Before They Pass Away
November 7, 2013 2:30 PM Subscribe
Before They Pass Away: Powerful Portraits of Secluded Cultures on the Brink of Extinction. Q&A with Jimmy Nelson.
Stunning.
Thanks for posting this.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:49 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting this.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:49 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also known as The Warriors 2: International Edition
In which people from every corner of the world come out to play.
posted by homunculus at 2:52 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
In which people from every corner of the world come out to play.
posted by homunculus at 2:52 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
These are very well-composed photos, but I do wonder how reflective they are of the various "fading" cultures they are supposed to represent.
Are these the rich people in the culture? Are they the people "in charge"? Is this how they dress from day to day? Does everybody get to wear these clothes? Did they dress up in order to be photographed? Do they interact with "outside" cultures (just out of frame)?
posted by KokuRyu at 2:53 PM on November 7, 2013 [7 favorites]
Are these the rich people in the culture? Are they the people "in charge"? Is this how they dress from day to day? Does everybody get to wear these clothes? Did they dress up in order to be photographed? Do they interact with "outside" cultures (just out of frame)?
posted by KokuRyu at 2:53 PM on November 7, 2013 [7 favorites]
All silliness aside, I too find these stunning, but I always wonder when I see shoots like this if the people dressed up for the photos. Is this their everyday dress or their "Sunday-best" ceremonial garb?
Edit: Or what KokuRyu said.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 2:55 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Edit: Or what KokuRyu said.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 2:55 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
I wonder the same thing. Great photos-as-photos either way. I would love to go to Mongolia one day...
I remember a P. J. O'Rourke article about Amazonian natives, who would dress up for Western audiences, and then wear jeans and T-shirts when they watched TV at home.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:57 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
I remember a P. J. O'Rourke article about Amazonian natives, who would dress up for Western audiences, and then wear jeans and T-shirts when they watched TV at home.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:57 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
The logic of this seems really weird, although I think a "please let me photograph you in your [daily dress] [special regalia] because it is beautiful" approach would be okay.
I mean, the Maori aren't "fading away", for one thing. There's lots of Maori and lots of active Maori cultural stuff.
Also, you notice that some of the people further down the page are carrying guns - so I assume that they're trading with other communities, not in isolation. I bet that most of the other groups also have contact with others.
Also, I bet that if you did some research, got some oral histories and stuff, you'd see that none of these groups are static "we have lived this way for a thousand years" people. "Tribal" isn't "changeless"
I find myself wondering what was told to these people - "oh, I'd like to take pictures of you because your people are dying out"? In general, people aren't dying out; lifeways are changing. While I know there's losses involved in that, and pressures from capital and the state (land theft, usually), I think it's better to let communities narrate for themselves how they see the changes to their ways of life.
Also, that interview? Super creepy. I'd have to quote the whole thing to convey it all. Long story short, no, these are not "naturalistic" photos, they're posed photos by a guy who has a commercial background and was intentionally trying to exotify his subjects because he believes that this is the morally right thing to do.
I think about the indigenous communities in Mexico, for instance, fighting the big mining companies and the government - and I try to picture them photographed like this, and it just doesn't make any sense. These are very beautiful pictures of icons, but people aren't icons.
posted by Frowner at 2:57 PM on November 7, 2013 [22 favorites]
I mean, the Maori aren't "fading away", for one thing. There's lots of Maori and lots of active Maori cultural stuff.
Also, you notice that some of the people further down the page are carrying guns - so I assume that they're trading with other communities, not in isolation. I bet that most of the other groups also have contact with others.
Also, I bet that if you did some research, got some oral histories and stuff, you'd see that none of these groups are static "we have lived this way for a thousand years" people. "Tribal" isn't "changeless"
I find myself wondering what was told to these people - "oh, I'd like to take pictures of you because your people are dying out"? In general, people aren't dying out; lifeways are changing. While I know there's losses involved in that, and pressures from capital and the state (land theft, usually), I think it's better to let communities narrate for themselves how they see the changes to their ways of life.
Also, that interview? Super creepy. I'd have to quote the whole thing to convey it all. Long story short, no, these are not "naturalistic" photos, they're posed photos by a guy who has a commercial background and was intentionally trying to exotify his subjects because he believes that this is the morally right thing to do.
I think about the indigenous communities in Mexico, for instance, fighting the big mining companies and the government - and I try to picture them photographed like this, and it just doesn't make any sense. These are very beautiful pictures of icons, but people aren't icons.
