September 2003
Hi Antipodeans,
Writing on 11th September - hard to avoid at least an indirect comment given the events that have taken place in the last two years, so here goes: Introducing Shady, pronounced "Shar dee", an mate who makes very good coffee! But there´s more to him than that. His story very briefly: Born in to a Palestinian arab family in Bethlehem, he came to Germany to study eight years ago on an Israeli passport. He´s currently writing his thesis on how arabs fare in Germany (and there are a lot of them). He says the situation for them here is now clearly much more difficult - and the clichés worry him not just because everyone automatically assumes they are all muslims and therefore must be terrorists, but Germany is generally suspicious of foreigners (actually true of most european countries), despite having more immigrants than any other european country. He worries more about German government policy which insists on "assimilation", and doesn´t, or doesn´t want to, differentiate this from "integration". He´s concerned that this will lead to a loss of culture. "I don´t want to lose my culture...!, but I also love my life here. You can be yourself, and speak freely...you can feel democracy. I study, play football, work in a bar, and am happily married to a german girl, but I know I have to compromise with some things. On the problems between Israel and Palestine, "My wish is that the people just do something about forgetting the past and try to find a way to live together in peace".
It´s late, and I´m influenced by a good red wine after a hectic day/evening in the darkroom preparing for a group exhibition, so a few random notes follow: There seems to be a book emerging from my Karl Heine Canal project, which means tons of hassle and more delay. Autumn is arriving rapidly, which means I may be able to work on my recultivated ex-mining landscape/forest project...which also means I´ll be spending the next eight weeks near the Polish border (brrrr...!). Saw a few good shows recently...notable was Helmut Newton (who I´ve discovered young art school punks, who seem to have their heads up their own smelly derrieres, love to denigrate), but even more impressive is the World Press Photo competition winners show which is better this year than usual (check this out on the web if you can, and also notice who´s on the jury!) - my pick by far is the portrait of a 12 year old black girl by Brent Stirton - he´s used a classically aesthetic pose to "entrap" the viewer...then, too late to look away, the image suddenly reveals its horror; thereby taking you closer to the truth he wants you to see.
So, look!
Dean
PS. Leni Riefenstahl just died. Most Germans would prefer to forget her but the film and photography world will not forget her significance.