Copyright Fazal Sheikh, “Minal Sleeping” from the project Ladli

Fazal Sheikh is an artist and activist based in Zurich, Switzerland. His work has been widely exhibited, in institutions ranging from the Tate Modern to the Princeton University Art Museum to small huts in rural India. He has collaborated with numerous foundations and non-governmental-organizations, and he has won, among many other awards, a MacArthur Prize.

I asked him to do an interview with the PhotoPhilanthropy blog because he approaches collaboration, strategic partnerships and accessibility in a way that I find very inspiring.

I began our interview by asking how Fazal made his way to photography. He told me about his transition from ceramics to photography, and about how he figured out what to focus on while doing a Fulbright project in Kenya. He was there at a time when a huge number of people were fleeing Somalia and Sudan and seeking refuge in Kenya. So he traveled to the refugee camps, in the north.

FS: It seemed such an obvious thing to do, this simple act, but others had not approached the elders of the community, to ask for their willingness and permission. So I realized that was a very simple and direct way to begin working.

To visit a place, with an extreme vulnerability—which you have when you arrive in such a situation…I felt that I didn’t quite know how to render it. In fact I felt very intimidated about the idea of even beginning to photograph.

I traveled that first time with journalists and photojournalists—they weren’t inhibited at all about beginning to work and move through the camp and make these images. And I think that was not my sensibility. I was fearful of the idea of trespass.

And over the years, since then—that was in the early 90’s—I’ve started to realize that this fear that you have when you first arrive in a place is a good thing. Because although you may not know how to render the place, you’re also open to what it has to offer you.

And in that regard, the act of collaboration is kind of essential, because if there is any strength in the work I think it’s largely borne of what the people have given to this process.  They have said, look, this is the thing that’s interesting about our community. You may have read such and such, but we feel that this story of this person is important. Or, we’ve got this problem that nobody’s talking about.

EG: How does the way you make a picture relate to your goals as an activist and as an artist?

Well, I’m not very grand in terms of declaring that I’m going to single-handedly change any given issue. I think that kind of heroism is a bit overvalued. I think the best that we can do is begin to nurture a conversation.

And so your priorities when you’re making an image come through very clearly in the images that are produced. I’m very careful about the nature of trespass and I’ve opted for very formal portraits in the notion that it gives the person the chance to confront the camera: to confront me and by extension, the viewer.

And I think that, for me, that has value because it kind of levels the playing field.

You may have images that are made in a more photojournalistic realm, which do garner funds for these aid organizations, and I think they probably do that very effectively, probably much more effectively than do mine.

But, having said that, I think that it’s important to expand the vocabulary. Because the notion of just giving money to something to assuage your guilt is a kind of hierarchical relationship, wherein I as the giver am always above the person who is the recipient of those funds. And I never have the notion that I could be in that position, so I don’t adjust my behavior in the world to keep that from happening in the future.

But I think that’s a subtler and perhaps more complicated interpretation of what making images means. I wouldn’t like to dismiss those other kinds of images, I’m just not particularly comfortable making them myself.

And I can’t get away from work that is in sync with my own sensibilities. If you spend all this time in remote places, you’d like to be making work that you can live with, that you can stand by.

In the war photographer or photojournalist there’s always this degree of heroism. And I think there’s not much that’s heroic about going to a place to live for a month amidst people who live there for decades. You know. That’s heroism.

I think that the best thing you can do is just be receptive to what people have to tell you; be a kind of a vehicle—not a grand vehicle, but just somebody [who can] go and respectfully listen.

EG: I want to ask you about the Human Rights series. It seems to me from watching you over the last few years that your partnerships have become more sophisticated and complex.

FS: I hope I’ve become a little more sophisticated!

Initially, I think it was around the year 2000, I was a little bit unsettled by the idea that, in Afghanistan, I made a book that cost, I don’t know, 60 or 80 dollars, far beyond the reach of affordability for someone who was in the book. And I thought, well, wouldn’t it be interesting to try and make work that would be a little bit more accessible, and disseminate it, distribute it in a more democratic fashion?

So, although I continue to do the books, I also try to engage projects which allow that information to be filtered out, usually free of charge, and sometimes even going to people who don’t expect to be receiving the material.

EG: How do you do that?