posted by Frowner at 2:57 PM on November 7, 2013 [22 favorites]
Also, I bet that if you did some research, got some oral histories and stuff, you'd see that none of these groups are static "we have lived this way for a thousand years" people. "Tribal" isn't "changeless"
Similarly I was thinking what they represent more than a dying people are anachronistic cultures or cultures that have found themselves more and more maginalized by changing demographics. They have either been surpassed by technology around them or by being out bred by their neighbors. For example the nomadic Kazakh's lifestyle simply couldn't compete with global agriculture and industrial and post-industrial city-building. Falconry, yurts, and horsemanship only count for so much when you have supermarkets, skyscrapers, and airplanes in immediate proximity to your steppes.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:04 PM on November 7, 2013
Similarly I was thinking what they represent more than a dying people are anachronistic cultures or cultures that have found themselves more and more maginalized by changing demographics. They have either been surpassed by technology around them or by being out bred by their neighbors. For example the nomadic Kazakh's lifestyle simply couldn't compete with global agriculture and industrial and post-industrial city-building. Falconry, yurts, and horsemanship only count for so much when you have supermarkets, skyscrapers, and airplanes in immediate proximity to your steppes.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:04 PM on November 7, 2013
I find it a little disconcerting that fewer than 10% of the people pictured are women.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by mr_roboto at 3:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
I find it a little disconcerting that fewer than 10% of the people pictured are women.
Maybe you're onto the real problem!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:09 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Maybe you're onto the real problem!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 3:09 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
mr_roboto: "I find it a little disconcerting that fewer than 10% of the people pictured are women."
I think that ratio changes somewhat if you click through to the full site featuring all the photos. Looks like it's more even there.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:11 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think that ratio changes somewhat if you click through to the full site featuring all the photos. Looks like it's more even there.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:11 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
I got really baked for the first time in many years and for some reason decided to go see that movie "Babies" and this sort of reminds me of that experience.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:23 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by KokuRyu at 3:23 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
In the act of saving them he has stolen their souls.
posted by Renoroc at 3:24 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Renoroc at 3:24 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Getting a "noble savage" vibe from these photos, and it seems that Frowner's comment underscores it.
posted by FJT at 3:29 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by FJT at 3:29 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
> Is this how they dress from day to day?
Most definitely no! Just look at how elaborate the dresses and face/body painting are. These are the equivalent of Sunday church clothes (back in the days when people used to wear their "good" clothes on Sunday and their "regular" clothes on weekdays, not the other way around.) In fact, some of them are so picture perfect that I suspect that they were made especially for this occasion.
> Does everybody get to wear these clothes?
Only when being photographed by famous photographers.
> Did they dress up in order to be photographed?
See above.
> Do they interact with "outside" cultures (just out of frame)?
Yes. There are only extremely few tribes left without any contact to the outside world.
posted by sour cream at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Most definitely no! Just look at how elaborate the dresses and face/body painting are. These are the equivalent of Sunday church clothes (back in the days when people used to wear their "good" clothes on Sunday and their "regular" clothes on weekdays, not the other way around.) In fact, some of them are so picture perfect that I suspect that they were made especially for this occasion.
> Does everybody get to wear these clothes?
Only when being photographed by famous photographers.
> Did they dress up in order to be photographed?
See above.
> Do they interact with "outside" cultures (just out of frame)?
Yes. There are only extremely few tribes left without any contact to the outside world.
posted by sour cream at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Noble savage" indeed:
What do you hope viewers take away from your work?
Tribes and forgotten cultures teach us about aspects of humanity such as love, respect, peace, survival and sharing. There is a pure beauty in their goals and family ties, their belief in gods and nature, and their will to do the right thing in order to be taken care of when their time comes. Whether in Papua New Guinea or in Kazakhstan, in Ethiopia or in Siberia, tribes are the last resorts of natural simplicity.
The pictures are very pretty, but I can't stomach the text. At either link. Nor the motive, quite.
posted by CoureurDubois at 3:44 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
What do you hope viewers take away from your work?
Tribes and forgotten cultures teach us about aspects of humanity such as love, respect, peace, survival and sharing. There is a pure beauty in their goals and family ties, their belief in gods and nature, and their will to do the right thing in order to be taken care of when their time comes. Whether in Papua New Guinea or in Kazakhstan, in Ethiopia or in Siberia, tribes are the last resorts of natural simplicity.
The pictures are very pretty, but I can't stomach the text. At either link. Nor the motive, quite.
posted by CoureurDubois at 3:44 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
Although they will always exist, what is happening is that they are abandoning their culture. Affluence is taking over the undeveloped world and—in my opinion—there should be a balance somewhere in between. I want to show these tribes that they are already rich, that they have something money can’t buy. What I want to achieve is bring attention to these people by showing that they are beautiful.
This is the sort of thing Frowner is talking about, I imagine. I see where you're coming from, with saying that they're being exotified and whatnot. But I also think there's something to it.
When I was in the Republic of Georgia, I showed some locals there some internet videos of factory-farmed chickens. My goal was similar to the photographer's in that I wanted to show them why some westerners or the westerners they'd met might be vegetarian. My co-teachers were telling me that we have a higher standard of living in the USA. And that's true in a lot of ways. But there are trade-offs to living in any society.
Industrialized society is exotified all the time. All the time! Reality shows, for instance. But Wikipedia is saying that one definition of exoticism is "charm of the unfamiliar," in which case, imagine living somewhere less than affluent and watching a sitcom. Or a reality show. Or a movie. Something that features a stereotypical middle-class home, perhaps.
