The sudden assertion of human criteria within a dehumanising framework of political manipulation can be like a flash of lightning illuminating a dark landscape
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We present original photography - from US troops in Afghanistan, Mumbai garbage collectors, to salt lakes in Bolivia - as a way of understanding the world through images. To see all our slideshows click here. If you would like to submit any photography please email us Forty-one years after the cultural revolution began, China's heritage faces another potent threat (archive)
Can the western media hegemony be broken? Charlie Devereux talks to Suvenda Chatterjee, director of the Drik photography agency, about a new photographic vision for the world. Read the rest of this post...
The privatisation of image-making and the manipulation of image-reception in the global, digital age combine to diminish agency and freedom, says David Levi Strauss. Read the rest of this post...
A new exhibition explores one of the terrible legacies of Latin America's dirty wars – the forced "disappearance" of thousands of people across the continent. Rob Cawston reviews, plus, a slideshow of selected images. Read the rest of this post...
Amidst ongoing violence and fragile politics, how has independent reportage fared in post-Taliban Afghanistan? Charlie Devereux talks to world-renowned photojournalist Reza about his Kabul-based NGO Aïna and ambitions to construct a free Afghan media. Read the rest of this post...
As a writer Susan Sontag located herself behind her subject. After her death it is her personality that is memorialised. Angela McRobbie deciphers this use of a great intellectual's legacy. Read the rest of this post...
For over twenty years Ethiopia has been plagued by a recurring food and water crisis. Photographer Carlos Reyes Manzo returns to the landlocked country and documents an all too familiar struggle. Read the rest of this post...
Originally intended as the British government's new home in the case of nuclear war, the underground bunker Codename "Turnstile" is now abandoned and up for sale. What will happen to this relic of the cold war? Jason Orton's haunting photographs capture a lonely subterranean city. Read the rest of this post...
"Saddam was the ultimate nightmare… but now things are just bad, really bad." Despite a newly elected government, civil war looms ominously on the horizon: what is happening in Iraq and who holds the power? Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the award-winning photojournalist, talks to openDemocracy about occupation, insurgency, and how his country fell apart. Read the rest of this post...
Okwui Enwezor, curator of an ambitious new exhibition on contemporary African photography, explains how it challenges the conventional images of the continent. Plus, an exclusive slideshow of photographs from the collection. Read the rest of this post...
John Davies' beautiful panoramic photographs of the British landscape capture an industrial world now lost and a modernity running away from its past, says Ken Worpole. Read the rest of this post...
Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak looks in retrospective at the tragedy that gripped London in the aftermath of the 7 July bombings. Read the rest of this post...
The destruction of Beijing's "hutongs" in advance of the 2008 Olympics has many consequences for China's cultural heritage. Sean Gallagher photographs a swiftly disappearing history. Read the rest of this post...
Over the last 15 years, the Strait of Gibraltar has become one of the main gateways for illegal immigration in north Africa. Yto Barrada's photographs, taken between 1998 - 2004, capture the temptations of leaving, and the unfulfilled hopes of escaping into Europe. Charlotte Collins talks to her. Read the rest of this post...
“Even in death they find samba is there.” Living in the poor favelas of Brazil, photographer Alex Majoli encountered a beautiful but violent culture shaped by the constant spectre of death. openDemocracy presents a Magnum slideshow with audio commentary and music, featuring photographs from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. Read the rest of this post...
On the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, photographer Pierpaolo Mittica argues that the hidden legacies of this terrible accident must be exposed. Plus, an exclusive photo slideshow of images from affected regions in Ukraine and Belarus. Read the rest of this post...
openDemocracy presents the work of five young photographers documenting the state of modern Italian society. Read the rest of this post...
Since 1993 thousands of Mexican women
have been systematically abducted, raped, tortured and killed, and those
responsible for the crimes have largely remained free. Carlos Reyes-Manzo
documents in images and words a terrible and touching situation that
shows no sign of abating.
The US-Mexico border, stretching over 3000 kilometres, is the most frequently crossed border in the world. In a special interactive slideshow including audio commentary and music, renowned Magnum photographer Alex Webb showcases over 30 years of photography from this fascinating borderland region. Read the rest of this post...
Nina Mangalanayagam follows the poignant story of her elderly Sri Lankan father recently relocated to northern Sweden. “Image of the week” returns with this beautiful slideshow by a young photographer to watch. Read the rest of this post...
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