Notes: Mar de Plastico y Esperanzas (Sea of Plastic and Hope)
Sorry I have been relatively silent but I have been back in Almeria, Spain, for almost 4 weeks now continuing on the project about African immigrants working in the greenhouse industry. I wrote about this earlier in April here. I have one more week left before heading back to London and trying to sort through everything to prepare for an exhibition in December. Read on for a brief about the project…
Background
Almeria is a curious place for two key reasons: the ’sea of plastic’ greenhouses that covers the landscape, and a complex economic system that feeds off the dreams of immigrants that hope it will be a stepping stone to their futures.
A desert wasteland, Almeria province historically was one of the poorest and unproductive parts of Spain. But over the past 40 years it has developed a resource intensive greenhouse industry that provides Europe with almost one-third of its winter vegetables. From the mountains to the sea, the landscape is covered in a “sea of plastic” from the intense number of greenhouses; look at Google Maps for an idea of what this looks like.
Since the 1990s, the industry has been primarily supported through immigrant labour; primarily from Romania, Morocco and the west Africa region. It started with contracted migrant labourers, but over the years, as more and more “pateras” (boats that cross illegally from Morocco to Spain) began arriving with illegal immigrants from Africa, there has been a huge labour force available within Almeria. Spanish people have virtually given up working as labourers in the greenhouses in favour of better jobs. It is a difficult job requiring you to spend 9 hours on your feet, bending over constantly and often working in 30+ temperatures. The minimum wage is 44 EUR per day, although right now most get paid between 30 and 35 EUR (some as low as 20 EUR!), and the work is seasonal and unpredictable.
Aside from the landscape, it is also a space where dreams and reality collide. For African immigrants in Spain. Almeria is at once an opportunity, a refuge and a trap. It is an opportunity because Spain’s laws allow for an illegal immigrant to obtain residency papers after 3 years if they can manage to obtain a work contract, and, until the past 2 years, it has been easy to find work, with or without papers. It is a refuge as it is the only place in the country where the police don’t make it a habit to ask for papers and hand out deportations, the cost of living is low and it is easy to find a ‘brother’ who can help you. And it is a trap because until you get your papers, it is difficult to move anywhere else in Spain or go home.
And now this crisis. Spain hasn’t shown signs of recovering yet, and unemployment is almost at XX%. Immigrants who managed to get their papers and move on to better work in other parts of Spain have returned to the greenhouses after losing their jobs. With the surplus of experienced legal labour available, those without papers are finding it more difficult to find work. And its even harder for those that have spent the last 3 years waiting to be eligible for residency only to find themselves without possibilities of getting a work contract now.
Where Spain was once a land of opportunity, right now many feel that they are no better off here (in some cases, worse) than they were in Africa. There is no typical description of their lives; they are with and without papers, living from shacks to apartments, recently arrived to recently returned. Yet the key story they have in common is a desire to do something other than work in the greenhouses. Whether they have been here for 3 months or 13 years, they feel their situation is temporary, a step to bigger dreams.
Project
In April I came here for a few days with the intent of exploring the situation and getting a feel for the issues. This time I am here for almost 5 weeks with a clearer idea of the story I want to tell and more time to really talk to people and understand this strange place of transit.
There have been some really good recent photographic work done in the area that describes well the intensive greenhouse industry and the poor working conditions of migrant labourers. But what I really feel seems to be missing from all these visuals is a sense of people actually living here – not just as labourers but people with purpose and existence outside of the greenhouses.
So this project is a fluid attempt to describe the dynamics of ‘living’ in this temporary space. Mostly working in Roquetas de Mar, Las Norias and San Isidro, I am attempting to photograph life as it unfolds in the spaces I am invited to. At times there is a performance acted for the camera and for the foreigner that I am, but this becomes equally as important in showing the idiosyncracies in how they would like their lives to look.
A second part of the story involves personal narratives from those that are willing to share their story from me. Rather than use my own words to describe the complicated legal and emotional status people find themselves in, I hope that their stories will help to give a sense of why they came, why they stay, and where they want to go.
Product
I feel the best format for this project is a book. I have a mix of types of images – life, portraits and written stories. I am also working on a series of multiples – for example, of people on bikes – that I hope will serve to demonstrate some of the repetitiveness and monotony in life and landscape here much better than one picture could. I really do not want captions for the pictures as I want the stories to carry the context but it may be an option to put captions as reference on the last page.
At the end, I will include a written piece for those that are interested in understanding the issue of immigration and greenhouses in Spain.
For the exhibition, I will have to think about the best way to present it – either a careful selection of 8×10 images, or a series of multiples might work combined with blown-up quotes of people’s stories. The story really needs more than just a few photographs to be effective.