The photographer has a commercial background and is maybe exotifying some tribes. This happens all the time in my society and if it's going to happen all the time anyway, I think it's kind of nice that maybe some people are being glamorized. Wasn't there a Miss Universe thread recently? I had fun looking at those costumes. And I think these are beautiful photos, too.
I don't feel like this is a very coherent comment but maybe some of my gist or intention is coming through.
posted by aniola at 3:47 PM on November 7, 2013
This is the sort of thing Frowner is talking about, I imagine. I see where you're coming from, with saying that they're being exotified and whatnot. But I also think there's something to it.
When I was in the Republic of Georgia, I showed some locals there some internet videos of factory-farmed chickens. My goal was similar to the photographer's in that I wanted to show them why some westerners or the westerners they'd met might be vegetarian. My co-teachers were telling me that we have a higher standard of living in the USA. And that's true in a lot of ways. But there are trade-offs to living in any society.
Industrialized society is exotified all the time. All the time! Reality shows, for instance. But Wikipedia is saying that one definition of exoticism is "charm of the unfamiliar," in which case, imagine living somewhere less than affluent and watching a sitcom. Or a reality show. Or a movie. Something that features a stereotypical middle-class home, perhaps.
The photographer has a commercial background and is maybe exotifying some tribes. This happens all the time in my society and if it's going to happen all the time anyway, I think it's kind of nice that maybe some people are being glamorized. Wasn't there a Miss Universe thread recently? I had fun looking at those costumes. And I think these are beautiful photos, too.
I don't feel like this is a very coherent comment but maybe some of my gist or intention is coming through.
posted by aniola at 3:47 PM on November 7, 2013
Ironically, if everyone came through and took photos, that would further integrate these tribes with industrialization and whatnot.
posted by aniola at 3:48 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by aniola at 3:48 PM on November 7, 2013
But I agree that the whole "before they pass away" thing could be done without, that lifestyles are changing.
posted by aniola at 3:51 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by aniola at 3:51 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
The thing that's weird about this, to me, is the obsession with isolated or even "uncontacted" people — which carries with it the presupposition that contact with outsiders just naturally leads to assimilation and the destruction of indigenous cultures.
Assimilation isn't a thing that magically happens when you see too many white guys. It's a conscious choice that people make when all their other options suck too hard. The way to "preserve" a culture like this isn't to keep people isolated — it's to stop abusing them.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 4:07 PM on November 7, 2013 [6 favorites]
Assimilation isn't a thing that magically happens when you see too many white guys. It's a conscious choice that people make when all their other options suck too hard. The way to "preserve" a culture like this isn't to keep people isolated — it's to stop abusing them.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 4:07 PM on November 7, 2013 [6 favorites]
I would imagine that visibility, like through these of photographs, could help make them seem more real and less abstract. Like when a homophobic family realizes they have a gay relative, they might rethink their values. Maybe someone will decide not to put a mine in their territory. Or something.
posted by aniola at 4:14 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by aniola at 4:14 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of a photographer I saw during a PechaKucha presentation. He displayed photographs from a recent trip to a village in Bhutan. The photographs were wonderful. But he kept going on about how "real" and "honest" the people were because they weren't distracted by cell phones and the internet. He even said it was wonderful that the (authoritarian) government had banned TV for so long, because that meant people could concentrate on "real life."
What really made me mad was when he recalled a conversation with a teenager who didn't like living in his small village and wanted to leave Bhutan altogether. The photographer mansplained to the teenager that Bhutan was a great country and that the teenager should just stay where he was. I hope that kid realized that the photographer was an idiot.
posted by mcmile at 4:28 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
What really made me mad was when he recalled a conversation with a teenager who didn't like living in his small village and wanted to leave Bhutan altogether. The photographer mansplained to the teenager that Bhutan was a great country and that the teenager should just stay where he was. I hope that kid realized that the photographer was an idiot.
posted by mcmile at 4:28 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I am a bit confused with some of the labels. "Huli" are a people, in Papua New Guinea, not Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Unless I am very much mistaken "Goroka" is a town, not a people. Again, firmly in Papua New Guinea, not Indonesia. I have no idea if some of those photos were taken of different groups from West Papua and given generic titles, but the labels are misleading.
I grew up in part in Goroka, and some of those photos are very familiar from festival days and feasts. This is very much full ceremonial garb, not anything close to everyday wear, or even what was traditionally considered everyday wear. While it could be considered remote there are supermarkets and roads and an airport and schools and hospitals and chinese restaurants. So no, not isolated or in any way shape or "uncontacted" or really in any danger of going extinct.
So yeah, beautiful photos but a wee bit of the noble savage myth going on with them that makes me a tad uncomfortable.
posted by arha at 4:30 PM on November 7, 2013 [6 favorites]
I grew up in part in Goroka, and some of those photos are very familiar from festival days and feasts. This is very much full ceremonial garb, not anything close to everyday wear, or even what was traditionally considered everyday wear. While it could be considered remote there are supermarkets and roads and an airport and schools and hospitals and chinese restaurants. So no, not isolated or in any way shape or "uncontacted" or really in any danger of going extinct.
