More from the excellent multi-media and documentary photography work of the Open Society Institute. Whether you are a fan of Soros or not, OSI has invested heavily in the production of high quality visual products that are integrated into social justice campaigns.
The ‘Moving Walls 16‘ exhibition brings together work by six photographers. There is no common theme linking the work, though most focus on war or its aftermath.
The two that stand out for me are the work by Tomas van Houtryve covering the end of the CPN (Maoist) led ‘People’s War’ and Jana Andolan II that over threw the monarchical dictatorship of King Gyanendra in 2006 (though his work on the conflict started in 2004). Although the set presented here is slightly disjointed it gives a good snap shot of the transition from conflict to uneasy peace. This work is part of a larger project ‘Comrade Revisited‘ documenting the world’s ‘last communist holdouts.’ It is worth checking out if only to see the full set of photos on Nepal.
The second stand out piece is by Paolo Woods entitled ‘Chinafrica‘ that looks at Chinese investment and economic migration to Africa. The images are stylised portraits that at times show an uneasy relationship between the Chinese migrants and the Africans they work with (or more accurately, work for them). Woods draws on European colonial imagery, though acknowledges that the Chinese presence in Africa is substantially different to that of the European colonialists.
Copyright Paolo Woods
The Moving Walls 16 exhibition takes place at the OSI in New York from September 29 2009 to 21 May 2010.
Filed under: Multi-media, Photography | Tagged: Africa, Asia, China, East Asia, exhibition, Nepal, photographers, South Asia