Future plans
It definitely is not a complete project yet, there is still much to learn and I would really like to be able to follow some of the people’s stories down the road and also see how things change once the economy in Spain starts to pick up again.
Once I have had time to debrief I will write some self-reflection. As usual, the experience was overwhelming and I learned a lot about myself, my approach and the photographic experience.
Notes on Fotopub (aka PubFoto) in Slovenia
Abbie Trayler Smith's work screening at Fotopub 2009
Paul tipped me off about the Fotopub Festival in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, at the beginning of August and I had the opportunity to spend the week there attending a workshop with Pep Bonet.
The festival was small but I thought it was such a great experience. Directed by Chris de Bode (Amsterdam), there was definitely a strong international component to the festival through exhibitions and workshop mentors (Pep Bonet, Abbie Trayler-Smith, Ahmet Polat, Steve Forrest), but for the most part the participants were mostly the friendliest Slovenian amateur and professional photographers, with the exception of the few of us foreigners from Canada, Italy and the Netherlands.
But the smallness of it is was made it so special. It was like being with a big family of photographers, everyone hanging together in the bar every night (Pep noted there was “more pub than photo”; alcohol was ridiculously cheap in Novo Mesto), the mentors were really approachable and willing to look through portfolios and give advice. And every evening there were engaging talks. The event finished with a screening of everyone’s workshop projects, and it was so exciting to see everyone’s hard work up there on the big screen.
The Urban Eye (Arnau Oriol Sanchez) screening at Fotopub
Some highlights:
* I hadn’t heard of Ahmet Polat, one of the mentors, but I loved his black & white work of Turkey and his approach to photography.
* World Press Photo exhibit featuring Majority World photographers – my favourites included Bevis Fusha’s work on the Albanian environment, Abdir Abdullah’s climate change work in Bangladesh, and Sudharak Olwe’s project on midwives in India.
* Thursday was a special outdoor screening of 16 selected audio slideshows. It was like watching a movie and a really nice way to show work. Included was a multimedia piece on London’s CCTV cameras by my friend, Arnau Oriol Sanchez, woohoo!
* Abbie Trayler-Smith, one of the mentors, won the Nikon Thursday Award for her moving portraits of asylum seekers in the UK. The major winning factor, according to the judges, was the intimacy and perseverance that was obvious in her work; she spent 8 months getting to know them and their stories.
Slovenian photographer and originator of Fotopub, Borut Peterlin, created some cool stop-motion videos of the festival…
- Sarajevo, Bosnia, 23 degrees, clear and bright evening sky, listening to the calls from the mosques in Sarajevo
Ok, time to write about it…
I have been finding it really difficult to blog the past few months. I feel like I have been constantly on the move (actually I have), and every time I sit down to write I either don’t finish the thought or let it wait until I can make a better edit of images or it accidently gets deleted (aaargh!).
But I think I need to start writing again. And write more often. I need to start reflecting more on what I am doing, why and how. Then look back and read it again, especially when I’m doubting myself or losing track of my where I am at and where I want to go.
So this is the start of a series of updates and images… Brief summary of what’s been happening since the beginning of July: Ljubljana with N. catching up on love, friends, work, taxes and essays; blissful holiday at an “unofficial” nude camp in Murter, Croatia; attending a workshop with Pep Bonet at the Fotopub Festival in Novo Mesto, Slovenia; trumpet festival in Guca, Serbia; and now in Sarajevo, Bosnia, working on a project on the culture of turbofolk, which will have to be put on hold for the moment as I have just decided to move on… the clouds are clearing.
- Sarajevo, Bosnia, 25 degrees, clear afternoon sky, listening to Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s “All the Places“
julianna in 10 minutes
She wasn’t posing, she is just a wealth of expression that girl.
- ljubljana, slovenia, 16 degrees, listening to Ustata’s “Male Male“
Picasso’s light drawing
There is this amazing set of images going around the photography blogosphere right now. They are of Picasso drawing light graffiti for LIFE photographer Gjon Mili. See them on the LIFE website:
LIFE photographer Gjon Mili visited Picasso in 1949. Mili showed the artist some of his photographs of ice skaters with tiny lights affixed to their skates jumping in the dark—and Picasso’s mind began to race. The series of photographs that follows—Picasso’s light drawings—were made with a small flashlight in a dark room; the images vanished almost as soon as they were created.
So this is what has been running through my mind all day and perhaps its a bit tedious but I have all these questions about it. Those are pieces of art, right? Sure, they are photographs of art, but the art actually only exists because the light needs the photographic image to give it any sense of shape and permanence. They are Pablo Picasso originals (and that is one Picasso I would love to have one on my wall).