So yeah, beautiful photos but a wee bit of the noble savage myth going on with them that makes me a tad uncomfortable.
posted by arha at 4:30 PM on November 7, 2013 [6 favorites]
GAAAAH. The text is the worst. "Their similarities lie in how they live in balance with the environment, and how they have achieved the perfect harmony that everyone in the West dreams of."
mcmile, I agree that some photographers can take striking and memorable photos even with idiotic notions of authenticity and culture. You'd hope they would have a friend tell them "dude, don't speak, just hush."
posted by spamandkimchi at 4:30 PM on November 7, 2013
mcmile, I agree that some photographers can take striking and memorable photos even with idiotic notions of authenticity and culture. You'd hope they would have a friend tell them "dude, don't speak, just hush."
posted by spamandkimchi at 4:30 PM on November 7, 2013
Maori? Maasai? Before they pass away? Are you fucking kidding me?
Jumping Jehoshaphat, these images are so problematic it's not frigging funny - and they represent a type of racism that is centuries old and it's super crappy to see it unthinkingly aped, again, in 2013 for frig's sake.
The photographer's insight and understanding into these lives appears about as deep as a bedpan. Reducing these complex - and in many cases thriving!! - cultures and people as objects, passively submitting to the tsunami of the Western imperialism is sooooooo racist. "Documentary series". My arse.
I mean just look at the text in the second link: "unique beauty"; "distinct spirituality" - oh yes, they are so beautiful, somehow more pure than we are. "though modern civilizations are equipped with technology and an abundance of unnecessary possessions, the photographer digs deep into the remote tribes of the world, finding something far greater than gadgets and gizmos—a sense of humanity." - I can tell you that Maasai and Maori have no frigging shortage of mobile phones and possessions. They are not dinosaurs, for frig's sake.
"how they live in balance with the environment, and how they have achieved the perfect harmony that everyone in the West dreams of." What a load of ignorant cobblers. So breath-takingly ignorant, and classic racism.
Aniola: The photographer has a commercial background and is maybe exotifying some tribes. This happens all the time in my society and if it's going to happen all the time anyway, I think it's kind of nice that maybe some people are being glamorized. Wasn't there a Miss Universe thread recently? I had fun looking at those costumes. And I think these are beautiful photos, too.
Beautiful racism is still racism. It doesn't matter if the bars are gold; it's still a cage.
I'm genuinely shocked that any publisher would go there in the 21st century.
posted by smoke at 4:35 PM on November 7, 2013 [16 favorites]
Jumping Jehoshaphat, these images are so problematic it's not frigging funny - and they represent a type of racism that is centuries old and it's super crappy to see it unthinkingly aped, again, in 2013 for frig's sake.
The photographer's insight and understanding into these lives appears about as deep as a bedpan. Reducing these complex - and in many cases thriving!! - cultures and people as objects, passively submitting to the tsunami of the Western imperialism is sooooooo racist. "Documentary series". My arse.
I mean just look at the text in the second link: "unique beauty"; "distinct spirituality" - oh yes, they are so beautiful, somehow more pure than we are. "though modern civilizations are equipped with technology and an abundance of unnecessary possessions, the photographer digs deep into the remote tribes of the world, finding something far greater than gadgets and gizmos—a sense of humanity." - I can tell you that Maasai and Maori have no frigging shortage of mobile phones and possessions. They are not dinosaurs, for frig's sake.
"how they live in balance with the environment, and how they have achieved the perfect harmony that everyone in the West dreams of." What a load of ignorant cobblers. So breath-takingly ignorant, and classic racism.
Aniola: The photographer has a commercial background and is maybe exotifying some tribes. This happens all the time in my society and if it's going to happen all the time anyway, I think it's kind of nice that maybe some people are being glamorized. Wasn't there a Miss Universe thread recently? I had fun looking at those costumes. And I think these are beautiful photos, too.
Beautiful racism is still racism. It doesn't matter if the bars are gold; it's still a cage.
I'm genuinely shocked that any publisher would go there in the 21st century.
posted by smoke at 4:35 PM on November 7, 2013 [16 favorites]
I was really surprised to see Ladakhis in this gallery, having been to Ladakh. While it is in many ways a very traditional culture and way of life (for instance, they use a irrigation system that has been in place for centuries, and many people do dress in traditional clothes, though not as ornately as shown here), the history is wayyyy more complicated than that. It was colonized by Tibet in the 8th century and has had a really interesting trade and political history ever since - it's really not a small tribe untouched by the outside world.
It might SEEM that way to the modern eye, since much of Ladakh is hard to get to by road (there are basically two roads connecting it with the rest of India and they're closed for most of the winter), but again, the history is a lot more complicated.
I mean, if the only standard is "live a traditional agrarian lifestyle and be difficult to reach by road," there are many, many places in Asia that qualify.
posted by lunasol at 4:44 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
It might SEEM that way to the modern eye, since much of Ladakh is hard to get to by road (there are basically two roads connecting it with the rest of India and they're closed for most of the winter), but again, the history is a lot more complicated.
