'Visual Stories Exploring Global Themes' – Seventeen countries, five timely themes

Seventeen countries, five timely themes: Rising rage in Europe, discrimination against Roma people, undocumented immigrants, abducted Nigerian schoolgirls and the power of religion and faith.

A panel of judges selected five winners out of 100 entries for Social Documentary Network’s “Visual Stories Exploring Global Themes” Call for Entries. Collectively, these photographers have documented stories from Italy, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, Kosovo, France, the Czech Republic, India, Israel, Poland, Malaysia, Cuba, Mexico and Nigeria.

First-place winner Paolo Marchetti analyzes the rising rage of skinhead and fascist movements in Europe in “Fever: The Awakening of European Fascism,” his primary long-term project for five years in five different countries. He writes, “This is the first chapter of a five-year photographic and sociological quest — which turned into a firsthand experiment — to better understand a feeling that has grown to dominate the public arena in the age in which we live: rage.


“I decided to focus on its role as fuel in the political life of four European countries: Italy, Hungary, Finland and Germany. I discovered the feeling was inseparable from the idea of the group: The ‘herd’ brings unity and gives an illusion of power, but it also means the loss of intellectual autonomy and individual identity in favor of a collective one in the name of a higher purpose and ideology supposedly shared by each of its members.

“In recent years, especially given the influx of North African migrants in southern Europe and the atomization of society in the face of the dire consequences of the financial crisis, we have seen a resurgence in the use of fear as a political tool. Rage has been, and still is, the response of the mass.”

In “Racism Against Roma People,” Aake Ericson covers the poor living conditions of the Roma in Europe. France’s expulsion of Roma and the Swedish police registration of Roma are shown as clear examples of explicit racism. This is a long-term project by Ericson involving eight countries. He has covered the Roma situation in Slovakia, Sweden, Romania, Kosovo, France and the Czech Republic.

Michelle Frankfurter’s “Destino,” meaning both “destination” and “destiny” in Spanish, portrays the perilous journey of undocumented Central American migrants along the network of freight trains lurching inexorably across Mexico in the hope of finding a better life in the United States. It is the odyssey of a generation of exiles across a landscape that is becoming increasingly dangerous, heading toward a precarious future as an option of last resorts.

Unlike Mexican migration to the United States, which dates back to the 1880s, the unprecedented wave of Central American migration began a full century later, the consequence of bloody civil wars, U.S. Cold War-era intervention in the region and crippling international trade policies. Those regional conflicts left a legacy of drug- and gang-related violence, a high incidence of domestic abuse and unrelenting poverty.

In “Abducted Nigerian Schoolgirls,” Glenna Gordon records the evidence of some of the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped from a remote village in northern Nigeria by the Islamic jihadi group Boko Haram in April 2014. Despite global outrage, little has been done by the Nigerian government to bring them back. These images of their school uniforms, books and other objects — the things they left behind — are the last traces and the only way we can see the missing girls.

Jordi Pizarro Torrell’s “The Believers Project” explores the question of why people believe and how religion, through the ages, has been used to narrate the purpose of human existence.

As part of an ongoing long-term project, “The Believers Project” explores religious communities in 10 countries across four continents. Pizarro seeks to document and understand how communities are formed through religion or, conversely, how beliefs are reinforced through preserving traditions and how faith is strengthened through performing rituals and a common interpretation of truth.

Pizarro sets out to demonstrate that faith and the practice of religion are intrinsically linked to human life. Cultural practices of faith may differ, but the pursuit for truth remains common to all.

Social Documentary Network's ‘Visual Stories Exploring Global Themes’ exhibition can be seen at the Bronx Documentary Center from May 22, 2015 - June 7, 2015. The opening reception is Saturday, May 30, 2015, 6:30 -9:00pm.

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