Noorderlicht

Land

Country Life in the Urban Age

exhibition / 5 sep 31 oct 2010

© Jackie Nickerson

Evan Abramson

• WHEN THE WATER ENDS (Kenya, Ethiopia, 2010)

  In the spring of 2010 the photographer Evan Abramson travelled through the region along the bor-der between Kenya and Ethiopia to survey the consequences of climate change for the semi-nomadic tribes there. He discovered that more frequent acute droughts were fuelling tensions be-tween tribes who are dependent on the too scarce water and the too sparse pasturage. Moreover, with its construction of a dam on the Omo River, the Ethiopian government has disrupted a cycle that is of vital importance for half a million people who live from agriculture, livestock and fishing. The supply of Kalashnikovs is already leading to an increasing number of fatalities, and Abramson fears the situation will only get worse. It contributes to massive migration to the city, where lives as prostitutes and beggars await many.
  
  March 8, 2010. A young man from the Nyangatom tribe patrols a water access point on the border between Ethiopia and Kenya.

  

• WHEN THE WATER ENDS (Kenya, Ethiopia, 2010)

  Een Dassanech-tiener, bewapend met een Kalashnikov, hoedt honderden koeien in het dorp Toltale. In het niemandsland tussen grensposten in Kenia en Ethiopië voeren de Dassanech regelmatig aanvallen uit op de naburige Turkana-stam. Ze stelen daarbij dieren, vernietigen visnetten en plegen rituele moorden die hun aanzien binnen hun stam vergroten. De moordpartijen zorgen er ook voor dat de Dassanech de controle blijven houden over de uitgestrekte vlaktes waar de rivier Omo samenkomt met het Turkanameer. 3 maart 2010.

  

• WHEN THE WATER ENDS (Kenya, Ethiopia, 2010)

  February 28, 2010. The dried, starved corpses of sheep, goats and cows are left discarded in a pile outside the Turkana village of Todenyang. A reminder of the widespread impact that three years of consecutive drought have had on the tribes of northern Kenya, whose livelihoods have depended almost entirely on the raising of livestock for thousands of years.

  

• WHEN THE WATER ENDS (Kenya, Ethiopia, 2010)

  March 21, 2010. East of the Omo Valley, displaced Somali girls and women from the Gabra clan dig with cups and dishes in the sand of a dry riverbed in search of drinking water near their camp. Between 2008 and 2009, 107 Borana and Gabra killed each other near the town of Arero in fighting over water and pasture. The Borana greatly outnumbered the Gabra, however, and 5,000 Gabra were displaced. Outside the town of Hudet in the Somali region, 3,000 displaced Gabra have set up camp, surviving almost entirely on food aid and NGO assistance.

  

Benoit Aquin

• DEADLY MIST (Nicaragua, 2005)

  In the 1970s and '80s the banana producers Dole and Del Monte were using Nemagon, a carcino-genic pesticide, to combat microscopic worms on banana and pineapple plants. Those who worked for them at the time now suffer from various illnesses, including testicular and cervical cancer, kid-ney disease, brittle bones and sharply reduced visual capability. Moreover, there is an increased chance of birth defects among their children. The banañeros, now in their fifties, have little pros-pect of recovery – to the extent that there are any cures at all for their medical conditions. They have no money for treatment and the corporations responsible wash their hands of the matter, pro-claiming their innocence. Dole and Del Monte refuse to acknowledge judgements by the Nicara-guan courts, although it was known from as far back as the 1950s that Nemagon caused similar conditions among rats in laboratory tests. In 1977 the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) or-dered American firms to cease using Nemagon, but Dole and Del Monte continued to use the prod-uct for years more on their plantations in Nicaragua and The Philippines, so that tens of thousands of workers were unnecessarily exposed to the damaging substance.

  

• DEADLY MIST (Nicaragua, 2005)

  

• DEADLY MIST (Nicaragua, 2005)

  

• DEADLY MIST (Nicaragua, 2005)

  

• DEADLY MIST (Nicaragua, 2005)

  

Pablo Balbontin Arenas

• THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY ( 2001-2002)

  In his prizewinning THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY photographer Pablo Balbontin Are-nas surveys biodiversity in the agricultural sector. Although during the tens of thousands of years of agricultural history many thousands of plants have been cultivated, today there are no more than 150 in active cultivation. Four of these – maize, wheat, rice and potatoes – constitute more than half of all vegetable foodstuffs. This shrinking biodiversity should be a reason for concern. It makes food supplies and food safety vulnerable, with the potato famine of 19th century Ireland as a horrible warning. Balbontin Arenas has taken the ‘big four’ of the human diet as his point of departure. In often remote, culturally intact communities he won the trust of farmers and families. In this way he brings us into contact with our common rural origin.