I mean, if the only standard is "live a traditional agrarian lifestyle and be difficult to reach by road," there are many, many places in Asia that qualify.
posted by lunasol at 4:44 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
The striking artistry of the floral headdresses in the photograph of the Karo people of the Ome Valley in Africa's Great Rift Valley reminded me of a widely-disdained but, in my view, beautiful design which was commissioned in 1976 by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and made by Arje Griegst. I see the same expression of delight in all those portrayed wearing their golden flowers.
posted by Anitanola at 6:19 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Anitanola at 6:19 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
The colors and filters and poses are so stylized that it makes the whole thing look like a picture of a movie set.
posted by skrozidile at 7:24 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by skrozidile at 7:24 PM on November 7, 2013
They're exploiting birds of prey, and looking pretty stylish at it too.
posted by ovvl at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by ovvl at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2013
GAAAAH. The text is the worst. "Their similarities lie in how they live in balance with the environment, and how they have achieved the perfect harmony that everyone in the West dreams of."
This same line made me roll my eyes too. It's almost a shibboleth that should anybody speak about "native" "tribes" having balance/harmony with nature/environment then they're really not engaging their subject. Or rather, their subject is a lesson on western culture dressed up as pop-anthropology.
posted by Thing at 7:38 PM on November 7, 2013
This same line made me roll my eyes too. It's almost a shibboleth that should anybody speak about "native" "tribes" having balance/harmony with nature/environment then they're really not engaging their subject. Or rather, their subject is a lesson on western culture dressed up as pop-anthropology.
posted by Thing at 7:38 PM on November 7, 2013
I don't think the photographer is getting everything right with statements. I didn't think they were when I read the article, either. I think they'll probably learn a few things by showing these photos. I do still think that it's ok to say, "Hey, let's take some nice photos of some people who are all dressed up" and " oh hey btw they do well some things we don't and vice versa." And that the photographer took some nice photos.
Are there circumstances where it would be acceptable to take photos like these? When or why not?
I'm imagining that if they had consulted with an academic or someone who understood these issues for providing context that the photos would be more acceptable. And since I have an idea of these issues, I rejected anything that was inappropriate and appreciated the photos for what value they do have.
posted by aniola at 7:52 PM on November 7, 2013
Are there circumstances where it would be acceptable to take photos like these? When or why not?
I'm imagining that if they had consulted with an academic or someone who understood these issues for providing context that the photos would be more acceptable. And since I have an idea of these issues, I rejected anything that was inappropriate and appreciated the photos for what value they do have.
posted by aniola at 7:52 PM on November 7, 2013
Classic illustration of cultural exploitation. Artist charges $8k per copy of a picture book filled with people who were fooled into preparing and posing for 'artist' for free? From the TED talk he mentions his father worked oil fields in developing countries... so I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
posted by astrobiophysican at 8:14 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by astrobiophysican at 8:14 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Hey, let's take some nice photos of some people who are all dressed up" and " oh hey btw they do well some things we don't and vice versa."
The problem aniola is that you can't pretend these statements - and these pictures - exist in a background. They have been produced in a very clear cultural context, and that context is very problematic.
1) "Taking nice photos of people who are all dressed up" is something that rich westerners have done to people from other cultures for centuries. It objectifies them, posits them as foreign - indeed alien - and otherwordly, and reduces them to museum objects for us to look at. This is further complicated by the fact that historically, images like this have been of a broader project to literally dehumanise people from other cultures, justify terrible atrocities committed upon them, and paint them as incapable of "modern life".
2) "oh hey btw they do well some things we don't and vice versa." The problem, in this case, is that the blurbs are wrong. The Maasai are not "passing away"; the Maori are not "passing away". The Maori are not necessarily closer to nature - indeed they are highly urbanised. The Maasai do not, necessarily, live in harmony with their environment - they contribute/d to the plummeting population of Lions in Kenya and Northern Tanzania, and issues with overgrazing there. They have "gadgets" and "gizmos" - They are familiar with and own mobile phones and use them with great regularity, if they can afford a car, they drive. The Maori are not "remote" - Unless you think a city of 1.3 million people, where the majority of Maori actually live is remote.
This discourse is also one that is both currently and historically used to justify appalling conditions and lack of services for people from other cultures. It's not cool, at all.
I'm not saying you can't do this stuff right; I'm saying this is doing it totally wrong.
posted by smoke at 8:33 PM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]
The problem aniola is that you can't pretend these statements - and these pictures - exist in a background. They have been produced in a very clear cultural context, and that context is very problematic.
1) "Taking nice photos of people who are all dressed up" is something that rich westerners have done to people from other cultures for centuries. It objectifies them, posits them as foreign - indeed alien - and otherwordly, and reduces them to museum objects for us to look at. This is further complicated by the fact that historically, images like this have been of a broader project to literally dehumanise people from other cultures, justify terrible atrocities committed upon them, and paint them as incapable of "modern life".
