Kinshasa, 2010. Eight million inhabitants, thousands of shegués (street children), hundreds of wrestlers and their brass bands. Edingwe, Dragon, City Train, Mbokotomo : the “legends” of Congolese wrestling invent themselves on a daily basis in the outskirts of Kinshasa. Body-building, and even black magic enthusiasts fight for glory in makeshift rings. They come from the streets and their charisma commands respect and admiration. But the heros of the ring are modest in victory : « Kobeta libanga papa mundele » [we manage, white man]. In the last hours of the day, when they have hung up their everyday “occupations”, they put on masks and wrestling kit ready to fight. The motorised parade of wrestlers attracts crowds from the dusty streets of Massina, Ngili and Matete, towns round the Congolese capital. In back yards, on the tables of the street cafés, or even in the street, the spell casters warm up over primus stoves and cannabis. The ring is hastily set up, the judge climbs onto the ropes. “Let the match begin!” The fight starts and is usually more or less fixed. Rounds follow one another until the final spell is cast, until the adversary is floored, until the next fight.
The head of an inflatable sex doll is pictured in a box at Ningbo Yamei plastic toy factory, on the outskirts of Fenghua, Zhejiang province, China February 13, 2012. The company started producing sex dolls three years ago, and now owns a total of 13 types of dolls at the average price of 100 RMB (16 USD). More than 50,000 sex dolls were sold last year, about fifteen percent of which were exported to Japan, Korea and Turkey, according to the company.
"The phenomenon of foreign women, who line the roadsides of Italy, has become a notorious fact of Italian life. These women work in sub-human conditions; they are sent out without any hope of regularizing their legal status and can be easily transferred into criminal networks. Many are Africans working as prostitutes to send money home to their families. For nearly twenty years the women of Benin City, a town in the state of Edo in the south-central part of Nigeria, have been going to Italy to work in the sex trade and every year successful ones have been recruiting younger girls to follow them. The Nigerian trafficking industry is fueled by the combination of widespread emigration aspirations and severely limited possibilities for migrating to Europe. The term Trafficking of persons is restricted to instances where people are deceived, threatened, or coerced into situations of exploitation, including prostitution ... For many girls prostitution in Italy has become an entirely acceptable trade and the legend of their success makes the fight against sex traffickers all the more difficult ..."Weil der zitierte Beschreibungstext doch ziemlich an der Oberfläche kratzt, hier noch ein Link zur Doku "Meine Hölle Europa - Vom Geschäft mit Afrikas Frauen" von Lukas Roegler.
"Ob Familien auf Festen, Ehepaare in ihren Gartenlauben oder Kinder beim Spielen auf der Straße - immer ist er ganz nah dabei."Anschließend ruhig einen Blick ins Archiv von Ostkreuz werfen, es lohnt sich. Danke an dieser Stelle für die schnelle und unkomplizierte Erlaubnis, das Foto zu bloggen – erlebt man so von einer Foto-Agentur auch nicht alle Tage.
Die Serie "übergang" hat einen autobiografischen Ansatz. Ich habe in meiner Jugend geschlossene Grenzen erlebt. Vor einigen Jahren stellte ich dann verwundert und fasziniert fest, dass es den Moment des Haltens an der Grenze, die Konfrontation mit den Grenzbeamten in Europa kaum noch gibt, dass meine Erfahrungen der Grenzübertritte, die ich mit vielen Menschen teile, obsolet geworden war. Diese Erfahrung, die Erleichterung aber auch das Befremden wollte ich visualisieren und fand es wichtig, diese Erinnerungen durch meine Arbeit wachzurufen.(via Ignant)
"Eiterquellen" is an ongoing project about Viennese Diners and the little different Viennese fast-food-culture. Most of the time these Diners are isolated islands of food supply in an ancient surrounding with plenty of cultural heritage. Isolated both in the sense of appearance as well as in resisting global operating fast-food chains. But the "improper" their architecture and appearance may appear, the much heritage they actually hold themselves ...(via Beautiful Decay)
Bronx Boys is an intimate photo essay about the lives of young people in the Bronx during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Shot over two decades by photojournalist Stephen Shames, Bronx Boys takes the viewer inside the lives of young people living at the epicenter of a crack cocaine epidemic that devastated their community. The story tracks their childhood on the streets, their loves and losses. It includes a powerful first person narrative by Martin Dones, one of the young men Shames followed and who survived life on the streets.(via Ignant)
"Club doors become stale during the daytime ... It is absolutely fascinating to consider that behind those doors, one of Berlins most essential traits – partying – sparks up every night. Behind each of those doors, an individual community arises to celebrate whatever there is to celebrate. During the day, the rest of the city is shut out ..." Finding Berlin: Day and Night
"These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković...), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. In the 1980s, these monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their "patriotic education." After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings were forever lost ..."
"Grabill is known as a western photographer, documenting many aspects of frontier life – hunting, mining, western town landscapes and white settlers’ relationships with Native Americans. Most of his work is centered on Deadwood in the late 1880s and 1890s. He is most often sited for his photographs in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation." From the Archive: Frontier Life in the West(via MeFi)
On the B Side; Graffiti is mostly designed just to look good from a moving vehicle... Not necessarily in the history books. It doesn't look half bad on Vimeo or Facebook too. Peace through paint.Update: Wegen Copyright-Käse leider gelöscht. Wenn es anderswo auftaucht, trage ich es nach.
"In Silicon Valley we have the highest concentration of aggressive people in the United States. And it's a place where all life has been reduced to working in a cubicle and then after work going out to have a Merlot at the Fromage bar. I'm kind of looking for something a little more primitive, a little more basic, something that appeals to the essential nature of a man." -- Gints K., Software Engineer & Founder, Gentlemen's Fight Club
"[Der] Jugendtreff befindet sich in unmittelbarer Nähe der alten Heilstätten bei Beelitz. Aus diesem Grund gehe ich seit Jahren regelmäßig mit einigen der Jugendlichen dorthin, wir machen Fotos – nur so zum Spass und des Interesses wegen. Im Laufe der Jahre kamen dabei einige gute Fotografien zusammen. Im letzen Frühjahr entstand nach solch einer Tour die Idee, ein Fotobuch über die Heilstätten zu machen. Ich empfand diese Idee von vornherein umsetzungswürdig und überlegte gemeinsam mit den Kids, wie genau das aussehen sollte und wie man das am besten umsetzen könnte. Daraus entstand ein ganzes Konzept, welches nun endgültig fertig ist [...]
Teil des Konzeptes ist auch, den kompletten Prozess der Buchentstehung medial in Form eines Blogs zu begleiten. Dieses würde dann regelmäßig neue Fotos sowie Videos zeigen und allgemein Wissenswertes nach außen tragen. Man könnte somit als Beobachter an der Entstehung dieses Buches teilnehmen. Außerdem würde es einen Flickr-Account dazu geben und eine Einbindung in soziale Netzwerke. Es geht hier also um ein medienpädagogisches Projekt, das klassische und neue Medien verbindet. Alle dabei entstehenden Fotos, Texte, Videos und auch das Buch an sich sollen unter einer CC-Lizenz veröffentlicht werden ..." Sponsoren gesucht für ein Jugendprojekt über die Beelitzer Heilstätten unter CC-Lizenz