  

• THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY (2001-2002)

  

• THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY (2001-2002)

  

• THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY (2001-2002)

  

• THE CUSTODIANS OF BIODIVERSITY (2001-2002)

  

George Awde

• QUIET CROSSINGS (Syria, Lebanon, 2008-2010)

  In the 21st century the countryside and the city are inseparably intertwined. The Kurdish migrants who George Awde followed for his series QUIET CROSSINGS are proof of that. Because of po-litical and social-economic circumstances they feel they have to leave their rural communities in Syria and seek work in big cities. Many go to Beirut, where they perform thankless work and are the invisible pillars of the Lebanese economy. While the men are treated like slaves in Lebanon, on their semi-annual visits home they are greatly esteemed. For them being a man means to earn money to send back home, save enough for a marriage, and strive for personal independence. The countryside represents not only nostalgia for their lost youth, but also the dream of a Kurdish state of their own and the knowledge that the past gives them strength to meet the tribulations of the pre-sent.

  

• QUIET CROSSINGS (Syria, Lebanon, 2008-2010)

  Beirut 2010

  

• QUIET CROSSINGS (Syria, Lebanon, 2008-2010)

  Beirut, 2010

  

• QUIET CROSSINGS (Syria, Lebanon, 2008-2010)

  Qamishli 2010

  

• QUIET CROSSINGS (Syria, Lebanon, 2008-2010)

  Beirut, 2008

  

Tessa Bunney

• HOME WORK (Vietnam, 2006-2008)

  About three-quarters of the population of Vietnam live in, and from, the countryside. But because of the explosive growth of the capital Hanoi – which counts over six million residents – the avail-ability of land for agricultural purposes around the metropolis is under pressure. Farmers seek to capitalise on this trend by no longer engaging in classic agriculture, but in the production of goods such as baskets, textile, palm hats and toy animals. The ‘crafts villages’ this creates are a crossroads for agriculture and industry, the rural and urban. Tessa Bunney spent over a year in the area and portrayed the everyday life of the badly paid workers. Her colourful images have a dark undertone, because the economic growth and increasing production also contribute to pollution, and threaten traditions.
  
  Cao, a village making incense.

  

• HOME WORK (Vietnam, 2006-2008)

  Huu Tu, a village making mien (canna flour noodles).

  

• HOME WORK (Vietnam, 2006-2008)

  Chi Dong, a village producing silk.

  

• HOME WORK (Vietnam, 2006-2008)

  Quang Phu Cau, a village making incense sticks.

  

• HOME WORK (Vietnam, 2006-2008)

  Vihn An, a village specialised in rat-catching.

  

Alexandra Demenkova

• TERRITORY OF BROKEN DREAMS (Russia, 2007)

  For many of the residents of Russian metropolises like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the country-side simply doesn't exist. Yet you do not have to travel far outside the cities to find half-wrecked villages where primarily older people live in bitter poverty. They are former labourers on state farms, the elderly and unemployed, stranded in once lively villages. You hardly see any children; services have been withdrawn, and community spirit has been replaced by loneliness, alcoholism and crime. Demenkova’s austere and sombre black and white photographs show not only the legacy of modern urbanisation, but also of Soviet policies, which focused on the appropriation of agricul-tural land for collective farming.

  

• TERRITORY OF BROKEN DREAMS (Russia, 2007)

  

• TERRITORY OF BROKEN DREAMS (Russia, 2007)

  

• TERRITORY OF BROKEN DREAMS (Russia, 2007)

  

• TERRITORY OF BROKEN DREAMS (Russia, 2007)

  

Laura El-Tantawy

• I’LL DIE FOR YOU (India, 2010)

  Over the past decade an alarming trend has come to light in India: more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide. Many had borrowed money to plant more efficient crops, but could not pay off their debts. Because of the extremely fast transition India has undergone, from a rural to an indus-trial, urban society with an open market, farmers have been confronted by immense problems. The photographer Laura El-Tantawy has no desire to go into the causes, but in her eerie images places emphasises on the bond between the people and the land. This connection is symbolically reflected in the texture of the skin of the people she portrays. The land and its inhabitants are one and the same, she says. When the one dies, so does the other.

  

• I’LL DIE FOR YOU (India, 2010)

  

• I’LL DIE FOR YOU (India, 2010)

  

• I’LL DIE FOR YOU (India, 2010)

  

• I’LL DIE FOR YOU (India, 2010)

  

Eva Gjaltema

• FAMYLJE (Netherlands, 2004-ongoing)

  The family of the Dutch photographer Eva Gjaltema comes from the Westerkwartier, a rural area on the border between the provinces of Groningen and Friesland, where they have been active for gen-erations in agriculture and raising livestock. In 2004 Gjaltema began to record the lives of her grandparents, in order to preserve the family's history, but also to show a way of life that was dying. Using various techniques and cameras, she expresses feelings of love, sorrow, anger and power-lessness. For this she draws on her own images, but also documents and photographs from the fam-ily archive. The result is a dialogue between generations, and an ode to a way of life symbolic of the whole countryside of the Northern Netherlands.