2) "oh hey btw they do well some things we don't and vice versa." The problem, in this case, is that the blurbs are wrong. The Maasai are not "passing away"; the Maori are not "passing away". The Maori are not necessarily closer to nature - indeed they are highly urbanised. The Maasai do not, necessarily, live in harmony with their environment - they contribute/d to the plummeting population of Lions in Kenya and Northern Tanzania, and issues with overgrazing there. They have "gadgets" and "gizmos" - They are familiar with and own mobile phones and use them with great regularity, if they can afford a car, they drive. The Maori are not "remote" - Unless you think a city of 1.3 million people, where the majority of Maori actually live is remote.
This discourse is also one that is both currently and historically used to justify appalling conditions and lack of services for people from other cultures. It's not cool, at all.
I'm not saying you can't do this stuff right; I'm saying this is doing it totally wrong.
posted by smoke at 8:33 PM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]
Thank you Frowner and smoke for saying what I wanted to say, but much more eloquently than I would have, and with far less profanity and ad hominem attacks on the photographer. This whole thing just made me angry, mostly at his ignorance.
posted by barnacles at 8:43 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by barnacles at 8:43 PM on November 7, 2013
Smoke, we seem to be on the same page, that is, I took a class that spend a lot of time on orientalism and whatnot. And recently spent a summer in New Zealand. I agree that the photographer doesn't get that. That this isn't doing it right. I think the intent was well-meaning and uneducated. And that with some education, same photos, it could be fantastic.
This discourse is also one that is both currently and historically used to justify appalling conditions and lack of services for people from other cultures.
This is a good point and one that hadn't occurred to me.
posted by aniola at 9:08 PM on November 7, 2013
This discourse is also one that is both currently and historically used to justify appalling conditions and lack of services for people from other cultures.
This is a good point and one that hadn't occurred to me.
posted by aniola at 9:08 PM on November 7, 2013
Wow, it is so rare and precious to get this kind of glimpse into a way of life on the verge of extinction! Thanks to the Met for giving us this unique chance to witness 19th century style imperialism before it's too late.
posted by threeants at 9:54 PM on November 7, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by threeants at 9:54 PM on November 7, 2013 [8 favorites]
The Maori ones at least are just bullshit. No one in NZ has dressed that way outside the most formal ceremony for a century. Maori do not and did not live in harmony with nature as even a cursory look at extinctions and landscape change in NZ would show. And Maori culture as a distinct thing is alive and kicking and changing in response to colonisation and globalisation and is in no way on the brink of anything. Certainly my Maori contacts have been taken aback as these links do the rounds. Nice photos as photos but that's where it stops.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Damn, the project just gets stupider and more embarrassing the further into his website you read. I know a lot of negativity around artistic work on MeFi gets rightfully criticized as unnecessary snark, but this project is some serious colonialist bullshit and I'm glad that's being generally recognized here.
posted by threeants at 10:35 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by threeants at 10:35 PM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
Ah, the exoticisation of The Other. Pretty Pictures indeed. *sigh*
posted by bookbook at 1:13 AM on November 8, 2013
posted by bookbook at 1:13 AM on November 8, 2013
I think these pictures are beautiful and striking to the point of being gut-wrenching...
As for lamentations for the death of cultures... It seems like a really complicated issue to me. I guess I worry that some have a tendency to want people like this to preserve their culture even if the people in question want to abandon or modify it. I mean, the difference in technology makes things more complicated...it's a rare person who wouldn't choose 21st-century technology over stone-age technology, given the choice... These cultures are probably extremely interesting...and we don't want people dragged unwillingly out of them...but we also don't get to urge people to stay in them on the grounds that we think it's cool. "Hey, you wouldn't mind spending your life as a living museum exhibit for us, would you?" That's not cool...
There's a weird, weird tendency for some people to think that cultures are magic, or that they matter more than individuals. But that's indefensible. We ourselves have chosen 21st-century (in my case) American culture over 1970's American culture (and some have chosen it over '50's culture, etc.)... We don't lament that. We think we've, in the main, made a better choice. Nobody says "oh, the disappearance of 1970's culture is such a tragedy..." Nobody hopes a group of people will stick with it so that that culture doesn't die out... (Of course, there's a huge difference in degree in the cases...)
I guess the point is that one neither wants to pressure people to abandon their culture, nor pressure them to keep it... (Well, too simple... If some given culture is brutal, then persuading people to abandon it is sensible...and if it's awesome, then encouraging them to keep it would be sensible... But this is all radically simplified anyway...)
posted by Fists O'Fury at 5:57 AM on November 8, 2013
As for lamentations for the death of cultures... It seems like a really complicated issue to me. I guess I worry that some have a tendency to want people like this to preserve their culture even if the people in question want to abandon or modify it. I mean, the difference in technology makes things more complicated...it's a rare person who wouldn't choose 21st-century technology over stone-age technology, given the choice... These cultures are probably extremely interesting...and we don't want people dragged unwillingly out of them...but we also don't get to urge people to stay in them on the grounds that we think it's cool. "Hey, you wouldn't mind spending your life as a living museum exhibit for us, would you?" That's not cool...
