I have just finished writing my dissertation, and it has really struck me and made me consider a lot of things. I really want to respond to this through my practical project. I hope that my dissertation and practical work will sit alongside each other and sort of answer one another.
In my dissertation I talked about and researched how African children are portrayed and stereotyped through the media in the Western world. To be honest, the whole thing really touched a nerve with me and just got me so wound up. I think this is a good thing though, because now I want to react to it, and I want to do something to change it. I think that because I have been to Africa twice now, I have really made a connection to the place and the children. Seeing the same people both times I went, I feel like they are my friends now and naturally when you hear or read something bad about your friend it gets your back up and you want to defend them.
Well.. this is how I feel and through my images I want to do them justice, I want to show the children in a way that is truthful, but also makes people not feel sorry for them, I don't want somebody to look at my images and say 'aww, poor children.' I want them to say 'wow those children are beautiful.' Am I making sense?
I just feel so passionate about this and I want to get it across visually.
The children are happy, they may not have the things that we have but their okay with that because they don't know any difference. Well they didn't until Westerners started visiting and showing them difference and making them feel like they are being felt sorry for. The children play with what they have available to play with, we might not find it safe.. but is that because our government has put in place so many health and safety regulations that we are scared to do anything at all.. they don't have health and safety officers breathing down their necks on everything. They're food might not be 5* but they don't need it to be, they are happy just having some food to eat.. whatever it might be. Whilst out there, I never heard a single child moan about the food that they were given to eat, or about what they were wearing because they just were so thankful and grateful to have what they do have. Again, they don't know any different. They all live in close-knit villages where everything is shared and they pretty much are one family. It is not like their friend has something and they can get jealous, no, they all share everything. And they all live in the same conditions so no house is bigger or better than another, they are just the same. To be honest, pretty much identical - because they are literally just shells - 4 walls, a floor and a roof. That's it - oh and a blanket on the floor to lay on when it's bed time.
It's a totally different way of life, but that doesn't make it wrong. The standards of living are just, different!
I want to show this in my work... the only difference visually between my images of Gambian children, compared with a project of British school children.. is that the children in my photographs are Gambian and live in Africa.
