9.24.2011

PIETER HUGO: Permanent Error

Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Untitled, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Abdulai Yahaya, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

David Akore, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2010
Photograph © Pieter Hugo, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NY
and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Pieter Hugo Photographs | Permanent Error
Yossi Milo Gallery
to October 29, 2011


"Pieter Hugo’s new series, Permanent Error, depicts Agbogbloshie, a massive dump site for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, and the locals who burn down the components to extract bits of copper, brass, aluminum and zinc for resale. Tons of outdated and broken computers, computer games, mobile phones and other e-waste are shipped to the area as “donations” from the West, under the guise of providing technology to developing countries. Rather than helping to bridge the digital divide, the equipment is transformed into noxious trash threatening the health of the area’s inhabitants and contaminating the water and soil.

Gray plumes of smoke rise from smoldering piles of disassembled monitors, motherboards and wiring, providing an apocalyptic backdrop for Hugo’s portraits of the workers. The subjects, many of whom are young men sent by their families from impoverished outlying villages, are photographed full-figure and directly engaged with Hugo’s medium-format camera. With each portrait, Hugo draws the viewer into the conditions imposed on this slum community and their effects on individuals. Collectively, the photographs expose consequences of the West’s consumption of ever-new technology and its disposal of outmoded products in poor countries ill-equipped to recycle them." –Yossi Milo Gallery

7 comments:

Bruce Barone said...

Powerful!!!

Nezzy (Cow Patty Surprise) said...

WoW!!! There's just something about the faces in those wonderful pictures that truly tugs at my heartstrings.

God bless and have a most fantastic fall weekend sweetie!!! :o)

Pierre BOYER said...

Une grande intensité dans ces images...

Pierre
http://pierre-boyer.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

Our species is in a muddle. Important pictures. Thank you

miami beach condos said...

Really this is very nice collection..these all pics is looking very nice..beautiful post..thanks for sharing here..

Dan Gliubizzi said...

This is one the things that photography does the best! It can just shots me between the eyes with images that my mind cannot escape! On these photos subject, most mornings I wake with a brief blessing that I have been born into different circumstance... and what will I do with this day I have been given.

Laurent said...

Could not be more important, right out of Conrad.