Magnum appear to be having some kind of pre-Christmas offensive on social media, or at least more of their posts are coming to my attention on Facebook, which through its totally mysterious algorithms which determine which posts we each see – and more unfortunately which we don’t.
FB is actually becoming more than mysterious on my computer, it also manages to crash Firefox after a few minutes or seconds whenever I access my news feed, though on the pages feed or the groups I read it seems normally stable, and I have no problems with other sites. So far I’ve had advice to clear the Firefox cache, get rid of all FB cookies and change my password, none of which have made FB behave any better.
Those of you who live or visit London may like to make your way to the The Magnum Print Room at 63 Gee Street, London, EC1V 3RS where there is an exhibition of work from the collaborative project ‘Children’s World’, alongside images from David ‘Chim’ Seymour’s series ‘Children of Europe’ continuing until 27 January 2017. Its usually open 11:00 – 16:30, Wednesday – Friday, and if I finish work early enough and am not far away I might well drop in.
Chim’s work was commissioned by UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund which had just been set up at a time of Europe’s largest refugee crisis in the years following the end of WWII. In 1947-8 he “documented their efforts to provide basic needs – food, shoes and vaccinations – to the children of Europe. His journey took him to refugee camps, schools, hospitals, residential homes, remote villages and cities, now reduced to rubble by bombing, where he recorded the impact of war and its aftermath on children.”
This work had particular resonance now, where again so many children are suffering, refugees from the war in Syria and elsewhere; as the Magnum page says, “Chim’s sympathetic and compassionate portraits led a friend to note that war was an enormous crime against children“, and it clearly still is. And our own government’s response has been so hardhearted and minimal, despite the wishes of the great majority of us.
‘Children’s World’ came from happier times and the age and thinking that inspired Steichen’s great ‘Family of Man‘ exhibition in 1955. The previous year Magnum had sent its photographers, Inge Morath, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and Elliott Erwitt and others, to photograph children in Uganda, Lapland, France, Cuba, Italy, England, Holland and the USA, and other locations for a series that was published in Holiday magazine in three parts throughout 1955 and 1956.
Another FB post led me to the article A Surreal Friendship; How Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Henri Cartier-Bresson riffed on each other’s practices ,which was a great disappointment, failing to deliver what the title promised. You get a few facts about the relationship between Man Ray and Duchamp, with 3 photographs from 1968 of the two men by
Cartier-Bresson, and another of a urinal in Duchamp’s studio, but nothing of substance about the relationship between him and the others or how it affected his work. The subject would have made an interesting article, but that remains to be written.
On a far more positive note is the publication of Europa, An Illustrated Introduction to Europe for Migrants and Refugees which is being distributed free to new arrivals. Written in four languages – Arabic, Farsi, English, and French and “created by a group of Magnum photographers and journalists who have been covering both the refugee crisis in Europe and the many contexts across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa that gave rise to these migrations” it is “intended for practical use by migrants and refugees, and as an educational tool to inform, engage, and facilitate community exchange.” You can download a free PDF of the book and organisations working with refugees can ask for free hard copies.
The idea came from Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak and the Magnum Foundation provided initial funding for Europa which has been “produced in partnership with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) in the framework of the Arab European Creative Platform, Magnum Photos, Al-liquindoi, and On The Move, with support from Magnum Foundation, the Geneviève McMillan–Reba Stewart Foundation, MDIC, the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (SPRAR), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In cooperation with Allianz Cultural Foundation.”
Finally from Magnum (at least today) is the first in a “new Photography Insiders series” , an interview with Alexia Singh who was a guest speaker at a recent workshop ‘The A-Z of Editorial Photography’ in London and is a content director and photo editor with 20 years experience in news and media.
