Victims of Political Repression Day


from the front page of the nytimes today: A demonstrator at a rally in Moscow last week holding a photograph of Svetlana Bakhmina, an imprisoned lawyer, with a son. – Dmitry Kostyukov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


another, from daylife.comRussian political activists hold pictures of jailed ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina at a rally in Moscow on October 30, 2008. Dozens gathered to mark Victims of Political Repression Day. The holiday was originally created in the 1990’s to mark the victims of Stalin-era repressions, but has been used by activists to call for the release of those who they consider contemporary political prisoners. The sign reads: “Freedom for Svetlana Bakhmina!”. link

new artist finds

Won Ju Lim
installation in Bejing 24 seconds of silence

Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Andrea Polli

Michelle Nagai: treetheater

NY Soundmap
NYSoundmap is a container – a concept or idea to hold many types of processes and projects. The project reaches across the city’s geographic, economic, educational, cultural and racial divides. It is at once a historical record and a subjective representation of the city. It is what each user wishes it to be and it is ever growing, ever changing and totally interactive.

Neil Young

having a gift

“i got really involved in the present which is turmoil, it’s terrible…”
“being part of living with war..”
“i’m not cnn, i don’t like playing it over and over again.”
“i want to make a difference”

women’s empowerment Indonesia

Nani Zulminarni

PEKKA women head of household
(rather than term widow or single mother)
World Bank PEKKA site

I can’t stop thinking about Nani’s talk about how she started PEKKA and thinking as woman head of household. Photography is used widely as part of the program but not touted as “participatory photography” or viewing of the photos that much by outside (is it partly because they are older women?). Photography used as storytelling device since many of the women are illiterate. She also said that the majority of the women photograph positive things in their lives. Also of interest to me that even though most of the site is in English, the captions for the photos are not.

link to photo galleries on PEKKA SITE
— World Bank site refers to the photography component of PEKKA as photographing poverty and exclusion.