The Municipality - Tom Muddimer

 

The Municipality is an exploration of the political aesthetics of Addis Ababa’s late-imperial, socialist and post-socialist architecture and public space. It is a series that explores the changes and continuities in Addis Ababa’s architectural and social history, past and present.

http://cargocollective.com/tommuddimer/

(Post-)Modernity in Morocco

Pieter Hugo - 'Gadawan Kura' - The Hyena Men

The idea for this series of images stems from a photograph taken with a mobile phone through the window of a moving car in Lagos, Nigeria. The image was then texted to Pieter Hugo by his friend. Only a few days later the same image appeared in a South African newspaper, where the hyena handlers were purported to banks robbers, drug dealers, debt collectors and body guards. The photo taken from the moving car was of a group who have come to be known as 'Gadawan Kura', or hyena handlers. They are in fact urban 'circus' performers who put on animal handling shows in city centres to earn a living. They are an economically marginalised group who live on the outskirts of Lagos in shanty towns. The 'Gadawan Kura' are all related to each other and it is a tradition that has been passed down through many generations. It is a practice that once took place in rural areas, but with the contemporary pressures for urban migration, now finds itself transposed in city centres. The practice may seem very out of place in the urban sprawl of Lagos, set amongst pot-holed roads and choking autocycles; the absence of rural mud huts may shock some Europeans. However, the purpose of the series is not to produce romantic images of the 'tradition' and 'culture' of 'Africa', but rather to highlight the coexistence of traditional practices in the 'modernity' of urban Lagos. The growth of cities has not led to the demise of tradition, but instead both tradition and modernity exist side by side in a strange amalgam. The idea of this is displayed in Hugo's imagery.

As Hugo notes himself, the Gadawan Kura display a strange imagery which has both 'urban and wild elements'. What the images highlight is the new trend of 'rurbanisation ', where migrants continue their rural practices in modern cities and towns. Rural migrants upon reaching cities will often find themselves in a situation of economic marginalisation. Since urban migration has not been met by a large enough rise in employment opportunities, many have to earn a living through practices like those of the 'Gadawan Kura'.

The aim of Hugo was not to highlight the persistence and shackles of 'primitive' traditions, but rather to provide a commentary on the broader economic situation where hyena handling is the only viable economic opportunity for survival. Many may question or dislike the treatment of the animals in the images. However, the need to capture the animals rather poses the question of why the men are forced to catch the animals in the first place. It is a series which rather looks at economic marginalisation and poverty.

As Hugo poses, why is Nigeria so economically marginalised and why is the world's sixth largest exporter of oil in such a state of disarray?

Channel 4 Unreported World documentary, Nigeria's Killing Fields

Carl de Keyzer - Moments Before the Flood

Editorial to follow...

North Korea - Martin Parr

© Martin Parr

Martin Parr is perhaps Britain's most notable member of Magnum Photos. His highly saturated photographs of Middle England, mock-Tudor houses, twee living rooms and his latest series on the noveau-riche found in Dubai provide a visual satire for some of the stranger and more overt facets of contemporary society. However, in the late '90s he did a little known project in the closed state of North Korea. Only 1, 500 Western tourists per year are granted access to the state that houses the last Stalinist regime in the world.

What I find especially interesting about this series is the power of the North Korean state. All photographs taken by tourists must be vetted by state officials to assure they portray the state in a positive light. The government, led by Kim Jong-il is keen to promulgate a textbook socialist image. However, the imagery is rather more reminiscent of bygone communist states and the 1930s USSR. Below you can see a screenshot that I found from the state broadcaster's news programme, complete with galliant horse nestled amongst tended trees:

The images, have been selectly authorised by state authorities to depict a 'harmonious' and 'utopian' socialist state. The state apparrently even run model farms from which they can create propaganda, scenes of prosperity and romanticsied images of yeoman farmers. The power of the state has muted the candescent images of Martin Parr. This is what I find most intriguing about the series - the lengths the state has gone to to promulgate images of prosperity, peace and happiness in a vain attempt to legitimise their grasp of power.

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There have emerged many stories recently of North Korean defectors - citizens who have fled the the state to neighbouring China. Many defectors have used their new found freedom to promote a revolution from the outside. In London, a former North Korean military officer who was patrolling the northern border when he made his break, has formed an opposition group to the tyrannical regime. They hope to produce radio, television and DVDs in attempt to wobble the foundations of the governments power-base. Another, defector fled to the South Korean capital Seoul where he also started a radio-station which airs to Pyongyang. Interviews are carried out in secret, smuggled across the border and then reaired back to North Korea. Recently the International Herald Tribune's ran a piece on several men running a radio station in Mongolia, travelling weekly to the North Korean border to release balloons holding leaflets. Once these reach 2, 500 metres the balloons release their payload of ''freedom doves' - leaflets that describe leader Kim Jong Il as a greedy, womanizing despot with a protruding belly'.