There's a weird, weird tendency for some people to think that cultures are magic, or that they matter more than individuals. But that's indefensible. We ourselves have chosen 21st-century (in my case) American culture over 1970's American culture (and some have chosen it over '50's culture, etc.)... We don't lament that. We think we've, in the main, made a better choice. Nobody says "oh, the disappearance of 1970's culture is such a tragedy..." Nobody hopes a group of people will stick with it so that that culture doesn't die out... (Of course, there's a huge difference in degree in the cases...)
I guess the point is that one neither wants to pressure people to abandon their culture, nor pressure them to keep it... (Well, too simple... If some given culture is brutal, then persuading people to abandon it is sensible...and if it's awesome, then encouraging them to keep it would be sensible... But this is all radically simplified anyway...)
posted by Fists O'Fury at 5:57 AM on November 8, 2013
I elected not to try to solve any problems and just enjoyed the pictures.
posted by lstanley at 6:13 AM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by lstanley at 6:13 AM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
There's plenty of people who want to preserve the '50s culture. They keep on electing people to congress to try to get back to the good ol' 1950s business of oppressing women.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 9:37 AM on November 8, 2013
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 9:37 AM on November 8, 2013
The ever-erudite Scott Hamilton.
--
Sometime in the late nineties I went to a seminar given by the University of Auckland art historian Dr Rangihiroa Panoho. I remember Panoho turning off the lights in the seminar room and flicking through a series of slides. One of the slides showed a tribesman from the highlands of New Guinea dressed up for some sort of ritual. The man had painted his face and torso, but what interested Panoho’s audience was the empty packet of Kellog’s Corn Flakes that he had fastened to his forehead. The tribesman wore his unconventional headdress solemnly, but some members of the audience began to titter, and others winced.
“I think this next image is just as funny” Panoho told us. He punched a button, and a carved wooden face mask, painted in an intricate pattern of reds, blacks, and greys, appeared on the screen. “This mask was made for a particular ceremony in the highlands, and then thrown away. An anthropologist salvaged the mask, and a museum acquired it. Now the shield is on public display in the West.” The audience was silent. “Why aren’t you laughing?” Panoho asked, in a low voice.
Panoho’s audience had found it amusing and pitiable that a New Guinea tribesman would salvage and revere an empty corn flake packet. When a Western scholar did the same thing with an item New Guineans considered disposable, though, nobody regarded his action as peculiar. As Panoho went on to explain, this double standard says a great deal about the way that Westerners still see the indigenous peoples of ‘remote’ regions like the New Guinea highlands.
In the West we are accustomed to consuming a continuous stream of cultural artefacts imported from near and distant parts of the world. We watch movies from Hollywood or Bollywood, wear jeans made in China, sit on furniture assembled in Scandinavia, and collect masks from New Guinea, without feeling that our eclecticism is strange or dangerous. But when a New Guinean or Amazonian or Tahitian shows a similar eclecticism, by donning blue jeans or acquiring a cellphone, we lament the way that modernity and globalisation are corrupting indigenous cultures. Like oil and water, modernity and indigenity cannot, we assume, mix.
As Rangihiroa Panoho pointed out in that now-distant seminar, our patronising attitude towards indigenous peoples was born in the eighteenth century, when Rousseau and other European intellectuals concocted the notion of the noble savage. Newly ‘discovered’ indigenous peoples like the Polynesians and the native Americans were considered child-like in their innocence, ignorance, and capacity for corruption. Untroubled by abstract thought or a sense of time, the noble savages lived happily and in harmony with nature in the forests and glades of Virginia and Tahiti. Once they were introduced to curses of the West like Christianity, cash, alcohol, and politics, though, the savages were doomed to decline and extinction.
In the nineteenth century Pacific, the noble savage myth was a useful excuse for colonisers. Because they were incapable of dealing with the modern world, the noble savages required Europeans and North Americans to administer their affairs. The fanatically imperialist leader of fin de siècle New Zealand, ‘King Dick’ Seddon, compared the Urewera mountains, homeland of the ‘primitive’ Tuhoe tribe, to a wildlife preserve. Wilhelm Solf, the chief administrator of German Samoa, used similar metaphors to characterise his domain.
I thought about Rangihiroa Panoho’s slide show when I read an advertisement for a hefty new book by the photographer Jimmy Nelson. In Before They Pass Away, Nelson has collected images of a series of indigenous peoples who are supposedly on the brink of extinction. Nelson doesn’t seem to register the fact that many of these peoples have large and growing populations, and that some of them, like the Kazakhs, have their own nation states. For Nelson, ‘tribes’ like the Maori, the Kazakhs, and the New Guineans are doomed because their members are increasingly wearing jeans and chatting on cellphones.
When he talks about tribal cultures succumbing to the onslaught of modernity, Nelson repeats for the umpteenth time the view that indigenous peoples are noble savages whose way of life is both static and incompatible with modernity.
Any New Zealander who looks at one of the portraits of Maori included in Nelson’s book will immediately recognise the absurdity of the photographer’s project. Like a Victorian-era painter, Nelson has dressed Maori up in 'traditional costumes' and portrayed them in front of a pristine piece of forest. Looking at Nelson’s photograph, we would never guess that Maori drive cars, earn cash, run political parties, record hip hop albums in their native language, and generally inhabit the world of the twenty-first century.
