Photos and Videos

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 

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, 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

 

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.

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

The media usually portrays the lives of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong as one of extremes—a black and white world of abusive employers and irresponsible ‘helpers’. Yet how accurate is this one-dimensional view in representing the daily experience of tens of thousands of women trying to cope with the challenges of providing a better life for their families?

In the cramped living spaces of Hong Kong, two cultures joined by an employment relationship are forced together by the mandatory live-in requirement. How do both workers and employers walk the line between the intimacy of proximity and the distance of professionalism? Back in South East Asia, families are left for years without daughters, wives, and mothers. How do they deal with the separation and sustain relationships over such distance and time?

Independent journalist So Mei Chi and human rights photographer Robert Godden explored these issues and more in the book Strangers at Home to be published on 20 September 2015. An exhibition of the photos from the book will take place at Open Quote, Joint Publishing’s space at PMQ on Aberdeen Street, Hong Kong. The exhibition will open on 20 September and run for three weeks.

https://www.facebook.com/rightsexposureproject

SONGKHLA, Thailand — Lang Long’s ordeal began in the back of a truck. After watching his younger siblings go hungry because their family’s rice patch in Cambodia could not provide for everyone, he accepted a trafficker’s offer to travel across the Thai border for a construction job.

It was his chance to start over. But when he arrived, Mr. Long was kept for days by armed men in a room near the port at Samut Prakan, more than a dozen miles southeast of Bangkok. He was then herded with six other migrants up a gangway onto a shoddy wooden ship. It was the start of three brutal years in captivity at sea.

“I cried,” said Mr. Long, 30, recounting how he was resold twice between fishing boats. After repeated escape attempts, one captain shackled him by the neck whenever other boats neared.

Mr. Long’s crews trawled primarily for forage fish, which are small and cheaply priced. Much of this catch comes from the waters off Thailand, where Mr. Long was held, and is sold to the United States, typically for canned cat and dog food or feed for poultry, pigs and farm-raised fish that Americans consume. (By IAN URBINA)

Read the whole article on The New York Times.com:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/world/outlaw-ocean-thailand-fishing-sea-slaves-pets.html

Although Adam Dean had photographed for The New York Times in Southeast Asia before, he was excited to work with Ian Urbina on part of his investigative series, “The Outlaw Ocean.” He saw it as an opportunity to dig into a story and spend some time trying to find out what was really going in the violent, unregulated world of fishing boats in international waters.

The resulting article, “ ‘Sea Slaves’ Catch Dinner for America’s Pets,” details the stories of fishermen who have fled forced labor. He spoke recently with the deputy picture editor Beth Flynn about his experiences on the project. Their conversation has been edited and condensed.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/life-among-the-sea-slaves/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=linkedin&_r=0#