  

• FAMYLJE (Netherlands, 2004-ongoing)

  

• FAMYLJE (Netherlands, 2004-ongoing)

  

• FAMYLJE (Netherlands, 2004-ongoing)

  

• FAMYLJE (Netherlands, 2004-ongoing)

  

Brigitte Grignet

• CHILOÉ – LA CRUZ DEL SUR (Chile, 2008)

  There is an old Chilean saying that ‘Nothing ever happens in Chile’. Since Pinochet's coup that is no longer tenable, although it would appear that in the Chiloé archipelago, 1100 kilometres to the south of Santiago, time has largely stood still. The Belgian photographer Brigitte Grignet visited this group of islands over a period of seven years and lived there without electricity, hot running water or health care. It is a primitive life, rich in myths about the constant struggle with the sea and land. Still, it is an open question how long this lifestyle will continue to exist. With the arrival of new technologies, the development of tourism and salmon farms economic changes are inescapable – and with them the sapping of centuries-old social structures and cultural traditions. Grignet re-corded the Chilotes while that was still possible. The result is an account of a people who believe in ghost ships, witches, God, and the power of community.

  

• CHILOÉ – LA CRUZ DEL SUR (Chile, 2008)

  

• CHILOÉ – LA CRUZ DEL SUR (Chile, 2008)

  

• CHILOÉ – LA CRUZ DEL SUR (Chile, 2008)

  

• CHILOÉ – LA CRUZ DEL SUR (Chile, 2008)

  

Robin Hammond

• TOXIC JEANS (Lesotho, 2009)

  When the big American clothing chain Gap decided to move the production of jeans and T-shirts to Lesotho, it meant a substantial economic boost for one of the poorest countries in the world. Today there are about fifty clothing factories active there, most owned by Taiwanese. But there were also negative effects, including the dumping of tons of contaminated waste in dangerous locations in populated areas. The dumps attract desperate people – including mothers and children – who hope to recover usable pieces of denim and plastic from among the waste. While searching through it they come into contact with dangerous chemicals, needles and razorblades. Furthermore, the dumps are regularly set on fire, releasing many unhealthy substances into the air. Despite the health com-plaints – such as breathing difficulties and skin conditions – the easy availability of scrap textiles means that people no longer cook over coal at home, but burn chemically treated cloth. Thus the economic lifebuoy which the clothing industry threw to Lesotho has at the same time proven to be a threat to public health.
  
  The process of manufacturing and dying jeans has led to a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe. Local water is turned blue from dyes, and offcuts, dumped and burnt, pollute the air. Maseru, Lesotho. July 2009.

  

• TOXIC JEANS (Lesotho, 2009)

  The waste dumped includes harmful chemicals, needles and razors. Ha Tsosane Rubbish Dump, Maseru. Lesotho. July 2009.

  

• TOXIC JEANS (Lesotho, 2009)

  Chemical waste thrown into dumps used by the garment industry poses a hazard to the hundreds of men, women, and young children who sift through rubbish looking for recyclable material. Maseru, Lesotho. July 2009.

  

• TOXIC JEANS (Lesotho, 2009)

  The smoke from the smouldering waste reportedly causes respiratory illnesses and eyes to sting and tear. Ha Tsosane Rubbish Dump, Maseru. Lesotho. July 2009.

  

• TOXIC JEANS (Lesotho, 2009)

  

Katharina Hesse

• DEFORESTATION IN PAPUA (Papua New Guinea, 2009)

  Although seventy percent of Papua New Guinea is still covered with rain forest, in recent years various environmental organisations have been sounding the alarm. Two percent of the forest has been cleared, with more due to be cut. In the longer term that is a problem for the local population, but even more so for the unique flora and fauna. Deforestation leads to a decline in biodiversity, and the construction of roads to fragmentation of the natural habitat. It leads to a greater chance of droughts and forest fires, climate changes and decline in natural water purification. Commercial lumbering is not the only cause of the deforestation. Around villages the gathering of firewood and the creation of pasturage plays a role. Often villagers give permission for cutting trees after they are promised large sums of money, but are never paid. Katharina Hesse travelled to Papua New Guinea and photographed the local population in their increasingly barren surroundings.

  

• DEFORESTATION IN PAPUA (Papua New Guinea, 2009)

  

• DEFORESTATION IN PAPUA (Papua New Guinea, 2009)

  

• DEFORESTATION IN PAPUA (Papua New Guinea, 2009)

  

• DEFORESTATION IN PAPUA (Papua New Guinea, 2009)

  

Sohrab Hura

• LAND OF A THOUSAND STRUGGLES (India, 2006)

  While urban areas in India are blossoming rapidly economically, the countryside remains far behind in terms of development. The increasing scarcity of agricultural land is a problem, because the ma-jority of the Indian population are still farmers. Over the past sixty years hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their ancestral lands in the name of progress, to make way for indus-trial projects, or have left of their own volition because there was no work in the area. This has proven to be a seedbed for movements that struggle for the right to work, sometimes resorting to violence. They sometimes succeed – the National Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 guarantees every household a hundred days work per year, at the minimum wage – but more often they do not. More than the development of its cities, says photographer Sohrab Hura, the situation in the coun-tryside is the measure of the health of a society.