FS: Well there are many different ways and I’m not always sure how successful they are. Some are more politically motivated: I did a piece called Ramadan Moon, which I did in the Netherlands, wherein we distributed I think 1,000 copies of that book. They were mainly distributed to politicians, lawmakers, the media, and governmental officials in the Netherlands, because it was about a kind of impropriety in their handling of immigrant cases.

But more recently, for instance…with the two Indian volumes [Moksha and Ladli]…we produced a series of posters, with the Open Society Institute—the Soros Foundation—to be distributed to 1,000 institutions in India. Women’s rights groups, universities, places that could house a set of posters and then mount an exhibition if they so chose, and then the posters would also remain in whatever archive was receiving them.

Again the idea was that you could make something free and accessible and in this case very political because it traversed the region from early life through old age and what it means for women in contemporary Indian society.

These are all experiments, but some of them are more effective than others. You have to accept that perhaps 30% of those that are received, people don’t really engage with, because it comes as a surprise often. But on the other hand, the poster series has had hundreds of exhibitions from it. Again, places that never would mount a proper exhibition; in rural areas, sometimes just a local hut, outside, taped up on the walls.

So to engage different facets of working: I’m happy and proud that the work is shown in museums–it also goes to university museums where you can engage with students. But having said that, it’s nice to imagine that people can look at the books on the internet or they can see a poster exhibition in rural India.

EG: How do you deal with giving people copies of pictures?

FS: It depends on the project. In the early projects I worked on I used Polaroid film, and these were people, generally speaking, who had never been photographed before, so the act of this collaboration and formal portraiture was well-orchestrated in the camps.

And then I would take the books back. And on several occasions I’ve used the books, years later, as a means by which to try and trace people, for instance in the Somali camps. And then more recently, let’s say in Vrindavan, which is the city of the widows, going back and forth. I mean I was revisiting the same people over the course of a couple of years, so I would either give them pictures then, or come back with pictures, or send the book when it was finished.

It’s important, wherever possible, to make somebody understand what the act of documenting really means. When you ask somebody for their permission, do they understand what it means if they are from a really rural area, that their image is going to be in a book or in an exhibition or some such thing?

And on occasion I’ve failed in that regard, because they are giving their testimony as a kind of catharsis and expecting it, in a way, to be brought forward, because they were claiming their story. I’m thinking more of the Somali images, one component of which were these voices of women who had been assaulted.

And I was concerned at the time that somebody would be reduced to that one moment of trauma in their lives, and so I didn’t publish them, and only published them years later when I did the second book. It was called A Camel for the Son and was about, essentially, a decade of life on the borders. And then I realized, in fact, if somebody has been strong enough to endure and to overcome such trauma, maybe it’s important to honor that, you know? And that I had in some way erred in not publishing their stories.

There are times when someone offers a poignant story and you have to be sensitive to when it’s appropriate to bring it forward, and you also have to be aware of where your own inhibitions or inabilities lie. As much as possible.

EG: I was looking at A Camel for the Son and noticing that you’ve had it translated into Somali. And has that made a difference? Has that changed the way you’ve been able to interact with the subjects and with other people afterwards?

FS: That’s hard for me to really judge. It was, for me, essential that it be in the language that they could also access; even on the internet it’s in their language. And I try to do that. I tried to do that also later, in the Indian volumes. Again to make things accessible.

In general it’s very difficult to mark a tangible impact of these things.

But I think that’s not so important. I think the best thing you can do is to put your work out there in a respectful manner, and, of course, hope that you’re not working in a vacuum. Which, I mean, I guess I’m confident enough to say I don’t think I’m working in a vacuum, but I also don’t want to declare that this work is certainly going to impact the situation in a certain way.

EG: How have you selected your projects?

FS: The early projects were very much based upon this dual narrative: one was the document of the place and the people, and the other was a kind of exploration of my own heritage, whether it was in Kenya with the legacy of my father; or, after working on that for several years, I went to work on the piece about Afghanistan, which was also exploring the legacy left me by my grandfather, my namesake.

And after that I think I’ve been drawn to things that are related to me in a more subtle way; sometimes an emotional, psychological resonance. Particularly issues which are not given a great deal of attention by others.

I think if you’re going to spend so much time and emotion dedicated to something, you want it to be something you really care about and something that hasn’t been attended to in a way you think might be useful.

So, for instance, the ones that, at the outset, you might say are less directly linked to me and my history would be Moksha, right? Which is a story about a town to which widows migrate when they lose their husbands.