The unmistakable implication of Nelson’s photograph is that the only authentic Maori culture is a 'primeval' pre-contact culture. It has been half a century now since New Zealand artists and museologists realised that Maori culture, like virtually all indigenous cultures, is dynamic and ever-changing, and capable of adapting to assimilating aspects of Western modernity without losing its essence. Maori culture is in no danger of vanishing, and I suspect the same is true is for the other cultures (mis)represented by Nelson.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2013 [13 favorites]
--
Sometime in the late nineties I went to a seminar given by the University of Auckland art historian Dr Rangihiroa Panoho. I remember Panoho turning off the lights in the seminar room and flicking through a series of slides. One of the slides showed a tribesman from the highlands of New Guinea dressed up for some sort of ritual. The man had painted his face and torso, but what interested Panoho’s audience was the empty packet of Kellog’s Corn Flakes that he had fastened to his forehead. The tribesman wore his unconventional headdress solemnly, but some members of the audience began to titter, and others winced.
“I think this next image is just as funny” Panoho told us. He punched a button, and a carved wooden face mask, painted in an intricate pattern of reds, blacks, and greys, appeared on the screen. “This mask was made for a particular ceremony in the highlands, and then thrown away. An anthropologist salvaged the mask, and a museum acquired it. Now the shield is on public display in the West.” The audience was silent. “Why aren’t you laughing?” Panoho asked, in a low voice.
Panoho’s audience had found it amusing and pitiable that a New Guinea tribesman would salvage and revere an empty corn flake packet. When a Western scholar did the same thing with an item New Guineans considered disposable, though, nobody regarded his action as peculiar. As Panoho went on to explain, this double standard says a great deal about the way that Westerners still see the indigenous peoples of ‘remote’ regions like the New Guinea highlands.
In the West we are accustomed to consuming a continuous stream of cultural artefacts imported from near and distant parts of the world. We watch movies from Hollywood or Bollywood, wear jeans made in China, sit on furniture assembled in Scandinavia, and collect masks from New Guinea, without feeling that our eclecticism is strange or dangerous. But when a New Guinean or Amazonian or Tahitian shows a similar eclecticism, by donning blue jeans or acquiring a cellphone, we lament the way that modernity and globalisation are corrupting indigenous cultures. Like oil and water, modernity and indigenity cannot, we assume, mix.
As Rangihiroa Panoho pointed out in that now-distant seminar, our patronising attitude towards indigenous peoples was born in the eighteenth century, when Rousseau and other European intellectuals concocted the notion of the noble savage. Newly ‘discovered’ indigenous peoples like the Polynesians and the native Americans were considered child-like in their innocence, ignorance, and capacity for corruption. Untroubled by abstract thought or a sense of time, the noble savages lived happily and in harmony with nature in the forests and glades of Virginia and Tahiti. Once they were introduced to curses of the West like Christianity, cash, alcohol, and politics, though, the savages were doomed to decline and extinction.
In the nineteenth century Pacific, the noble savage myth was a useful excuse for colonisers. Because they were incapable of dealing with the modern world, the noble savages required Europeans and North Americans to administer their affairs. The fanatically imperialist leader of fin de siècle New Zealand, ‘King Dick’ Seddon, compared the Urewera mountains, homeland of the ‘primitive’ Tuhoe tribe, to a wildlife preserve. Wilhelm Solf, the chief administrator of German Samoa, used similar metaphors to characterise his domain.
I thought about Rangihiroa Panoho’s slide show when I read an advertisement for a hefty new book by the photographer Jimmy Nelson. In Before They Pass Away, Nelson has collected images of a series of indigenous peoples who are supposedly on the brink of extinction. Nelson doesn’t seem to register the fact that many of these peoples have large and growing populations, and that some of them, like the Kazakhs, have their own nation states. For Nelson, ‘tribes’ like the Maori, the Kazakhs, and the New Guineans are doomed because their members are increasingly wearing jeans and chatting on cellphones.
When he talks about tribal cultures succumbing to the onslaught of modernity, Nelson repeats for the umpteenth time the view that indigenous peoples are noble savages whose way of life is both static and incompatible with modernity.
Any New Zealander who looks at one of the portraits of Maori included in Nelson’s book will immediately recognise the absurdity of the photographer’s project. Like a Victorian-era painter, Nelson has dressed Maori up in 'traditional costumes' and portrayed them in front of a pristine piece of forest. Looking at Nelson’s photograph, we would never guess that Maori drive cars, earn cash, run political parties, record hip hop albums in their native language, and generally inhabit the world of the twenty-first century.
The unmistakable implication of Nelson’s photograph is that the only authentic Maori culture is a 'primeval' pre-contact culture. It has been half a century now since New Zealand artists and museologists realised that Maori culture, like virtually all indigenous cultures, is dynamic and ever-changing, and capable of adapting to assimilating aspects of Western modernity without losing its essence. Maori culture is in no danger of vanishing, and I suspect the same is true is for the other cultures (mis)represented by Nelson.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:48 PM on November 8, 2013 [13 favorites]
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posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2013