foam summer 2010/#23 international photography magazine M

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o
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international
photography
magazine
summer 2010/#23
M o h a m e d
Takashi
Bourouissa
H o m m a
Nontsikelelo
J H
E n g s t r ö m
O t t o
S n o e k
Bertrand
Reinier
Joel
Veleko
Fleuret
Gerritsen
Sternfeld
foam magazine #23 / city life
editorial
E d i t o r i a l
Marloes Krijnen, director Foam_Fotografiemuseum
Amsterdam
On Saturday 1 May the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai opened its doors
to the public. With over 190 countries participating, more than fifty in­
ternational organizations signing up to take part and a festival terrain
measuring some 5.3 square kilometres, this World Expo is the biggest
and broadest ever by a considerable margin. The chosen theme, 'Better
City, Better Life', underlines Shanghai's recently acquired status as the
'newest and most important major world city'. At the same time it indi­
cates that the Chinese government, instead of watching the rapidly
advancing global process of urbanization with alarm, experiences it as
a challenge to create a better life. This contrasts with the attitude in
many Western countries, where urbanization and the recent emergence
of megacities tend to be regarded as developments that have brought
many unforeseen problems with them.
The contemporary life of the city-dweller is central to this issue of
Foam Magazine. What characterizes city life in the early years of the new
century? How do people live, work and spend their leisure time? How
does the individual relate to the often overwhelming scale of the every­
day environment? What are the social processes at work in our cities
and what kind of relationships do we have with one another? These are
big questions, and the editors certainly don't pretend to come to any
final judgements. We do believe, however, that the eight portfolios we
have brought together under the title 'City Life' not only throw a revealing
light on facets of the life of the city-dweller but show how a number of
very different photographers find inspiration in city life. We are excep­
tionally pleased to be able to present in this issue new, previously
unpublished work by JH Engstrom and Joel Sternfeld, along with a spe­
cially compiled portfolio of recent work by the French photographer
Bertrand Fleuret. The portraits by young South African photographer
Nontsikelelo Veleko demonstrate convincingly that fashionable, selfconscious young people with a strong sense of style and fashion are no
longer confined to Western cities. Mohamed Bourouissa focuses his
camera on the complex and thoroughly distinctive social dynamic that
exists between young people in the suburbs of French cities. Dutch
photographer Otto Snoek presents a quite different reality, that of visitors
drawn to a new phenomenon, the Millionaire Fair. The unification of
Europe has been a source of inspiration for Reinier Gerritsen, who has
recorded groups of residents packed tightly together in the streets of
European capital cities. Finally, Takashi Homma captures the life of his
young daughter, set against the backdrop of Tokyo.
You will probably have noticed that this issue is accompanied by a
special supplement. In connection with World Expo 2010, Foam Magazine
has entered into an extraordinary collaboration with Outlook Magazine
in China. Outlook is China's most important lifestyle magazine, and it is
highly influential in the lives of Chinese people for whom creativity, art
and culture, fashion and design, along with individuality, authenticity
and originality are important values. Since its founding in 2002, Outlook
Magazine has won several national and international prizes. In this col­
laborative supplement, two photographers - one Dutch, one Chinese each present a vision of life in Shanghai. The result is a photographic
duet in which two outlooks and two cultures, taken together, offer a
unique picture of this intriguing metropolis. The Dutch photographer is
Jaap Scheeren and the Chinese photographer is Qing Tou Yi. Their work
13
is utterly different but complementary, and together they provide a pic­
ture that does justice to the diversity and contrasts of contemporary
Shanghai. The supplement will be included with the June issue of
Outlook Magazine and distributed widely in China.
Finally we should mention that we are particularly proud of the
wide-ranging interview with Raymond Depardon by Michel Guerrin in
which, naturally, attention is also paid to the consequences of advancing
urbanization.
+
foam magazine #23 / city life
contents
C o n t e n t s
On My Mind
Pages 16-21
images selected by
Tim Barber ~ Roger Ballen ~ Devika Daulet Singh ~
Hripsimé Visser ~ Michal Chelbin - Doug Rickard
Interview
Pages 22-26
Raymond Depardon: under the spell of the city.
by Michel Guerrin
City
M o h a m e d Bourouissa
~ Peripheries
35-54
Peripheries focuses on the suburbs of Paris. Bourouissa
quickly gained recognition for his filmic photographs
- carefully staged studies of the tension and power
relations afflicting young people in the suburbs.
Life:
Theme introduction
Pages 27-34
Whose City?
By Marcel Feil
Portfolio overview
Pages 35-54
Mohamed Bourouissa ~ Périphéries
Text by Val Williams
Pages 55-74
Takashi Homma ~ Tokyo and My Daughter
Text by Marc Feustel
Pages 75-94
Nontsikelelo Veleko ~ Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
Text by Mark Sealy
Pages 95-114
JH Engström ~ La Résidence
Text by Nan Goldin
Pages 115-134
Otto Snoek ~ Millionaire
Text by Aaron Schuman
Pages 135-154
Bertrand Fleuret ~ Landmasses and Railways
Text by Adam Bell
Pages 155-174
Reinier Gerritsen ~ The Europeans
Text by Jörg Colberg
Pages 175-194
Joel Sternfeld ~ iDubai
Text by Chris Wiley
Photobooks
Pages 196-199
Texts by Sebastian Hau
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Exhibition programme
Pages 203-216
Inez van Lamsweerde &f Vinoodh Matadin
~ Pretty Much Everything Photographs 1985-2010
Takashi H o m m a
~ Tokyo and my
55-74
Daughter
With Tokyo and my Daughter, Homma interweaves
pictures of his studio, his dog and of himself with frag­
ments of a young girl's life in the city.
Nontsikelelo Veleko
~ Beauty is in the Eye of the
75-94
Beholder
In the last couple of years Veleko has been attracting a
great deal of attention with her striking work entitled
Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder, a depiction of South
African street style. Defying the clichés of what life can be
like in South Africa, Veleko captures young people dressed
in unique outfits, often with handmade elements.
JH Engström
~ La Résidence
95-114
115-134
Snoek has lately been focusing on the identity of
European citizens. For the series Millionaire, he has been
travelling to millionaire fairs around Europe, catching the
very peculiar and tense atmosphere of these parties.
B e r t r a n d Fleuret
~ Landmasses
and
135-154
Railways
Landmasses and Railways is a fictional journey with­
out text through a retro-futuristic city with medieval
elements, inspired bythe visual world of Tarkovsky, Chris
Marker and the atmosphere of the novels of Kafka.
15
155-174
In 2005 Gerritsen began his long-term project The
Europeans, travelling in 25 European countries, observing
and photographing the anonymous masses on the
streets.
During two separate stays in Brussels, the Swedish
photographer JH Engstrom captured the inhabitants, the
loneliness and the special atmosphere of the city.
Otto Snoek
~ Millionaire
Reinier Gerritsen
~ The
Europeans
Joel Sternfeld
~ iDubai
175-194
iDubai investigates consumerism and capitalism plus the
theoretical implications of the proliferation of mobile
phone cameras around the globe. In Dubai, Joel Sternfeld
used his iPhone camera to get beyond mass-media
images of the Emirate.