Category Archives: 2011 Circle of Life gallery

Domestic violence

  By Admin | December 29, 2011 - 18:29 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Insa Cathérine Hagemann Germany

 

Domestic violence has nothing to do with love but is unfortunately a part of our social life. Ninety-five percent of all violence in relationships is perpetrated by the men and every third woman has already experienced violence in a partnership. Many times the public doesn’t see the problems because everybody knows the unwritten law that a relationship is a private matter. Women of every social class, every age and every denomination gets punched, kicked and  even raped by their partner. But almost worse than the visible traces of violence is the psychological pressure through humiliations degradations or threats. Women often stop to defend themselves and most of them get dependent. Lack of language knowledge often complicates the situation, so the police often can’t help because the partner will never be displayed. For several months I documented the work of Hannover’s police at night during police operations in cases of domestic violence.

 

Agricultural investment and land-grabbing in Ethiopia

  By Admin | December 29, 2011 - 18:23 | 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Jan Lieske Germany

Agricultural investment and land-grabbing in Ethiopia

Agricultural investors pay US$10 a year for a hectare of fertile Ethiopian land. Three million hectares, almost the size of Belgium, has been leased so far. The Minister for Agriculture confirmed on demand that international investors are here in Ethiopia to produce for the international market and their own countries. Ethiopian farmers are responsible for the national food supply. The contradiction could not be greater. The companies plant cereal crops for bio fuel production, oil palms and roses. A village resettlement programme is taking place mainly in the west of the country in the Gambella region. A so-called villagisation programme wants to resettle villages which exist in the investment areas of the companies. Of course voluntarily! UN food aid is being exploited by the government to push the farmers out of their areas. Unruly villages receive less corn than those willing to be part of the resettlement programme. Here, far from the capital, the soil is particularly cheap. Driving by car across the soil of the investors takes several hours. The landscape is dominated by burned bush land and prepared fields, adults and children plucking weeds from the soil. Daily wage, US$0.50!

 

The Sokolov family

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 16:01 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Ikuru Kuwajima Japan

In the Solitude of Polygonal Horizons the Sokolov Family have been living in an abandoned  military barracks without electricity, running water or gas for 15 years. Vitya and his wife Alyona moved to the area from Russia in about 1984 and lived normal life, raising two children, Vasya and Tanya. Many people lived relatively well around the Sary-Shagan Polygon as the Soviet government made a lot of investment there due to its status in the 1950s as a place for the development of anti-ballistic missiles. There were a lot of military personnel and a good infrastructure. There was no shortage of food and consumer goods, unlike many other Soviet cities and towns in the 1980s. The Polygon gave hope to the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. It was a front for the Soviet military at that time. However, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and hundred of thousands of people deserted the area around Sary-Shagan Polygon leaving abandoned buildings scattered on the vast empty steppe. But the Sokolov Family didn’t leave for Russia or other major cities unlike many others. Instead, they moved into the abandoned military barracks located about 15km away from their old Soviet apartment which is now in ruins. Since then they’ve been earning a living mostly by fishing in the lake by the barracks. There are only a few families living in an area. They have to travel about 30km on a bumpy desolate road to get to a shop, the main road or a city. The family now has a five-year-old grandson, Erasyl, although his father is not taking care of wither him or his mother, Tanya. The Sokolov family say they stay where they are because there’s no job and no apartment for them anywhere else in the region. This collection of the pictures is about a family who were left behind in the empty grassland which used to be the land of hope for the Soviet Union.

Shadows of the Wormwood

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:44 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Arthur Bondar Ukraine

