Jonas Bendiksen: The Places We Live - Hardcover

Gourevitch, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1597110671 ISBN 13: 9781597110679

Publisher: Aperture, 2008

Synopsis

The year 2008 has witnessed a major shift in the way people across the world live: For the first time in human history more people live in cities than in rural areas. This triumph of the urban, however, does not entirely represent progress, as the number of people living in urban slums--often under abject conditions--will soon exceed one billion. From 2005 to 2007 Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen documented life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Caracas, Venezuela; and Jakarta, Indonesia. His lyrical images capture the diversity of personal histories and outlooks found in these dense neighborhoods that, despite commonly held assumptions, are not simply places of poverty and misery. Of course, slum residents continuously face enormous challenges, such as the lack of health care, sanitation and electricity.
Innovatively designed with 20 double gatefold images that unfold to configure the four walls of each individual's home, The Places We Live tells the story of the denizens within with unusual humanity. Through its inventive design and experiential approach, The Places We Live brings the modern-day Dickensian reality of these individuals into sharp focus.
This volume includes an introduction by American author and journalist Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review and author of Standard Operating Procedure and We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda. An accompanying exhibition will open at the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo in the summer of 2008, and then tour worldwide.
A member of Magnum Photos, Jonas Bendiksen, born in Tønsberg, Norway in 1977, has received numerous awards, including the 2003 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography and first prize in the Pictures of the Year International Awards. His photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Geo, Newsweek and the Sunday Times Magazine, among other publications. His bestselling first book, Satellites: Photographs from the Fringes of the Former Soviet Union, was published in 2006 by Aperture. In 2007, the Paris Review received a National Magazine Award for The Places We Live.

About this title

Review:

"The stories of these individuals are told in powerful photographs with accompanying text; many are hopeful, some are not, but in all cases the images are remarkable and hard to forget." -- John Lavine --Color Magazine: For Collectors of Fine Photography

"Throughout the portfolios, living with the virus is normalized--no one is quarantined from everyday life. Family members wander in and out of frames. Romance blooms. People go for a swim in the river, work in the fields, get on with their lives, going for a check-up or rest in an AIDS ward bed with their mothers sitting nearby. Some of the subjects' loved ones test positive. The caregivers become the cared for. Better health returns. Or not. Tears fall. Or don't. The camera follows them into death, too." -- Chael Needle --a&u: America's AIDS Magazine

"Make no mistake: This is dark subject matter. Gnarled fingers grasp hospital bed rails, glassy eyes gaze over sunken cheeks, flies anoint a child's face. But if the individual images are heartrending, there's hope in their evolution. Sometimes the camera bears witness as emaciated patients put on weight and the bedridden rise to live their lives. No AIDS documentary is full of happy endings, but this one is populated by many small miracles." -- Jessanne Collins --Out Magazine

"Using images, words and video photoessays (available on the Global Fund's website, theglobalfund.org), the project brings to light the faces of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters; men, women and children; farmers, sex workers, laborers, intravenous drug users and the unemployed. Here are remote villages and bustling capital cities, tin-roof huts and sprawling family farms. And here is visible proof of the miraculous recoveries made possible by the efforts of the Global Fund--and the tragedy of those for whom the treatment isn't enough or comes too late." -- Jennifer Schiavone --Metro Source NY

"...a study of how people maintain their dignity when they have practically nothing else." -- Daryl Lang --Photo District News

"This is an illuminating yet heartbreaking look at life in the fastest-growing habitats on earth--urban slums... these photos share an uncanny sense of beauty and empathy." --American Photo

"He photographs the interiors of shanties and shacks in a brilliantly colored panoramic style that, while it reveals poverty and privation, allows the residents in each image to be owners of their space, however tenuous their existence." -- R.K. Dickson --The Bloomsbury Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Aperture
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1597110671
• ISBN 13: 9781597110679
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 196