  

• LAND OF A THOUSAND STRUGGLES (India, 2006)

  

• LAND OF A THOUSAND STRUGGLES (India, 2006)

  

• LAND OF A THOUSAND STRUGGLES (India, 2006)

  

• LAND OF A THOUSAND STRUGGLES (India, 2006)

  

Nadav Kander

• YANGTZE, THE LONG RIVER (China, 2010)

  Although made very recently, Nadav Kander's photographs of life along the Yangtze river in China could never be repeated – so rapid is the change to which China is subject. Kander sees the Yangtze – the 6500 kilometre long river that is the lifeblood for three-hundred million Chinese citizens – as a metaphor for that change. He travelled along the river and recorded an industrialising landscape in which people appear insignificant and interchangeable. Kander strove for an intuitive approach, but could not escape politically charged, documentary photography. Millions of farmers and residents of villages and small cities have had to make way for progress. Kander shows a nation that is wip-ing out its past at an amazing and unnatural pace in an attempt to catapult itself into being the world's dominant economic power.
  
  Yangtze Source, Qinghai

  

• YANGTZE, THE LONG RIVER (China, 2010)

  Billboard at Chongqing

  

• YANGTZE, THE LONG RIVER (China, 2010)

  Bridge Construction at Chongqing

  

• YANGTZE, THE LONG RIVER (China, 2010)

  Metalen palm bij zwembad, Nanjing, Jiangsu.

  

Daniel J. Kariko

• SPECULATION WORLD (United States, 2008-2009)

  You see them everywhere along the freeways in the interior of Florida: billboards announcing the construction of idyllic housing projects. Alas, the beautiful pictures on them have little to do with the reality of the abandoned, unfinished instant communities. The dreams were smashed to smither-eens during the housing crisis of 2007. Kariko’s aerial photographs of the construction projects ex-pose the destruction and desperation: we see the negative effects that the projects have had on the surrounding agricultural land, and the curious absence of construction equipment among the unfin-ished homes. Back on earth, inside the bounds of the planned communities, the visitor could imag-ine himself in a post-apocalyptic landscape, where nature is slowly repossessing what was previ-ously stolen from her.

  

• SPECULATION WORLD (United States, 2008-2009)

  

• SPECULATION WORLD (United States, 2008-2009)

  

• SPECULATION WORLD (United States, 2008-2009)

  

• SPECULATION WORLD (United States, 2008-2009)

  

Michael Lange

• THE WOMEN OF THE LAMANI TRIBE (India, 2005)

  The Lamani gypsies in the south of India are among the lowest castes in that land. Their traditions are all but forgotten. They often live in small villages around cities, where the women are dressed in the standard saris, and not in their own handmade clothing and heavy silver jewellery. In order to see the traditional life of the Lamani, you have to travel to remote villages, where the Lamani live in mud huts or rudimentary brick houses paid for by the government. Their fields look like plots of desert. They cut sugar cane, or crush stone into gravel for road building. Their caste is not permitted other work – nor is it a possibility, given their scant education. Girls marry when they are around thirteen. Although the women do the same work as the men, they are paid only about a third of what the men receive. At the same time, it is the women who keep the families going, by managing the finances, raising the children, and doing the housework.

  

• THE WOMEN OF THE LAMANI TRIBE (India, 2005)

  

• THE WOMEN OF THE LAMANI TRIBE (India, 2005)

  

• THE WOMEN OF THE LAMANI TRIBE (India, 2005)

  

Jérémie Lenoir

• OCCUPIED TERRITORIES (France, 2010)

  Jérémie Lenoir's aerial photos of the French landscape lift nature out of its normal context and re-veal the abstraction that man has imposed on it. ‘The world no longer represents our recognisable, banal ideas’, he says. ‘It is a collection of forms, which repeat themselves and accumulate until they loose all meaning.’ This reality is one of radical geometry, totalitarian lines, or, on the contrary, confusing boundaries. In this way Lenoir hopes to make the landscape a symbol for our society and our thought process. Moreover, he touches a sore spot: the contradictions in our thinking. Despite speaking more than we ever have before about protecting the environment, we have never polluted the environment as much. And while we subject our liberal economic model to serious critique, we continue to worship the objectives of that model. The reconstructed landscape also demonstrates that.
  
  Waterways. Machecoul, Loire-Atlantique (44), France

  

• OCCUPIED TERRITORIES (France, 2010)

  Urban Resurgence. Tours, Indre-et-Loire (37), France.

  

• OCCUPIED TERRITORIES (France, 2010)

  Row of Flowers. Angers, Maine-et-Loire (49), France

  

• OCCUPIED TERRITORIES (France, 2010)

  Circuit Car. Argenton-les-Vallées, Deux-Sèvres (79), France.

  

Kadir van Lohuizen

• NIGER DELTA (Nigeria, 2007

  No country in the world has suffered as much for having oil as Nigeria has. While a small elite and foreign multinationals earn billions from the exploitation of its natural wealth, the people of the Ni-ger delta generally live at or below the poverty line. More than that: they have to also deal with the negative side-effects of oil production. Because of poor maintenance and sabotage, every year as much oil is lost into the fragile environment as was lost in the Exxon Valdez disaster. Agricultural land becomes unusable, fishing waters are changed into black slicks and swamps are rendered life-less. Kadir van Lohuizen recorded the lives of the delta's people in confrontational images, people whose lives are unintentionally dominated by oil. They live under the shadow of uncontrollable fires, with their feet in black gold that is worthless to them.