But for me this was interesting as a challenge, because I wanted to make a piece that, when one looked at it, you’d imagine that it could only have been made by a woman. So not only to forge bonds across a religious, cultural, social divide, but also even to reach across gender. To explore the idea that maybe it’s possible to make a piece…in which you can meet somebody on a human level that transcends your gender divisions.

And I think a lot of the emotional tone of that book is very much in sync with some of my internal history, which is less readily described.

EG: How did you find out about the widows?

FS: This was sort of unusual for my working process, but I had read a small piece many years ago about this place to which widows were migrating, and I just thought it was kind of fascinating as an idea: the notion of exile, solace, hope all mingled together.

And so I determined to make one trip to visit the community. And, as in most of my projects, I never know if there’s going to be a means by which to make something. But I think that it’s worthwhile just going at first to see, and to explore whether you feel comfortable there.

It was the same thing as going to the African camps, in a way. You go with this extraordinary interest but also with this vulnerability of not being sure if you can do anything. And like I said—I don’t know if I said that clearly enough—but that moment of being really vulnerable has a great value, because it implies an openness.

It’s a moment of dread and fear for me each time.

But almost every project that I’ve worked on, I’ve had that feeling wherein you’re confronted with things that are new, that you don’t understand, that are at times intimidating. But though you are vulnerable and even on the defensive, you’re more malleable. You carry some of your priorities forward and they meet what the place has to tell you.

Fazal Sheikh’s upcoming projects involve a mid-career survey of his portraits and the final installment of his trilogy of books based upon India. Loosely speaking, he says, that volume is about heaven.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

I loved it because Mr. Landesman his colleagues talk about the connection between art, building community and economic development. Those things ARE connected, and it’s always crazy to me when I hear arguments suggesting they aren’t.

I’ve seen first hand, in a variety of situations, how art transforms and strengthens communities.

When I lived in Phoenix, I was lucky enough to meet two artists, community builders and entrepreneurs named Cindy Dach and Greg Esser. They have been instrumental in the metamorphosis of downtown Phoenix from dusty, empty lots and ramshackle structures to a vibrant arts district over the past decade. They have done this through a series of projects, both large and small. They’ve renovated an historic house, which they live in and rent out for events. They started an artist co-op gallery. They started an awesome store that sells beguiling artisan-made stuff. They started a nonprofit organization to advocate for and support the businesses in the neighborhood. They helped start a First Friday arts walk that now draws thousands of people each month. They’ve worked for and with the local government to create policies that support artists and encourage them to work in the community. And they’ve built a network of relationships with other community advocates, entrepreneurs and artists. Art, life, work, economic development, and community building are all intertwined in their lives. None exists without the others.

This is what local art looks like. This is what local art can accomplish. This is what the National Endowment for the Arts is talking about when they refer to art creating jobs, art building community, art revitalizing neighborhoods, art bringing people together.

Somehow, in contemporary American society, it has become fashionable to fund “science” and unfashionable to fund “art.” Science is associated with progress while art is associated with entertainment, escapism, and frippery. To toss out a fact, the National Institute of Health (NIH) “invests over $30.5 billion annually in medical research” (with an additional $10 billion at the moment, from the stimulus package), and the National Science Foundation (NSF), had a budget of $6.49 billion in FY 2009. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), by contrast, had a comparatively miniscule 2009 budget of $155 million.

I bet that doesn’t seem strange to you. I bet you think, as I have in the past, “Oh, well, science and health—those things really matter. They really help people. Art is just for fun.”

But I no longer agree. I think we over-invest in science, and we under-invest in art.

I happen to be married to someone writing a dissertation on how we invest in science, and what we expect to get out of it. He spends a lot of his time chasing bureaucrats around, and interviewing them. It’s not quite big-game-hunting, but he seems to enjoy it.

He often talks about 3 central myths that we as a society uphold about science.

1. That an investment in basic research automatically leads to progress. (It doesn’t.)
2. That technical advancement automatically leads to a better world. (It doesn’t.)
3. That the more research you do around a problem, the easier it is to solve it. (Also not true. Often, the more research you do, the more uncertain you become about how to solve it.)

(More info on this topic is available in a new handbook for policy makers.)

I would say there are three corresponding myths about art, and all together, these misconceptions about science and art lead to our wildly disproportionate financial support of them.

