The Rights Exposure Project » Uncategorized

Korean version of ‘False Promises’ – exploitation of Nepalese migrant workers

buddhasbreakfast — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:10:19 +0000

Here is the Korean language version of Amnesty International’s short film ‘False Promises – Exploitation and forced labour of Nepalese migrant workers.’

You can find out more on this issue by reading the report or a summary at the Amnesty International website.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Amensty International, Asia, deception, forced labour, Korean, labour, migrant worker, Nepal, South Asia, trafficking

Interview with photographer Sophie Gerrard

buddhasbreakfast — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:01:50 +0000

Women chat in recovery ward following successful cataract surgery, AJEH, Bihar, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

I came across Sophie Gerrard’s work via a recent article on the BBC News website about an eye hospital in Bihar, India. I was impressed enough to have a dig around on her website and found another interesting project on maternal health. What struck me was the balance in her approach – not overly dramatic and with a positive thread running through it. At times it borders on the minimal, with artistic over-tomes, which will not be to everyone’s taste. However, I liked what I saw so got in touch and Sophie kindly agreed to answer some questions.

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REP – Hi Sophie, your work predominantly focuses on social and environmental issues. What is striking is that rather than emphasize the negative and over dramatize the issue, you take a positive approach. You seem solution orientated. Is this a conscious working method?

SG – For the most part yes, ‘Protectors of Sight‘ is certainly a positive story. The story being told here is of a remarkable rural eye hospital in remote Bihar, India where they are working against all the odds curing the sight of hundreds of people everyday for free. It’s a positive story and it’s one which deserves attention. The hospital there is doing such incredible work. People are generally interested in hearing about it. I think the positive solution part of the story is often what the audience engages with the most. I think to make work which lets an audience know about something new. So in this case, the story of blindness is not new, but the way this hospital is trying to eradicate the issue is very new to most of those who see the photographs. That’s what has got people I meet, talking about the project and the issue of cataract blindness in that part of India, and that’s the whole point.

I’m not a great fan of a photographic or documentary approach which presents an audience with nameless victims and their plight without specific details and specific voices. People are interested in people, facts figures and statistics mean very little until a human face or voice makes us empathise and start to see things from a difference perspective. I think photography and audio can do that. If we hear the voices and thoughts of those affected by the various social and environmental issues I photograph, then I hope that means their story is communicated that little bit more successfully.

Asha Subhash Gabhale, 20, with her two day old baby, Chaphachapada, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

REP – You have worked with several NGOs, including your latest project on the Akhand Jyoti Eye hospital in Bihar. What has your experience been like working with charitable organizations, how much say do you have in the tone and focus of the work?

SG – I was very lucky in working with The Savitri Waney Charitable Trust and the Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital in that their message was very clear to me and straightforward. The organisations were easy to work with, the story I had to tell was, in many ways, quite simple: There are huge numbers of cataract blind people in Bihar, India. The hospital seeks out those blind people and brings them to hospital for surgery, their sight is cured for free.

Before I went to Bihar, the Trust and I discussed how we could approach the story. For instance did I want to tell the story of one individual, one family, did I want to focus on the eye camps, or on the hospital we discussed a few ways of telling the story, and what important points had to be covered and then I was left to it. I was given the luxury of time to spend with the people at the hospital, I was also given time to travel to outreach eye screening camps, to visit blind individuals in their homes and travel with them to the hospital for surgery. I met blind people, stayed with them in their houses, photographed and interviewed them. I traveled kilometres on foot over searingly hot dry river beds and through swollen rivers to see the outreach camps where hundreds of rural people gather to have their eyes screened. I was accompanied and looked after, and basically I was able to photography anything I wanted. I was given no boundaries and there were no limitations.

The story I then edited and put together is the one I wanted to show. Sure, the charity have chosen their images and I have chosen mine, but the whole collection is a thourough and true reflection of that place and that situation. I am very pleased with the way we’ve all been able to work together. The exhibition I am showing of the work, ‘Protectors of Sight’, was entirely curated by me. I chose which images and information I wanted to use to tell the story. The charity helped me with that by sponsoring the exhibition but they have left all creative decisions to me.

AJEH Mastichak, Bihar, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

I’ve been lucky enough to work with NGOs and charities who are either very used to working with photographers and can explain clearly what they want what they wish to say and why, or with small charities who are happy to introduce me to their projects and then leave me to it. In every scenario I’ve always felt very supported, and yet at the same time very free to work as I wish and make the pictures I feel I need to make. That for me is a good combination.

REP – Can you tell us a bit about how your work has been used? Much of it looks like it would be used to encourage new donors or feedback to existing ones.

SG – The ‘Protectors of Sight’ exhibition and photographs were used by The Savitri Waney Charitable Trust in order to document the various projects they support. A gallery of my images can be seen on their website. Images from the project have also been used by the hospital to do the same. The photo-film has been used at fundraising events, in the annual newsletter, it has been distributed online and has been featured on the BBC. Previous projects such as ‘E-wasteland‘, have been used by other NGOs. ‘E-wasteland’ was used by Greenpeace International in one of their global campaigns to highlight the dangers of toxic e-waste in workshops and recycling yards in India. I am delighted that my work can be used in these ways.

Acid pollution, Mandoli, Delhi, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

REP – Most of your stories are from India. Is this by chance or is there a deeper attraction? How do you find working some where so far from home and so different? How do people react to you?

