
Comment by matrine — 6/7/2007 @ 4:14 pm
I think the last one looks a little like a Maplethorpe. Maybe we could get a picture of her flowerpot too?
Comment by Anna Aniston — 6/8/2007 @ 11:53 am
Mapplethorpe.
Comment by annonymouse — 6/8/2007 @ 4:35 pm
Hey Hon,
Matrine (is that sposed to be Martine?)’s comment is very funny. I hmmmed about it for a little, thinking, is it too cynical to say “just a doller a day will fund a well full of western peaodophiles for this indian village…” but I see I’m not alone. I feel somewhere between western obligation, inspiration at the struggles of ‘world peoples’ and resentment at being trained to have those reactions- photojournalism can be so uplifting!!. I guess it would depend on the context the photos were used in too for the reaction. Hey I read this ok artical not long ago about the visual rhetoric of the migrant mother photo in New York, the link is- http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0735-0198%28200121%2920%3A1%2F2%3C37%3AVRPADP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 . Wait, that doesn’t look helpful. Hmmm. Its like ‘visual rhetoric photojournalism and democratic culture’ -Robert Hariman- or somn.
Comment by Alice — 6/14/2007 @ 10:50 am
I feel like the first two photographs represent different instantiations of collective subjects. The first is the third world as a ‘recipient’ of ‘humanitarian aid’ (charity). The second is the third world as the site of el pueblo– as the space where the revolutionary politics play out today, despite Western political quietism and inertia.
Hmmm, the girl reminds me of that photo of the Pastun girl in Afghanistan which was around a while ago, and those thirties photos of the victims of the Great Depression in Europe. It, in other words, the girl as the exemplary vulnerable body (and also the potential site of communal regeneration). I feel like this is quite a standard trope in western liberal discourses.
Comment by charles — 6/17/2007 @ 6:06 am
There’s also this interesting article on Salgado, Ann - might be of interest…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%ADchel_Salgado
Comment by Adrian — 6/18/2007 @ 8:51 am
ahhh adrian. welcome back to the fray, brother.
Comment by matrine — 6/18/2007 @ 11:21 am
Mmmm, good point about Salgado’s child looking like the portraits by Dorothea Lange and the Farm Security Administration’s photographers. Is it because the subject is similar, or did the photographer frame the subject according to that previous model?
I always wondered why do people consider U.S. Government contractors (the FSO photographers) as left-wing activists… Same goes to Salgado, who is a World Bank contractor (me scratches head).
Oh, the good life the gov’t grants us… http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/ppmsc/00100/00188r.jpg
Comment by Mr.Rocks — 6/18/2007 @ 6:41 pm
Thanks everyone! I got some stellar remarks via e-mail too. I will write something more detailed on my conclusions in the chapter at a later date, but for now may I note that, not only was S. Salgado once a World Bank contractor … but he has done some lovely work for, er, Volvo.
Also, one of the things I have to keep in mind is that, for all the third-world-commodity-fetishism that Salgado and his work definitely plays into, MST settlers that I talked to (i.e. not the political leaders who are more invested in the images for propaganda purposes, but people who have joined the movement and benefited from it, obtained a plot of land that has guaranteed them a secure material future that they could not locate before along with many community resources like education and health) seemed to really love the photos, they see themselves reflected in the images as heroes in a struggle, people living with passion and dignity, et cetera.
So that is another thing which will influence my analysis. As most people pointed out, the specific context for the viewer and the subject really matters in any judgement one might make. All the more fun for me ;-).
Comment by ana — 6/18/2007 @ 8:28 pm
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wldcup.com/pictures/euro2004/salgado-corogne03.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wldcup.com/euro/2004/players_present/439_michel_salgado.html&h=118&w=140&sz=32&hl=en&start=46&tbnid=V7V5DSyXMhozNM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsalgado%2Breal%2Bmadrid%26start%3D36%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
Comment by adrian — 6/18/2007 @ 8:44 pm