  

• NIGER DELTA (Nigeria, 2007

  

• NIGER DELTA (Nigeria, 2007

  

• NIGER DELTA (Nigeria, 2007

  

• NIGER DELTA (Nigeria, 2007

  

Philippe Lopparelli

• TELLING TIME (Romania, 2004-2008)

  For more than twenty years now the French photographer Philippe Lopparelli has devoted himself to the discovery of remote, forgotten and timeless regions. The social codes, less affected by mod-ernisation, now seem little like ours. An example are the Carpathians, a chain of mountains that ex-tend across Romania. This is a thickly wooded and very thinly populated region, with legendary panoramas, in which the castle of the infamous Count Dracula is to be found. Lopparelli focuses on the sincerity of the people, and their traditional lifestyle. TELLING TIME seeks to capture the quiet ebb and flow of rural life, thrown back into a bygone time.

  

• TELLING TIME (Romania, 2004-2008)

  

• TELLING TIME (Romania, 2004-2008)

  

• TELLING TIME (Romania, 2004-2008)

  

• TELLING TIME (Romania, 2004-2008)

  

Denise Militzer

• WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYWAYS? (Brazil, 2008)

  There are few lands where the gap between rich and poor is as great as in Brazil. In part that is the result of a system of land ownership that dates back to colonial times. Half of the arable land is in the possession of only one percent of the population. In recent decades thousands of landless far-mers and activists have taken the law into their own hand by seizing untilled land, in the hope that they can claim it as theirs by bringing it under cultivation. They believe the Brazilian Constitution supports them in this, because it states that undeveloped land must be productive. Denise Militzer travelled to a temporary encampment of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), a pressure group which, like the larger Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, was formed in 1983. CUT organises resistance by landless peasants and migrant workers from the big cities, but faces opposition from rich landowners. Already 1500 landless poor have died in these confrontations. Militzer pictures the living conditions in the camp, in that way demanding attention for the struggle of the landless.

  

• WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYWAYS? (Brazil, 2008)

  

• WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYWAYS? (Brazil, 2008)

  

• WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYWAYS? (Brazil, 2008)

  

• WHOSE LAND IS THIS ANYWAYS? (Brazil, 2008)

  

Mashid Mohadjerin

• LEFT BEHIND (Tadzhikistan, 2007)

  Under the Soviet Union the autonomous soviet republic of Tadzhikistan was the leading producer of cotton. The privatisation and economic liberalisation that were introduced after independence were disastrous for individual farmers, who saw their incomes collapse. It was the starting signal for an exodus of trained agricultural personnel, who chiefly went to Kazakhstan and Russia to earn money to send home. The 800 million dollars that is sent home annually is desperately needed by the poorest land in Central Asia. But there is a down side, especially for the women who remain behind, caring for the children and the elderly and running the households – and who are respon-sible for the harvest. Mashid Mohadjerin portrays the women, children and elderly of Tadzhikistan. These are images of a life that is dominated by hard work – and waiting.

  

• LEFT BEHIND (Tadzhikistan, 2007)

  

• LEFT BEHIND (Tadzhikistan, 2007)

  

• LEFT BEHIND (Tadzhikistan, 2007)

  

• LEFT BEHIND (Tadzhikistan, 2007)

  

Osamu James Nakagawa

• BANTA – STAINED MEMORY (Japan, 2008)

  Banta is the term for the impressive cliffs on the Japanese island of Okinawa. For years Osamu James Nakagawa carried with him the memories of the first time that he stood atop them. Their ter-rifying height and infinite history seem to take on still more power against the canvas of sky and sea. In 2008 Nakagawa returned to Okinawa to descend the cliffs and experience them from a dif-ferent perspective. The shadows that played over the cliffs, the white craters in the limestone and the inky black caves were ‘stark reminders of all that these cliffs had witnessed’. Ultimately he re-turned home with thousands of images. ‘As I re-shaped and re-experienced the original digital im-ages,’ says Nakagawa, ‘these cliffs became a metaphor for Okinawa’s history as well as digitally-manipulated, hyper-real visions of my experience standing between fear and beauty on Okinawa’s banta.’

  

• BANTA – STAINED MEMORY (Japan, 2008)

  

• BANTA – STAINED MEMORY (Japan, 2008)

  

Jackie Nickerson

• FARM (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, 1998-1999)

  A proud woman in a field, her hand on her hip. Chipo is a farmer from Zimbabwe, a country plagued by political disorder. But Chipo’s gaze tells a different story. The story of rural areas where people work, who feel themselves inseparably bound with the land and feel buoyed up by the com-munity of which they are a part. Jackie Nickerson's portraits combine simplicity with dignity and form a counterweight to the stereotyped picture of Africans as victims. These Africans live in des-perate circumstances , but their body language proclaims their strength, and their eyes their hope.

