The Town Hall

© Fabio Scapaticci

Matt Black: A Commitment to Truth

Freelance photographer Matt Black is a native of rural California, and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, a rich agricultural region that, ironically, is also home to a number of impoverished ethnic communities, among them immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as a dwindling population of black sharecroppers that migrated to California during the Dust Bowl era. Since 1998 he has been documenting such communities through the interrelated thematic prisms of migration, agriculture and rural poverty. Inspired by the socially committed photographers of the 1930s, Black specializes in the extended photo essay, spending months, sometimes years photographing a particular place or community. His powerful, dreamlike and unflinching images serve to raise awareness of overlooked and marginalized populations for whom the American Dream is on permanent deferral.
 
An interview with Matt Black on Photographers Speak blog
Visit Matt Black web site

Lured into a trap - by Katsuo Takahashi

Last year Chinese police freed 268 Burmese women who had been trafficked and forced into marriages with Chinese men. Human rights activists believe that this represents only a small fraction of the growing number of Burmese forced to marry Chinese husbands.
The causes of this disturbing trend lie both in China and Myanmar (also known as Burma). Seeking to escape Myanmar’s military regime and the horribly mismanaged economy, young women are often lured by recruiters who speak of well paid employment. Many of the victims are from rural areas near China’s Yunnan province and belong to Myanmar’s persecuted ethnic minorities.
Beijing's "one-child policy," combined with the long-held national preference for male heirs, has resulted in a grossly lopsided male to female ratio; 120:100 in 2005. The massive shortage of potential brides drives many lonely Chinese men to resort to buying a foreign spouse.
Those women who are lucky enough to have escaped often tell a remarkably similar story. Usually they are recruited in their rural village and brought to the bustling towns on the Chinese side of the border. At this point they are handed over to another trafficker who will take them as far away as Beijing for their "job interview." The price of a bride depends on her age and beauty, but a Chinese buyer will typically pay between 40,000 to 50,000 yuan (roughly $6,000-$7,500). Once married, escape is difficult, as the new bride is forced to do housework or farm for long hours. Her husband or his family members watch her at all times. Those who have escaped tell stories of rape, physical abuse and dire loneliness.

Photo and text by Katsuo Takahashi

The bitterest pill

800 women and girls live and work inside the fortress-like brothel in Faridpur, central Bangladesh. Many of them are underage, and most receive no pay because they are chhukri - bonded workers. That girls as young as 12 should be condemned to a life of sex slavery is bad enough, but they also face a new horror, one that could snuff out any chance of a future they might have had.

The horror is a steroid called Oradexon, a drug identical to one used to fatten cattle for market. The girls are given Oradexon by their madams in order to make them look older and more attractive to prospective clients. One of its side effects is water retention, oedema, which can result in a 'plump' look that is considered attractive by some Bangladeshi men.

Images by GMB Akash on Panos Pictures

Dita Pepe - selfportraits

Czech photographer Dita Pepe uses self-portrait photography to explore ideas of how personal identity can seem to change dramatically in relationship to the other people in our lives, and the surrounding circumstances.

In this series, she stages "what-if" scenarios, where she portrays herself in various guises while posing as a wife or partner of men from many different walks of life. Each photograph is made in each man's typical real-life surroundings, and often with his children (sometimes including her own real-life daughter in the mix).

Dita Pepe on Lens culture

Being a reporter

Photo by Alessandro Vincenzi

Currently Italy doesn't have a market nor a cultural milieu dedicated to the art of reportage. Beyond selected awards, some of them more prestigious than others, still reportage suffer of the old stigma of been the-outsider-of-the-art-world. But in a society in which the information provided by the media passes more and more through images, it is important to re-define the role of photography. A role suspended between reproduction and representation of reality, which reinforce a single concept: photojournalism is undoubtedly art. The strength of this artÊis in the essentiality of an image worth a thousand words. The value of the work is given by the photographer's ability to narrate directly through the eye, reaching into the viewer's heart. It is an art made of long waits and silences, anticipating the moment were even the most obvious subject becomes an icon of a sublime experience. Here is the click, here is human touch, here is the image, here is the work of art. In constant displacement, drifted between stories, sounds, people and cities, being a photo-reporter is not a job but a life choice.

exibitions at "Camera16", via Pisacane 16, Milano 22nd June - 15th September 2010