I Am Positiv – HIV/Aids in Tanah Papua

Andri Tambunan
Andri Tambunan

TANAH PAPUA HAS THE HIGHEST HIV/AIDS INFECTION RATES IN INDONESIA. The region is made up of Papua & West Papua, located in the easternmost part of the country. Many improvements have been made to create better access to quality care and medicine. Still, the biggest obstacles that remain are the stigmas and discrimination directed toward people who live with HIV/AIDS or at a risk of HIV infection. The majority of the public in Tanah Papua still perceive HIV/AIDS to mean suffering, dishonor, and death. Due to fear of discrimination people often postpone or avoid getting tested for HIV. More infos and pictures on: http://www.andritambunan.com/#!/index/C00005LqjJW3U2_w 

Andri Tambunan
Andri Tambunan

Last year Andri made a film called, Saya Positif, profiling 7 people living with HIV in Tanah Papua. His objectives are to lower HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrimination by countering negative stereotypes associated with the disease. Earlier this year, the film was approved by Indonesia’s Directorate General of Health for distribution in clinics and hospitals in the region. 

To further inform and engage a larger audience outside of the health care settings, he printed 1000 copies of 60-page newsprint and distributed them for free to NGOs, government officials, and activists and created an official website for this initiative. 

ENGLISH:  http://issuu.com/andritambunan/docs/sayapositif_eng_issu

BAHASA:  http://issuu.com/andritambunan/docs/sayapositif_ind_issu

Andri Tambunan
Andri Tambunan

Andri Tambunan, Photographer: currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia, he divides his time between commissioned assignments and self-initiated projects focusing on social, environmental, and human rights issues. 

http://www.andritambunan.com/#!/index

 

 

A River’s Tail: Vietnam

Luc Forsyth
Luc Forsyth

After months of planning and preparation, when production of A River’s Tail started in Vietnam no one on the crew knew quite what to expect. We each had our own preconceptions of what we’d find in the Mekong delta, and after extensively researching the region we knew that there were a wide range of environmental issues affecting the Mekong. Yet until we’d physically gotten on location they were nothing more than speculations.

Gareth Bright
Gareth Bright

We decided to do A River’s Tail in the opposite direction of what logic might dictate, by starting where the Mekong ends and tracing it back to it’s source nearly 5000km away in the Tibetan plateau. The reasoning behind this decision was that we wanted to have a clear picture of the myriad of ways the river facilitated ecology, economics, and culture before we saw its origins. Like being able to travel back in time to visit one of the world’s great thinkers when they were a baby, we hoped that grasping just how important the Mekong is in the life of the 60-odd million people who live downriver would allow us to better appreciate the magnitude of its importance. (Text by Luc Forsyth)

See more text, photos and infos on:
http://ariverstail.com/vietnam/vietnam-overview

A River’s Tail is a collaborative long-term documentary project combining photography, writing and videography to tell the stories of the people living along the Mekong river. Produced in partnership with Lien AID, the project explores the complex relationships between culture and the environment along one of the world’s most important waterways during a period of dramatic change. With two photographers (Luc Forsyth shooting colour and Gareth Bright shooting black and white) and Pablo Chavanel as the videographer, A River’s Tail combines multiple visual styles in a 4,800km visual journey through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China.

http://ariverstail.com

Yuyang Liu: Arsenic poisoning victims in Hunan Province

Yuyang Liu
Yuyang Liu

„My latest story about Arsenic poisoning victims in Hunan Province, China has been published on Caixin Weekly. The victims live in a village near the highly polluted Arsenic sulphide ore mine and factories, hundreds of people died of skin cancer, lung cancer or liver cancer. Though the government shut down the mine and factory in 2011, but the pollution’s still left over. It’s the dark side of the old economic development mode in China. (by Yuyang Liu, Editors: Lilan Luo, Jia Wan and Sikun Wang)

Yuyang Liu
Yuyang Liu

Read the whole article (in Chinese) and see more pictures on Caixin Weekly:

http://mp.weixin.qq.com

Born in Ziyang, Sichuan province, Yuyang Liu is currently based in Guangzhou. His photography work focuses on urbanization and immigration issues in a rapidly changing China. He won the 2014 Magnum Foundation , through which he studied at an intensive five-week program at New York University. His work has been exhibited in China and the United States. (Chinafile)

http://www.yuyangliu.com

 

 

 

 

From Eunuch To ‘Unique’: This Photo Story On Mona Ahmed Is Incredibly Poignant

Dayanita Singh
Dayanita Singh

“She wanted to tell the story of being neither here nor there, neither male nor female, and finally, neither a eunuch nor someone like me. She would always ask me, ”Tell me: what am I?”

World-renowned photographer Dayanita Singh’s Myself Mona Ahmed is a bold, empathetic glimpse into the life of Mona Ahmed, who belongs to one of India’s many visible-yet-ignored communities, the eunuchs. Feared by some and revered by others for their supposed mysticism throughout Indian history, it would be unfair to say that they haven’t been documented sensitively through various mediums in recent times. Yet none cut quite as deep as Singh’s poignant portrayal of Mona over the course of so many years, parallel to their deepening relationship.

Dayanita Singh
Dayanita Singh

The two first met in 1989, when Singh was on a shooting assignment for London’s The Times. Speaking of the assignment in the introduction to her book, Singh says it started out as  “a way to establish my credentials as a photojournalist, to show that I was on par with the boys in my male-dominated profession. When you work for the media, which tend to see India only as either exotic or disastrous, a story on eunuchs is a must, along with a story on prostitution, child labour, dowry deaths, and child marriage.”

However, the assignment didn’t proceed as planned. When Mona realised that the project was for the Times in London, she was concerned and asked that the film be returned to her—she had relatives in the UK who did not know she was a eunuch. Singh returned the film and Mona promptly threw it into the trash. While that put an end to the assignment, it was the beginning of a friendship whose importance in Singh’s life was not imminently clear.

Dayanita Singh
Dayanita Singh

See the whole article and more picture on

http://homegrown.co.in/from-eunuch-to-unique-this-photo-story-on-mona-ahmed-is-incredibly-poignant

Dayanita Singh studied Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. She is best known for her captivating photographs of the less obvious side of Indian society. Her images of people working, celebrating, or resting show Indian life without embellishment and capture insights into contemporary life that often challenge the disaster or exotic stereotypes of the West.

http://www.dayanitasingh.com