Comments on: Imaging Famine

By: ‘Imaging Famine’ « The Rights Exposure Project

‘Imaging Famine’ « The Rights Exposure Project — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:46:57 +0000

[...] a summary of the research project and additional links see David Campbell’s blog. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)30 Hour [...]

By: David Campbell — Photography, Multimedia, Politics » Aid images, and the solution offered by local photographers

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:48:19 +0000

[...] Some visual strategies are remarkably persistent, and few more persistent than those employed by humanitarian aid organizations when illustrating their appeals and campaign literature. We documented this in relation to food shortages in Africa as part of the Imaging Famine project. [...]

By: admin

admin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:50:19 +0000

Thanks for the feedback. All comments have to be taken in the context they are made. Our argument about the framing of negative vs positive images being unhelpful is made in the realm of development images and representations of distant ‘others’ generally. That is because ‘positive images’ of smiling, happy aid recipients perpetuate colonial relations of power — that ‘they’ are grateful for our charity. What is not challenged via such imagery is precisely the broader political context you raise as important.

Would an argument in terms of positive vs negative imagery be insightful in terms of the representations of black people in Britain? Possibly, at least in the first instance. But if we want to get to broader questions about the production of certain imagery and its political effects we have to go beyond seeing one aesthetic style as a solution. The answer is more likely to lie beyond the frame.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:00:48 +0000

Wow, I take my hat off to you this is an amazing resource and such an important debate. Congratulations.

The aid world is an industry fighting for cash and often, but not always, the message they fall back on is

‘they are fucked, give us your money.’

There is a classic example of this on the front page of Save The Children’s website. Go and have a look.

Having lived in Ethiopia though I question your belittling of the ‘the unhelpful distinction of positive versus negative imagery.’

Would you have written this if you were talking about repeated negative images of black people in Britain? Is that a shallow debate?

Journalistically there is a ‘glamour’ in famine which means whilst we are presented with the suffering, little time is spent engaging with the solutions.

Isn’t in interesting how charities spend so much time and money photographing the ‘they’re fucked’ side of things, but so little actually visually demonstrating impact?

I will linking to this important work.