So who owns this art, really? The photographer or the light artist? Ok, in this case it is the photographer. But, I don’t think a light graffiti artist today would agree (unless it was the photographer who directed the drawing). Or maybe they would? A collaboration seems like the right way to put it… Not sure why Ive been thinking about this but it seems like an interesting exploration of the subject/photographer link and ownership.
Here’s a beautiful contemporary light graffiti movie by LichtFaktor.
filomena
I met Filomena at the Freddie Mills Club in the Elephant & Castle area of London. A devout Irish Catholic, she was getting the hall set-up for the charity boxing fundraiser that night and made me a cup of tea while we were waiting for it to start. She told me a lot of stories in a short time, about wars, starting life in the uk, family, faith, tea… After an already long day of photographing rowdy pub boys, this was a pleasant little break.
She is really upset that the Southwark Council is going to tear down the little hall run by her church – it is the only community space they have.
Admittedly, the photo could have been composed a bit lower but I just love her expression so much I had to share it. I wish I could share the photo I mentally shot when I met her walking towards me holding a cross to her lips.
- london, uk, clear early evening sky, 19 degress, listening to Feist’s ‘I feel it all‘
reflecting and moving forward
Spitou Mendy taking a break from visiting migrant workers, part of his role as leader of the agricultural worker's union (SOC-SAT) in Almeria. (c) Marcia Chandra 2009
In April I was in Granada, Spain, trying to work on a documentary photography project with a female gypsy organization. After numerous frustrations and the realization that the project was going nowhere at that moment, I spontaneously went to Almeria near the end of my break. I had been reading many newspaper reports about immigration issues in the south of Spain and, in particular, its relation with greenhouse agriculture, and I was curious about it.
I happened to be put in touch with Spitou Mendy, a tireless union organizer who leads the SOC-SAT – an agriculture worker’s union in Almeria (in the municipalities of Almeria, El Ejido and San Isidro). Over the course of 3 days he was invaluable at helping me to understand the situation, introducing me to people, and allowing me to join him on his visits with migrant workers. I was also lucky to have met Tobias Zick, a journalist, and Marc Beckmann, a photographer, who were doing a story for Neon magazine in Germany (just published if you read German!) – I didn’t have a car and they needed translation, a perfect match. But more than that, it was a great experience to be able to work with a photographer and journalist in the field; I learned a lot from them and they were very supportive of the work I was doing. It was nice feedback to hear from them that my approach with people was very personal; even if my photography hasn’t come into its own yet, I am glad to know that I am approaching it the way I feel works best.
You can see some more images from almeria here and here. Today I got some feedback from my prof, John Easterby, on the edit of what I shot in April. Surprisingly, it was nothing surprising as he confirmed everything I felt about what I had done so far – it needs a lot more time, my style is still a little confused, and something seemed to be missing. I think good photo editors are really intuitive. We had a good discussion about what I felt was missing; everything I shot seemed to be quite serious and rather bleek but what I actually experienced was people living, making do, enjoying what they can from the lives they are able to carve in this transient place. In three days, despite the heaviness of the experience, I also had a lot of fun with everyone I met, sharing laughs and stories.
Anyways, it was too short a visit to photograph what I would have liked – an intimate portrait of people trying to move forward amidst such insecurity. The edit I came back with were just a beginning. But I was glad I went, I was touched by all the people that shared their stories with me, and motivated by the clear and complicated injustices that exist there. I want to go back and work longer there to see if I can find a way to share these stories – they are important.
- london, uk, 18 degrees, partly cloudy afternoon, im in the library so no listening to anything…
intelligent (still) life, documents in form
Over the past few weeks, Peter Fraser has been inspiring and guiding our group of aspiring documentary photographers in liberating our vision to be able to see the world around us. Our only directions: to “see men like trees, walking”, to work in colour, and to take as inspiration John Szarkowski’s “Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide.” A quote from the essay:
Form is perhaps the point of art. The goal is not to make something factually impeccable, but seamlessly persuasive. In photography the pursuit of form has taken an unexpected course. In this peculiar art, form and subject are defined simultaneously. Even more than in the traditional arts, the two are inextricably tangled. Indeed, they are probably the same thing. Or, if they are different, one might say that a photograph’s subject is not its starting point but its destination.
In these images of ordinary objects, form becomes the subject.
- London, clear night, 13 degrees, listening to Radio Citizen’s “The Hop“
MARCIA CHANDRA
documentary photography.
political ecology.
culture & space.