Shadows of the Wormwood

This project is a personal discovery of my fears and the horrible things my parents frightened me with in my childhood. All of our younger generation is in some way connected with the Chernobyl tragedy because we grew up with it in our minds. I don’t remember exactly the night of the disaster because I was three years old, but I’ve been observing its consequences all my life. I remember how parents gave iodine tablets to their children to protect them from the radiation. They were afraid to let their children go out and play at the streets for a long time after the tragedy, especially if it was raining.  My first visit to the Chernobyl Zone was in April 2008. From that time on I’ve understood that the zone isn’t the dead place that’s simply fenced off. It’s more alive than many people think. Nowadays the Ukrainian government has turned the Chernobyl Zone into a massive tourist site to fill their pockets with money. Ukraine is totally bogged down in corruption. Hunters for scrap-metal cooperate with the militia who give them access to the zone for highly polluted metal. They usually come with huge lorries and take all the metal away. People who’ve suffered directly from the Chernobyl disaster have no proper financial and medical help. These facts really confused me. Every time I visit the zone I think how it can be? I’ve been photographing in the Chernobyl Zone for the last three years. Personally for me, the zone is a mystery. I wanted to show the nature and the people who live there in the villages close to the restricted zone. I tried to imagine and feel the mystical aspect of this land, where every inch is full of suffering and sorrow. Nikolay Yakushin, a priest at the Yllinskaya Church, the only working church in Chernobyl, said “If you don’t respect the zone it will definitely kill you, but if your heart is full of love and sympathy to it and the people who suffered and died here, the zone will never touch you.


Apocalypse’s Victims

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:41 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Olivier Papegnies Belgium

Apocalypse’s Victims

December 16, 1961. Some 15,000 US Army soldiers invade Vietnam and join in the fight between the North and the South. Vietnam, in state of war since 1957, is torn between the Viet-Cong faithful to the Communism and the South Vietnamese faithful to the Americans. With his approval of the deployment of the troops, President Kennedy was making bold statements about the Cold War. Operation Ranch Hand is launched, it’s purpose the spreading of agent orange, the most toxic weapon used during the war. Its aim not only the destruction of nature but of people too. During 10 years, 42 million litres of orange agent are sprayed on the Vietnamese population provoking the absolute horror the death the destruction. Forty years on and a third generation of Vietnamese is still suffering from serious genetic pathologies. Now there are plans to spray weed killer on the poppy fields of Afghanistan.

Tuberculosis

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:27 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Misha Friedman USA

Tuberculosis is still a very deadly disease, especially in the former Soviet Union. The number of patients with serious tuberculosis is growing steadily. Health organisation officials say it’s an epidemic and it’s not slowing down. More and more patients are found to have the non-treatable  form of tuberculosis, XDR (extensively drug-resistant).  Although Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia are very different, they have one thing in  common in that people are not treated properly and people aren’t aware that tuberculosis doesn’t have to be so deadly. If more time was spent on educating the population, the spread of the disease would slow right down and eventually stop. Instead, those who become sick also become stigmatised. Relatives disown them and neighbours no longer talk to them. They spend months in prison-like clinics,  where equipment is outdated and medical and nursing staff are just as poor as their patients. Many leave without finishing their treatment and many keep returning. Unemployment levels are high, and many young people spend their time taking drugs, sharing needles, having unprotected sex.  Many end up HIV positive. But they don’t die from full-blown AIDS, they die much quicker, from tuberculosis. Most of them don’t even know they’re sick until it’s too late.

Another Way

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:23 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Nazik Armenakyan Armenia

Another Way

I’ve been working on a project about the LGBT community since 2010. The LGBT community is constantly ridiculed, insulted and discriminated against by society. Discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people starts with family. Their parents, finding out that their child has another sexual orientation, begin to persecute him or her. For a long time, they attempt to ‘cure’ their children, believing them to have a psychological disorder. They throw them out of the home or completely disown them. Then, discrimination continues in other stages of life, in other situations, in education, during military service, in seeking healthcare, in entertainment and, of course, in the mass media. Transgenders are the most vulnerable and at risk group in the LGBT community in Armenia. They’re mainly gay men who‘ve been disowned by society, they can’t find work because of their appearance and many are from villages and regions outside the capital. People are more intolerant in provinces, and LGBT people are forced to either remain in the closet or leave for the city where it’s difficult to integrate into society. Being deprived of family, education and employment, many of them have chosen the easiest though most dangerous way to make money, and enter the sex trade. Of course, not all transgender people engage in sex work. Many transgender sex workers dream of having another job, a house, a family, places to socialise (transgender women in women’s clothing are prohibited from entering gay clubs). Transgender sex workers live mainly apart from their families, either alone or with a few other people.

