| Photography’s
ability to record detail, its unusual palette, its
Instantaneousness, its contemporariness, its ubiquitousness,
its claim to
credibility, its relationships with time and space, its power
and its
inclusiveness have seduced some fine artists who have taken
on the medium with gusto, but rarely explored its full potential.
Whereas other artists have felt threatened and have shunned
it from their craft and from their study, unwilling to take
on the pliability of such a powerful tool. Photography is
too unforgiving. It tells much not only of the photographed,
but also of the photographer.
There are others who
have stretched the medium to its limits. From the
concerned photojournalists who have stood up for the oppressed,
to the conceptual artists who have taken on social issues
as their motif, there have been photographers who have aligned
themselves with the excluded, voicing their concerns, and
fighting for their rights. This is especially so in the majority
world, where photography neither has the glamour, nor the
economic returns often associated with the profession in the
west. The media however, has become a tool of The powerful.
Media distortion and suppression, combined with the acquiescence
of those who stand to gain, ensures that propaganda is packaged
as news, silence is bought and consent engineered. Each pen
that fails to
write, each shutter that fails to open, each voice that refuses
to shout in
protest, when governmental and corporate power flexes its
muscles bears the guilt of compliance. This festival in giving
space to the excluded pays homage to the few who have continued
to say no. |