What are the prevalent myths about art?

1. That art is irrelevant to the general public and has nothing to do with social progress.
2. That art is merely a cost, and not a driver of economic development.
3. That art is a superfulous luxury with a personal outcome.

Cindy Dach and Greg Esser are one example that proves all these myths wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fund medical research and basic science, but I would love to see us invest a little more in art.

I would say a lot of progress comes from communication. And art is really, at its most basic level, about humans communicating with one another.

So if you’re looking to create social change through compassion, education, economic development and interpersonal understanding, then fund more art, congress. Good luck, Mr. Landesman.

P.S. If you want to hear Greg and Cindy talking about their work, here’s a short interview done in honor of their receipt of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s 2009 Contemporary Catalyst Award.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

seduced by the soft, warm breeze, Spanish mosses in gray green curtains billowing out from every tree, pink azaleas

beginning to escape from their buds into a southern spring. On the other, trash caught in grass emerging along

roadways, an oil slick circling with an eddy on an estuary, and abandoned buildings leaning into one another

between grande dames in neat brick from another century.

While the news is full of “the economy” and “health care” , I can’t help but wonder what measuring stick we use when

it comes to how we view “the other” in the world right at our door step. What can we do at our own back  door

to help someone left out of the stimulus package or who might benefit more from a kind word, shared supper, or even

just a walk in a beautiful park with fountains, flowers, and grass than one small pill?

I’m taking a moment today to find new ways to give back to the Universe for the gifts I have been given by my parents and others who showed me how to look at Nature through eyes of wonder and find peace in the smallest flower.

What   can I do today to share that flower? that beauty? to give hope to someone else?

Partially sited Lady at Stung Meanchey, Cambodia

Only after having taken this image did I start to think about how many blind people I have seen in Cambodia, especially elderly people. It’s estimated that over 120,000 people are blind in Cambodia, half of those from cataracts.Cataracts mainly affect the elderly, causing eventual blindness due to clouding of the clear lens that enables the eye to focus, it is a long term degenerative process but it can be treated.

“In a normal eye, light passes through the transparent lens to the retina,” he said. “The lens must be clear for the retina to receive a sharp image. If the lens is cloudy from a cataract, the image you see will be blurred.” Dr.Nuch Sarita

Sadly also, there are lot of people coming in their mid-20s who are blind from vitamin A deficiency, who could be refered to as being Pol Pot’s children, because they had a diet of rice gruel, totally deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and their eyes were destroyed.

“The only effective treatment for cataracts is surgery, which is recommended when cataracts begin to affect the quality of life or interfere with the ability to perform normal daily activities,” he said. “Cataract surgery is successful in about 95 percent of all cases, with improved vision.” Dr. Nuch Sarita

. ”there is a patient subsidy system in place to ensure the poorest of the poor have access to quality eye care services. Over time, as trust in the public eye health system grows, more people will use the services and enable a tiered pricing system, whereby wealthier paying patients subsidise the treatment of poorer patients”.FHF Foundation

She has inspired many young women to take up the course of marine biology including Helen Scales who has just had published “Poseidon’s Steed.” Helen Scales and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California have inspired me to write this blog and the essay I’m posting as part of it.

Dr. Earle ended her lecture is the message of hope that has been shared by Jane Goodall – that it is not too late for all the creatures who share the earth and water including ourselves. We can learn from past mistakes and inspire our children to do better in the future.

Dancers in the Ocean

The fragment of a sinuous tango undulates through me. Only the press of dozens of children surrounding me on a busy holiday weekend prevents the possibility of a duet.

“Look at the dragon, mommy!” A toddler knocks on the acrylic wall separating me from the dancer.

A swiveling yellow eye stares at me through the wall that separates water from air, fish from woman. As I stare back a strand of energy like spider’s silk connects us. He has borrowed a crown from an elfin princess. His gown is adorned with leaf-like appendages. They drift downwards. They are held aloft. They rival the beauty of any tree in the wood. These many appendages move with the currents in the water of the tank but they do not propel this faerie version of a fish through his element. He moves by fluttering tiny fins at the top of his head, beside his gills and near the end of his body. I am held in his spell.