 

Exam in school wrestling Kushti. India. Maharashtra. Kolhapur

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:18 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Alexei and Alexandra Bushov  Russia

Exam in school wrestling Kushti. India. Maharashtra. Kolhapur

Kushti is the most popular contact sport in India. During ancient times kushti enjoyed the patronage of local rulers, and all competitions took place in their presence. Fighting often continued until one of the wrestlers was dead. Time passed, manners softened and kushti is now a relatively safe sport. A kushti school is located in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Previously, they were more than a hundred, now there are just five. Boys come from all over India from the age of eight to train under strict supervision. Training includes push-ups, squat thrusts and sparring in a small pit filled with red dust and salt. During the fighting the wrestlers cover themselves in it to get a better grip. Every month, pupils are tested on their abilities to decide whether they can continue or not. Coaches are known to beat negligent students when they are lazy. We first learned about kushti during a trip to India in 2007 and came back three years later to take photographs. The kushti regime is very hard. Students get up at four in the morning and training starts at five, continuing for three or four hours. Pupils then sleep and train again for three hours in the late afternoon. Alexandra wasn‘t permitted to take photographs in the pit, and it was unusual that I was considering the sacred reputation of the sport, although both of us could work freely anywhere else at the school. Photographing in the pit was hard work as I was so close to the fighters and had to be careful not to get hurt. Fighting is accompanied by loud and rhythmic screaming, creating a powerful atmosphere. We built up a good relationship with the students and worked in several different schools to produce the finished work.

 

Uman, Rosh Hashana

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:16 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Maxim Dondyuk Ukraine

Uman, Rosh Hashana

Umahn is an ordinary Ukrainian town with the population about 90,000 people and one of the largest centres of Jewish pilgrimage outside Israel. About 20,000 pilgrims from all over the world visit to celebrate the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, and to pray at the grave of the founder of Hasidism rabbi Nahman from Breslav, who died in Umahn in 1810. Before his death rabbi Nahman swore an unusual oath. “If anyone comes to my grave, sacrifices a coin and reads 10 chosen psalms, I’ll catch his side-locks and will draw him out of the depths of Hell, regardless of what he has done before.” Every year more and more devotees of Breslav Hasidism gather at the graveside. It’s said the rabbi’s charisma was so strong, that a successor has never been chosen. Other Hasids ironically call the Breslav Hasids ‘Dead Hasids’.

TB Epidemic in Ukraine

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:13 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Maxim Dondyuk Ukraine (The winner)

TB Epidemic in Ukraine

In 1995, the World Health Organisation declared a tuberculosis epidemic in Ukraine. Over the past 16 years the situation has greatly worsened. Daily, the disease takes about 30 lives. In January 2010 I went to the Donbass region of Ukraine to photograph the story. One of the first patients I photographed had tuberculosis of the bowels. He was lying naked on a hospital bed and staring at the ceiling. A week later I was with him in the last hours of his life. He couldn’t move or talk, his body was like a skeleton covered with skin. He clutched a cross to his chest and prayed. His wife once told me about how he walked around the house with a torn stomach and intestines dragging across the floor because the ambulance refused to take her husband to the hospital. They had to call a taxi. After a while I realised this is happening all over the country and is becoming a serious national problem. Many prisons release inmates in a serious health condition not to spoil their mortality statistics. Patients with drug-resistant TB have to use public transport for medical supplies and food, and those who have no money just die in a bed. While there is a political war in Ukraine, everybody is indifferent to the tuberculosis problem.

 

About Natasha

  By Admin | December 21, 2011 - 11:06 | 2011 Circle of Life, 2011 Circle of Life gallery
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Dinara Kasimova Russia
About Natasha

The remarkable story of a courageous woman whose life has been an ordeal but who shows that however hopeless things might seem, one must always remain a person

From an interview with Natasha

What does love mean to you?

It is something we lack. It’s when you feel differently when you want to do everything. Human love is of course not eternal. Love for children is something completely different. Love for oneself is fine too when you don’t let yourself and your family be humiliated. Since I love myself I must leave a good memory after I’m gone and I must take care of the future of my children so that their children can say that there lived a strong woman.

What does suffering mean to you?

If something bad happens to me then nobody should know about it. Even about the tragedy with Lida, my daughter, people who’ve not seen me for a while got to know just recently. I got used to pain. It’s hard to be far away from the children, especially when I’m in hospital. Imagine all day long I’m locked inside the walls dropping bottles. I do nothing. It feels like not so much time is left for me and it hurts to waste this time in the hospital. And time flies by. I always feel sorry for time, especially now.