The Politics of Representation

Today I saw this story in The New York Times - portraits of the people who have gotten caught up, directly or indirectly, in drug-related violence in Mexico. The question: "But for Mexico, a complicated democracy* that has historically chosen stability over reform, are talking and sharing enough?" The answer? No. The article points out the need for political remedies. Just so.
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* nice euphemism.

Front Stoop Politics in Brooklyn

I have posted here a number of times about the anonymous artist JR and his work. In The New York Times today there is a story about a current project of his in Park Slope, Brooklyn celebrating local shop keepers in the face of what passes for economic development.* I am not so convinced that the imagery transcends class - it seems that the pressures on the shopkeepers reflect deep class divisions, with the less well off pressured by larger economic forces working to the benefit of the better off. And I am not sure that the project will mitigate the displacement caused by the development project in the neighborhood.

But I am impressed by the way the project brings voices and faces into public, indeed by the way that seemingly private concerns are re-framed as a public matter. And in that sense, while the project is not in itself directly political, it may afford some basis on which people in this neighborhood might, in the words of C. Wright Mills, more successfully translate their "personal troubles" into "public issues."** In fact, as the report in The Times makes clear, the images and the people installing them seem to have actually established public space, however fleeting, in which people can interact in new ways. And that is political to the core.
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* The actual execution here seems to be by Inside Out. The images here are lifted from this post by Emily Nonko.
** In that sense the images here bring to mind those that I note in this post.

"So, A Priest, a Rabbi and an Imam Run Into One Another on the Street, and the Priest Says to the ..."

From the 28 Millimètres project. Photographs © JR.

I have on several occasions commented on the work of a young, 'anonymous' French photographer who goes by the initials JR. This morning The Guardian has this short story on he and his work. I have to say that the work is growing on me.

Memory, Homage, and ... Corruption: Politics and Photography in Public

Election posters in Tripoli, Lebanon. Spending limits are imposed
for the June elections, but only during the last two months.
Photography Credit: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.

I was struck by this photograph. It accompanied this story about the buying of an election in The New York Times today. It brought to mind work by french photographer "JR" that I posted about not long ago - here and here. Similar approach, different aims.

On the Ethics of Representation III: "Women Are Heroes"

Yes, indeed, they are. And the large concept here is an interesting one. This is a follow up on the immediately prior post. With suggestions from a couple very helpful comments I discovered that the photo from The Guardian is showing part of a project by a young French photographer JR (he uses this pseudonym because his projects are sometimes "unauthorized") which he calls Women Are Heroes, at least part of which is being carried out in conjunction with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. See this story and interview at lensculture.

I am interested in ways of photographers use their images, in particular the ways they display and circulate them (e.g., [0], [1], [2], [3]). And this project resonates in an interesting way with Alfredo Jaar's The Eyes of Gutete Emerita which was one component of his Rwanda Projects through which he sought to convey the trauma of the genocide and express solidarity with its victims.

I have discussed Jaar's work elsewhere numerous times ~ [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] ~ and will not do so again here. But he relies on this image and displays or withholds it in a variety of mostly personal, indeed intimate ways none of which have the communal aspect toward which JR apparently is striving. I return to that in a moment. First consider JR's focus on the eyes of his subjects.

The first of these three images (all from JR's website and © the artist) depicts part of the project in Providencia (Rio de Janeiro) that sparked my curiosity on the first place. The next two are from earlier installations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, respectively. Each pair of eyes is a detail from the portrait of a particular woman. I think this (apparently increasing, if you watch the video trailer on the Women are Heroes web site) preoccupation is quite powerful. And the scale at which he is working amplifies the impact considerably. Whereas Jaar often worked in miniature (piles of individual slides) or brief flashes (in light boxes), JR is working in what is a characteristically expansive mode.

In the African countries JR has been working with women in "post conflict" contexts, in Brazil he is working with women who've lost loved ones in the drug wars. His stated aim is to provoke questions and to prompt viewers to interpret the images for themselves. The obvious question here is ~ to what end? (For example, Amos Oz thinks that Israelis and Palestinians "understand" one another just fine and simply need to work out an agreement in what is essentially a real estate dispute.*) Questions arise, too, about his relationship to his subjects. For instance, in "post conflict" situations where societies remain unsettled, are his subjects placing themselves at risk by participating? And questions arise too about the extent to which communities are involved in the implementation of the projects. Are these installations planned and underwritten by local organizations and artists or by NGOs? (The anonymous commenter on my last post prompted these questions. in light of JR's professed aim to take his Women are Heroes project on to several sites in South and Southeast Asia. )

I do not know enough about JR or his projects to offer answers to those questions. So, for now at least, it seems like time to suspend judgment.
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*For a look at one of JR's earlier projects in Israel/Palestine see FACE 2 FACE.

Making a Point

From "24 Hours in Pictures" today at The Guardian:

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: The facades of houses in Providencia.
The pictures show inhabitants who have lost relatives in the
drug trafficking conflict. Photograph © Antonio Lacerda/EPA.

So, someone ~ there is no story accompanying the photo as far as I can tell ~ is trying to make the favela and what happens to people there less anonymous, less invisible. I'd appreciate any information or context readers might supply about this.

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Update: Much thanks to Eric Etheridge (see comments) for providing this link to a story on this project and an interview with its creator over at lensculture.

Thanks too, to an anonymous commenter (see thread) for even more links and information.