I break my eyes away from the first leafy sea dragon that swam toward me and scan the tank for others. They blend perfectly into the kelp and sea grasses provided in their refuge. Miniature horses’ heads nod in unison. They twirl around in perfect pirouettes. I long to dance with them, to hear their music. To have gills for a few hours and become weightless. Can I somehow melt through the plastic wall and become sea dragon?

“Welcome to the Seahorse exhibit of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you wish to take pictures of the fish in the tanks, please do not use flash.”

Fish? Seahorses are fish? How can anything that fires my imagination into worlds of gods and goddesses, Poseidon’s golden chariot and lost worlds be a fish? Scientists prevail, according to a sign on the wall beside the tank. The world outside the tank crashes in. Dreams of spring-green leafy gowns and dancing sea tangos vanish like Cinderella’s coach at midnight.

I meander through the schools of crowds toward the Aquarium gift shop.

“Excuse me, do you have any leafy sea dragons?”

“Over there, ma’am.” There’s a post card, a silver pin, and a magnet with leafy sea dragon designs. Nothing sparks my interest.

“Anything else?”

“You might be interested in this book.”

“Poseidon’s Steed—The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality.” I buy it. I support the research work of the Aquarium with my purchase. I read the book from cover to cover at the hotel and then on the plane trip from California to Montana. I skip lunch. I am entertained with the myths and then, by degrees saddened by what is happening to the homes of these tiny creatures surely created by a goddess with a sense of humor. How can anyone capture, dry, grind up or eat a 1-6 inch being with the head of a horse, pouch of a kangaroo and tail of a monkey, or with a sinuous leafy green body?

I miss my new friends when I am in my home too far from the sea to hear the surf or swim among the underwater fields of grasses with them. I surf the Monterey Bay Aquarium web site and become a fan of “Herbie Hippocampus” on facebook. I learn about the creatures that share their neighborhoods—the strawberry crab who loves the sandy sea bottom near Taiwan or the Vampire squid. This animal—neither vampire nor squid—lives a half mile deep in the ocean where the light is very dim. What else is waiting to be discovered?

Will the ocean notice if all the seahorses and sea dragons are captured for home or restaurant aquariums, used in medicines, or sold in shell shops? Most likely not. But what I believe is that we are all better off just knowing there are seahorses swimming wild in the oceans. That they are absolutely important—along with tigers, chimpanzees, macaws and all other wild beings—for the sake of the health of our imaginations.

A vacation at a private guest house compound for 8 artists interested in learning about clay from a Mayan maestro whose connection to the land on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico goes back to the beginning of his people. A man in whose hands the clay takes on life and story. A vacation laid over the destruction of habitat and a determination to find out why this is happeneing and what can be done about it.

I was alternately in some kind of heaven surrounded by sun, sea, art, and singing birds–an escape from a lingering North American winter–and a vision of hell. I soaked up the sights, sounds and aromas along the Mayan  Caribbean and then came home determined to find out what can be done only to discover the enormous scope of marine debris. Trash gyres the size of Texas, statistics about the  numbers of cigarette butts and plastic water bottles collected from the world’s beaches.

I know – where have I been all this time? Landlocked. Saving wild landscapes so there is something left of the wild for tomorrow. But thousands of miles from the ocean I could surf the web of electronic communication and find out what is already being done — I discovered Oceana and The Blue  Ocean Institute. I nearly gave up in the face of information about national policies, politics, and economics. But I know better. I know that one letter can make a difference.

I printed out lists of cruise ship  companies and came across some good news. Of the 15  companies I wrote, 5 wrote back–including the Disney Corp. I discovered that there are corporations working to reduce the amount of waste and garbage extruded into the oceans every day.

And back in Mexico – in Playa del Carmen and along the route south of Tulum on the  Peninsula forming Bahia de Ascension – there are well marked recycling bins and many local citizens picking up trash.

And the bottle – the one I spin on my desk  that is there to remind me that I don’t need to drink water from a bottle? Through a series of water passageways it could end up in the ocean and stuck on a reef or in a fish’s belly. Or I can bug my city government until they pass a bottle bill. How about a deposit of 50 cents?$2.00?

Many, I understand, still live around the old dump area in Stung Meanchey. Have their lives improved or are they living even more desperate and impoverished existence ? Have those who came from Rural Cambodia returned to their former homes ? These are just some of the questions that I would like to find answers too, but, I am sure many more unanswered question will be raised during the course of my research.

From WhereTheHellIsMatt.com