SG – I’ve always been attracted to India, my parents lived and worked for an NGO working in India and in Pakistan in the 1970s and I’ve always been attracted by that part of the world. I’m perfectly happy working far from home, I enjoy travelling, discovering new places, meeting new people, which photographer wouldn’t. You wouldn’t choose to do this work otherwise. I’m used to being the visitor, the one who is asking questions. Even when I’m working in Scotland and nearer to home that is still the case. It’s up to me to make people feel relaxed around me, and to react well towards me. If I am photographing them over a period of time (which is how I prefer to work – spending time and making work slowly) then it’s in my interest to develop and establish a relationship relatively quickly and to try and gain trust. I am not out to trick anyone or to misrepresent anyone. I ask questions and I am curious, I then try to portray that information in my photographs, with varying degrees of success. I’ve been lucky, I’ve nearly always been welcomed and treated with great generosity and kindness by those who have let me photograph them.

Sindhu gathers her medical box before home visits, Gande, rural Maharashtra, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

REP – How did you make the leap from environmental science to photography? Any tips for young photographers starting out on how to carve out a career in photography focusing on social issues?

SG – I started my career as an environmental scientist. After a short while in that job however I knew that I wanted to be the one reporting and documenting the stories we worked on. I had also been travelling in South East Asia around that time and had become obsessed with the work of Don McCullin and the other war photographers in Vietnam. I decided then that I was going to return to art college to study documentary photography. It seemed a logical way to combine what I was most interested in. I then went on to study for an MA in photojournalism and I’ve been working as a docuentary photographer ever since I completed that course. I’m passionate about visual story telling, I feel that if you can catch someone’s attention with something and make them stop and take a second look, then that’s powerful. Someone who inspired me greatly was Tim Hetherington and his early work from Indonesia and also the wall graffitti photographs from Liberia. His visual approach to an abstract form of documentary and story telling using medium format was what led me towards the camera I use. I enjoy the slow process and the discipline of working at a pace which i think for me generates more intimate photographs and details which help tell a story.

In terms of advice, I’d recommend being thick skinned, resilient and driven. Find a subject matter that interests you and find a way to make photographs about it. Be prepared that that might not always be from commissions and jobs. A lot of what I have done has been self initiated and funded through other photography work, or from grants. So, many Charities and NGOs are increasingly looking to reduce their costs and their budgets. Look at work that others are making and be informed.

Community worker during a house visit, Baigau, rural Maharashtra, India. Copyright Sophie Gerrard

REP – What next? Anything interesting in the pipeline?

SG – Right now I’m working on promoting my exhibiton ‘Protectors of Sight’ and trying to find some follow on venues for the work to be exhibited in. I’ve got some plans to show it in Edinburgh, my home town. The Photographers’ Gallery in London are featuring the work in their Print Sales and I’m delighted about that. Project wise I’m working on some new shorter term editorial projects in the UK at the moment and applying for funding. At the same time as trying to do as much editorial work as I can. It’s a slightly difficult balancing act. My current personal work is a project in Scotland looking at land use and protected land. It’s in the early stages but I’m keen to continue it in the next few weeks. My main interests are environmental stories and specifically looking at the human and social impact of environmental issues. It’s time to give those personal stories some more of my attention now and I’m really looking forward to doing that.

Newborn, five days old, Baigau, rural Maharastra, India. Copyrights Sophie Gerrard

Filed under: Multi-media, Photography, Uncategorized Tagged: Asia, children, health, India, maternal mortality, South Asia

2011

buddhasbreakfast — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 04:17:00 +0000

Well, first of all thanks to all those who supported the Rights Exposure Project in 2010. Much appreciated. In truth, we didn’t excel ourselves in prolific posting, but a redesign and some interesting interviews put us in a good position for 2011. As always, ideas, comments and contributions are much appreciated. We would particularly like to build the reference section of the blog, so please send in details of those organisations or individuals doing great stuff with visual media.

Below is a summary WordPress put together, which shows that in 2010 we rather rested on the shoulders of 2009. Ho hum. I am hoping a faster internet connection later in the year will make things easier. Lets see.

Best

The Rights Exposure Project

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 52 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 157 posts. There were 146 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 23mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 7th with 306 views. The most popular post that day was Green Dam Girl.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were ow.ly, facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, stumbleupon.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for enjoy poverty, participatory photography, corruption, nikon coolpix s1000pi, and self portrait photography.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Green Dam Girl September 2009

Participatory photography – Jack of all trades, master of none? August 2009
7 comments

About December 2008
7 comments

‘Real lives are like novels not legal documents’ – How NGOs should be using photos and video in social activism. December 2009
7 comments

Photography March 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized

Rights Exposure Project now on Facebook

buddhasbreakfast — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:12:29 +0000

Now there are four ways to follow the Rights Exposure Project (beyond just visiting the blog, but that would be so 00′s).

We are now on Facebook!

Still going strong on Twitter (RightsExposure)

And building our group on Flickr…

Plus you can subscribe for email alerts (top left hand column).

If you would like to send us an email you can at rightsexposureproject@gmail.com

Best

Rob

Filed under: Uncategorized

The Rights Exposure Project on Twitter

buddhasbreakfast — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:31:15 +0000

The Rights Exposure Project can now be found on Twitter as ‘RightsExposure’ – follow the latest updates and musings.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: Twitter