  

• FARM (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, 1998-1999)

  

• FARM (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, 1998-1999)

  

• FARM (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, 1998-1999)

  

Sirpa Päivinen

• SOLD OUT (Finland, 2005-2009)

  Rural flight, and the accompanying decay of services, is a relative problem in many Western Euro-pean countries. People can often go to larger, nearby residential centres for the supplies and services the need. In Scandinavia a decline in the population often is a much more direct threat to the livea-bility of a community. The distances are greater and the population density is lower. Over a period of years Sirpa Päivinen travelled through her own Finland photographing village stores, cafés and petrol stations that were literally being sold out. They were disappearing not only because of the decreasing number of local residents, and thus of potential clients, but also because of competition from mega-supermarkets in larger population centres. Her portrait gallery of desolate buildings is a requiem for the Finish countryside.

  

• SOLD OUT (Finland, 2005-2009)

  

• SOLD OUT (Finland, 2005-2009)

  

• SOLD OUT (Finland, 2005-2009)

  

• SOLD OUT (Finland, 2005-2009)

  

Judith Quax

• NDEUPE (Senegal, 2009)

  In the twenty years that African boat refugees have been trying to reach Europe, 13,000 drowned, and at least another 5000 went missing. Among them were many fishermen from Senegal. Their livelihood under pressure from competition from large Western fishing boats, they tried to make the passage to Europe. The drowned fishermen continue to be present in the void that they leave behind – in their empty rooms, in the hearts of their grieving families. As a part of her long-term project IMMIGRATION CLANDESTINE Judith Quax photographed the ndeupe, an animistic ritual of the Lebou tribe in Senegal. In it women dance around the forsaken wife to the pounding beat of drums in order to make contact with the spirit world. The venerable spirits are seen as bringers of luck and guardians against misfortune. For those left behind in the fishing villages near Dakar this is the only form of therapy that is available.

  

• NDEUPE (Senegal, 2009)

  

• NDEUPE (Senegal, 2009)

  

• NDEUPE (Senegal, 2009)

  

• NDEUPE (Senegal, 2009)

  

Rocco Rorandelli

• TOBACCO FARMING IN INDIA AND CHINA (India, China, 2009-2010)

  Things are going well for the tobacco industry in the two leading producers, China and India. Des-pite the crisis the profits and share prices are rising for firms like Philip Morris and British Ameri-can Tobacco. In China tobacco is the primary force driving economic growth in Yunnan province. The rural areas where 87 % of the population live however see few benefits from this. At the most, a tobacco farmer in Yunnan earns about a quarter of what a regular farmer does. Yet thousands of hectares of agricultural land, where vegetables were once grown, are devoted to tobacco production. The same is true for India, where 850,000 often underpaid workers labour in 100,000 hectares of tobacco fields. It is evidence of the power of an industry that is responsible for child labour, pollu-tion and exploitation.

  

• TOBACCO FARMING IN INDIA AND CHINA (India, China, 2009-2010)

  

• TOBACCO FARMING IN INDIA AND CHINA (India, China, 2009-2010)

  

• TOBACCO FARMING IN INDIA AND CHINA (India, China, 2009-2010)

  

• TOBACCO FARMING IN INDIA AND CHINA (India, China, 2009-2010)

  

Bernice Siewe

• DE WEG (THE ROAD) (Morocco, 2010)

  The Moroccan government is busy building a through highway along the country's whole Mediter-ranean coast. The goal is that one can drive from Tangier in the west to Saïdia in the east in seven hours. Opening up this traditionally underdeveloped area is being accomplished in part by widening existing roads and partially by constructing new roads. A tourist centre has risen near Saïdia, with a harbour, a kasbah and new apartments and houses. Golf courses and a park are also being built. But what does this mean for the lives of the people who live in this region? Opening up this rural area opens the door to progress and modernity. But how much will be lost?

  

• DE WEG (THE ROAD) (Morocco, 2010)

  

• DE WEG (THE ROAD) (Morocco, 2010)

  

• DE WEG (THE ROAD) (Morocco, 2010)

  

• DE WEG (THE ROAD) (Morocco, 2010)

  

Corinne Silva

• BADLANDS (Spain, 2009)

  For centuries after the departure of the Moors, the Spanish province of Almería was a backward area. During recent decades however the development of Almería has rapidly picked up speed. Glistening seas of plastic betray the presence of market gardening, expensive hotel complexes are rising, and in the rough, desert-like landscape you find the smoothly trimmed green of the golf course. But there is not just progress. Hidden in the wilderness, migrant labourers live in primitive shelters made of plastic and tied together with bits of string. Corinne Silva sees Almería as a micro-cosm – the globalising world economy in miniature. This microcosm lies on what is called the ‘po-litical equator’, where the economic might and political indifference of the North meets the poverty and exploitation of the South. The actors in this post-industrial world – North African migrants, golf tourists, pensionados – live strictly segregated lives, but Silva mercilessly exposes the friction be-tween the flamboyant artificiality and the hidden underlying economic reality.

  

• BADLANDS (Spain, 2009)

  

• BADLANDS (Spain, 2009)

  

• BADLANDS (Spain, 2009)

  

Larisa Sitar

• HOME PALACE (Romania, 2008-ongoing)

  Since the fall of communism Romania has been the source for massive labour emigration. This has been coupled with the rise of a curious phenomenon: the villa as the incarnation of the absent worker. Absurdly large houses, hardly ever used because the owner works full-time in a foreign country, are rising across rural Romania. The elderly, who populate these rural areas together with the children who have been left behind, choose to remain in their old homes. The result: ghost towns of new dwellings. The young Romanian photographer Larisa Sitar recorded these houses in their desolate sadness. Strangely enough, in their miserable circumstances in the West their owners find comfort in being able to afford such a glorified vacation home and the auto that goes with it, she says. These houses function as status symbols and have to compensate for the constant absence of their owners. They serve as guardians for the migrant's social status in the land he left behind.