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In the 1990s, an agrarian crisis and its ensuant famine is estimated to have killed up to a million North Koreans (10% of the state's population). Anectdotal reports note that life for many is returning to these dark days where families scavenge for wild roots and plants to supplement weak diets.

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In recent times there has been much civil unrest. Successive currency devaluations have destroyed the lifetime savings of many. People have started begging on the streets. There have been reports of the first signs of widespread disillusionment with the government. People are becoming acutely aware of the wealth of the state's inadequacies and contrast between the ideals of textbook socialism, and the realities of life on the ground. South Korean 'soap operas' have appeared on televisions; people have become aware of their desperate poverty compared to the South. These are all facts that we remain blissfully unaware of through Parr's series. Ultimately the images display the sheer power of the state to create an image that is amiable to their ideals.

Jo'burg - Guy Tillim

© Guy Tillim

Louis Theroux Law and Disorder in Johannesburg Part 1 of 6
Uploaded by Nofear442. - News videos from around the world.

The World Cup is set to grace South Africa in less than a month's time. The Southern African nation has invested an estimated US$2 billion to hold the privilege. The government argue that the investment has already benefited the nation through the creation of jobs, the improvement of infrastructure and the enhanced image of a country associated with violence, crime, drug cartels and corruption. Like the Senegalese statue in the north of the continent, the World Cup superstructures in the far south were constructed with images of African progress, development and modernity in mind.

However, it is yet to be seen how much benefit World Cup revenues will bring to the average citizen of South Africa. To start, ticket sales have been poor with bookings running at only half the anticipated level. Like Senegal’s $27 million statue, few of the incurred costs were seen to benefit local inhabitants. South Africa too, is yet to see much by way of ‘trickle-down’ benefit to the poor. Many of the stadium sites have involved the forcible eviction of persons unfortunate enough to reside on a construction blueprint. For example, in Cape Town, entire communities have been resettled to Blikkiesdorp, a ‘temporary resettlement camp’ which now houses some 15, 000 people and has been likened by residents to concentration camps with concrete walls, numbered sheds and little greenery.

This bears striking similarity to what is seen in Guy Tillim’s Jo’Burg, where the state has begun to close some of the city’s housing blocs in dire need of repair and with unpaid utility bills. With the end of apartheid and the removal of the Group Areas Act in the mid-1990s, white residents fled the city centre, leaving their flats to be managed by letting agents. In the hope of better lives and business opportunities, black residents and owners of small businesses arrived. However, in most cases ‘agents were corrupt, did not pay the utilities, and disappeared with the money’ (Guy Tillim). This set in motion the decay of the housing blocs where, in the face of poverty, communal responsibilities were not enacted - windows were left broken and lift shafts became rubbish bins. The buildings started to resemble fire hazards and were ugly blots on capital of the rainbow nation’s urban development schemes. The state began to employ mercenary police forces (as seen in Louis Theroux’s documentary below) to evict illegally occupied flats where residents often paid rent to agents not in ownership of the property and utility bills remained unpaid.

2008 saw a murderous revolt by some of these homeless evictees when a wave of violence was unleashed on immigrants from neighbouring African states (often a result of political oppression, war and famine) who became the scapegoats for lack of housing and unemployment. Immigrants were reported having tyres straddled around their chests and burned.

The propitious end of apartheid promised greater equality, increased living standards and equitable development. However, this manifested into little more than formal political opportunity and equality of voting power during elections. The ANC, lead by Nelson Mandela, came under pressure to prove it could ‘govern with sound macroeconomic policies’ (Naomi Klein). It became clear ‘that if Mandela attempted genuine redistribution of wealth, the international markets would retaliate’ (.ibid). Instead of growth and development through increased redistribution and equality of economic opportunity, South Africa was hit by a wave of ‘mass privatizations, lay-offs and wage cuts in the public sector [and] corporate tax cuts' (.ibid).

The result of the wave of financial liberalisation was disastrous: half million jobs have been lost since 1993; wages for the poorest 40% have dropped by 21%; poor areas have seen their utility costs rocket (water cost has increased 55% and electricity 400%). South Africa has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world, where 60% of the population earn less than US$7,000 and the top 2.2% earn in excess of US$50,000 (UNDP). Household surveys reveal 1.5 million houses to have been built between 1994 and 2003. However, despite an absolute increase in housing, about 4.1 million households are living in informal, traditional or backyard dwellings. The housing backlog has also increased from about 178,000 to 208,000 per annum. As award winning South African playwright, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom notes, ‘what use is freedom when you don’t have the means to live freely?’.

While racial apartheid ended in 1994, a new generation of economic apartheid has begun. The needs of the state have become mired by the aspirations of modernity, development and growth with few ‘trickle-down’ benefits. The outcome of South Africa's development path will decide ‘whether or not Johannesburg becomes, again, a city of exclusion’ (Guy Tillim). Just as democracy was purported to have the ability to fix apartheid South Africa; the World Cup is unlikely to improve the economic situation and dire poverty of South Africa’s poorest.

Guy Tillim won the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2005 for the "Jo'burg" series.