  

• HOME PALACE (Romania, 2008-ongoing)

  

• HOME PALACE (Romania, 2008-ongoing)

  

• HOME PALACE (Romania, 2008-ongoing)

  

• HOME PALACE (Romania, 2008-ongoing)

  

Evzen Sobek

• LIFE IN BLUE (Czech Republic, 2006-2009)

  All across the world people are moving from rural areas to cities – but many city-dwellers continue to yearn for the countryside. In the south of the Czech Republic, you can find some of them on the banks of a large reservoir. They have built extravagantly designed second homes there, and plunge into the magic of the region. In LIFE IN BLUE Evzen Sobek asks how this vacation community is structured and functions – but also, what motivates people to become so absorbed in a strange sort of void for a longer or shorter time. Is it the meditative quality of the countryside? The ease with which they can make informal contacts, far from their hectic urban existence? Or is it an urge to be part of a compact community, something that is impossible in the city? Sobek's almost unearthly images give no answers, but they leave the questions smouldering in your mind for a long time.

  

• LIFE IN BLUE (Czech Republic, 2006-2009)

  

• LIFE IN BLUE (Czech Republic, 2006-2009)

  

• LIFE IN BLUE (Czech Republic, 2006-2009)

  

• LIFE IN BLUE (Czech Republic, 2006-2009)

  

Ian Teh

• TRACES (China, 2010)

  In a country that is undergoing as furious a development as China is, the landscape itself is an ex-pression of that change. Great swathes of land that have been used for agriculture for millennia have fallen prey to industrial forces. In seemingly extraterrestrial, almost abstract panoramas Ian Teh's TRACES lets us see how the Chinese landscape is being recreated. These are images without the presence of man – at first sight epic, cinematographic and breathtaking – but at the same time they reveal what awesome power man has to reduce the landscape to a slave of his undertakings. The layers of recent history are exposed, as in an archaeological dig. In this way Teh puts his audience in an ambiguous position. Will they be seduced by the beauty of the image, or will the real signifi-cance push its way through?

  

• TRACES (China, 2010)

  

• TRACES (China, 2010)

  

• TRACES (China, 2010)

  

Jeroen Toirkens

• NOMADSLIFE (1999-ongoing)

  In NOMADSLIFE Jeroen Toirkens, photographer and chairman of the foundation with the same name, follows the life of various nomadic peoples in Central Asia, Russia, Mongolia and the Arctic region. Here they live under often extreme conditions, in symbiosis with nature and climate. Toirk-ens shows how after the fall of communism many nomads have reverted again to their old traditions and the open plains. Moreover, ever more indigenous communities are organising themselves in the field of politics and culture. Toirkens however also shows the down-side of the nomad's life. Cor-ruption, problems with land rights and widespread alcoholism have their repercussions on indigen-ous peoples. And, as a result of globalisation, drought, poverty and climate change, it is increas-ingly difficult to maintain their original way of life.

  

• NOMADSLIFE (1999-ongoing)

  

• NOMADSLIFE (1999-ongoing)

  

• NOMADSLIFE (1999-ongoing)

  

• NOMADSLIFE (1999-ongoing)

  

Tomasz Tomaszewski

• A STONE’S THROW (Poland, 2009)

  The history of rural Poland is scarred by the formation of the communist collective farms. After a process of expropriation and expulsion, they were established on the land of old estates. Although totally unproductive, for just under a half century the state farms were the advertisement for the socialist victory over the bourgeoisie. But as symbols of the hated system, they disappeared after the revolution of 1989, after which their residents were again struck by tragedy. Some saw their chance to better their lives, but many missed the boat. In A STONE’S THROW Tomasz Tomaszewski wishes to pay homage to the people of rural Poland. In contrast to official statements, he says, they are marginalised and abandoned, a blind spot in collective memory. His photographs are characterised by anger about the destruction of a heritage and by compassion for those who try to make the best of things. In this way he seeks to decrease our distance to a world we normally ride past, pedal to the metal.

  

• A STONE’S THROW (Poland, 2009)

  

• A STONE’S THROW (Poland, 2009)

  

• A STONE’S THROW (Poland, 2009)

  

• A STONE’S THROW (Poland, 2009)

  

Munem Wasif

• BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE / STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG (Bangladesh, 2008)

  Bangladesh is a country with massive problems and challenges. Overpopulated and vulnerable to recurring floods, it lives on the front line of social-economic issues and climate change. Munem Wasif spotlights two aspects of modern Bangladesh in the series selected: BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE and STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG. The first looks at the loss of the jute industry, once the driving force in the economy. Jute factories have been closed, often under pressure from the government, with all the consequences that has for communities that were dependent on jute pro-duction. The second series deals with workers who extract stones from the bed of the Piyain river, where they have been carried down by the current. The stones are needed to supply the flourishing construction sector with materials. While the stones are used to build villas in Dhaka, the workers – among them many women and children – earn less than two dollars a day.

  

• BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE / STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG (Bangladesh, 2008)

  

• BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE / STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG (Bangladesh, 2008)

  

• BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE / STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG (Bangladesh, 2008)

  

• BLOOD SPLINTER OF JUTE / STONE WORKERS OF JAFLONG (Bangladesh, 2008)

  

Danny Wilcox Frazier

• DRIFTLESS (United States, 2003-2006)

  Sometimes it seems as if the heart has been torn out of America. Driven by economic hardships, the residents of Midwestern towns move away, toward the coasts, where there are more opportunities. The American state of Iowa is a textbook example: the landscape is filled with semi-ghost towns. In dramatic black and white, Danny Wilcox Frazier has recorded those who have stayed behind – farmers and hunters, the Amish, veterans during Memorial Day observances, and the youth trying to dispel their boredom. His darkly poetic images reveal a world that is disappearing, one that is sym-bolic of every community that feels the weight of the bankruptcy of its farms and the closure of its factories. In this way he lays bare the economic and social reality of rural America.
  
  A young girl dreams of becoming a summer festival queen like her older sister. Conesville, Iowa.

  

• DRIFTLESS (United States, 2003-2006)

  Grain elevator. Frytown, Iowa.

  

• DRIFTLESS (United States, 2003-2006)

  Party at a farmhouse. Johnson County.

  

• DRIFTLESS (United States, 2003-2006)

  Amish girls laugh while playing a religious card game during harvest on the Miller family farm outside of Kalona, Iowa.

  

• DRIFTLESS (United States, 2003-2006)

  Shooting at bottles along the Iowa River, Johnson County.

  

Inamiya Yasuto

• HIGHWAY LANDSCAPES OF JAPAN (Japan, 2007-2008)

  In Japan highways are not only economic, but also political instruments. After the Second World War, when the roads in Japan were still largely unpaved, a high-quality road network was created, which also functioned as a motor for the country's explosive economic growth in the 1970s and '80s. Today there are 9000 kilometres of expressways in Japan – and not only between and around the fast-growing cities. The countryside has suffered from a shrinking population, the remaining inhabitants hope that the construction of roads will attract business to their area. Moreover, the rural population is also dependent on the construction of public works for their employment opportuni-ties. On the other hand, many roads and bridges are unnecessary. They never accomplished their intended purpose, cause pollution and annoyance, and contribute to the destruction of the Japanese landscape. The government has spent itself into debt with these projects – an untenable situation. In grim black and white Inamiya Yasuto shows us the modern, asphalted landscape. He sees it as a warning for other 'tiger' economies that are applying a Japanese model for their economic develop-ment.

  

• HIGHWAY LANDSCAPES OF JAPAN (Japan, 2007-2008)

  

• HIGHWAY LANDSCAPES OF JAPAN (Japan, 2007-2008)

  

• HIGHWAY LANDSCAPES OF JAPAN (Japan, 2007-2008)

  

• HIGHWAY LANDSCAPES OF JAPAN (Japan, 2007-2008)

  

Antonio Zambardino

• TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

  The changing climate threatens not only the residents of various islands in the Pacific Ocean, it even threatens the physical existence of the islands themselves. Vanuatu, officially the happiest country on earth, already sees its exposed coral reefs submerged at spring tides, and ultimately fears that it will go under itself. The same is true for the Polynesian island group of Tonga. Although sci-entists disagree about the seriousness of the rise in sea level, hard data demonstrates that the sea level around Tonga has risen by ten centimetres over the last decade. Antonio Zambardino used two methods to make this hard-to-see process visible photographically. He has residents of Tonga pose in the water, as if the worst-case scenario had already taken place. In addition, he recorded the hur-ricane damage and erosion along Tonga’s coastline – because rising temperatures not only lead to a higher sea level, but also to more destructive hurricanes.

  

• TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

  

• TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

  

• TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

  

• TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

  

Rodrigo Zeferino

• OUTSKIRTS OF STEEL (Brazil, 2008-ongoing)

  Since the 1960s the Vale do Aço, a region in the heart of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, has been the epicentre of its steel industry. The 750,000 residents of the largest cities in the valley live among dozens of larger and smaller steel factories that are responsible for creating serious pollu-tion. However, over the past two years the industrialisation is also spreading beyond the boundaries of the urban area. Galvanised iron sheds are springing up like mushrooms across the countryside. They threaten fragile communities that live from sand extraction and agriculture. As photographer Rodrigo Zeferino says: ‘Inhabitants of the countryside sleep with the din of metal in their ears.’ Many feel they are being driven out and in the future they will probably be swallowed up into cul-turally homogeneous urban life. OUTSKIRTS OF STEEL is documenting a rural culture that is under fire, before it disappears for good.

  

• OUTSKIRTS OF STEEL (Brazil, 2008-ongoing)

  

• OUTSKIRTS OF STEEL (Brazil, 2008-ongoing)

  

• OUTSKIRTS OF STEEL (Brazil, 2008-ongoing)