From "Esclavage domestique", portraits of domestic slaves, photos by Raphael Dallaporta, Imaginaid 2010
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Stories of household slaves make headlines only sporadically, such as this one 25 August 2010, where a Sri Lankan woman who had worked for one month as a maid in Saudi Arabia had 23 nails removed from her body. Her employer had tortured her before she escaped and returned home. The reality is often less dramatic, yet traumatic, within arm’s reach and a part of what on the surface is mundane daily life in cities like Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich.
Expect to see it all around you soon in Geneva, thanks to a public spaces exhibit, “Esclavage Domestique”, portraits (12 photos and 12 stories) of household slaves who have escaped, from 6-29 September.
Nogles, Arizona, March 2007 (© Chris Maluszynski/Agence Vu)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Pont de la Machine in the centre of Geneva, not far from the Mont Blanc bridge, will for the next three months offer visitors the irony of a bridge as a showcase for walls that divide humanity. “Murs”, an extraordinary exhibit of large-scale photos of barriers taken by some of the world’s top photographers, opened Monday 9 November in Geneva. The show continues to 31 January 2010. The collection of images of life on both sides of walls that were erected for political reasons are striking, particularly at night or in rainy weather when their backlighting makes them stand out from the stream of people crossing the bridge.
Pedestrians entering the footbridge from the left bank of the Rhone first see the building of the Berlin wall: the exhibit’s opening was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of its fall. Monday, before the official opening, saw a typical crowd of people crossing the bridge, some on their cell phones with thoughts elsewhere and others with their eyes on the ground, concentrating on getting from point A to point B. All were obliged to confront the artwork because the 12 lightboxes that hold 24 large format images (200cm wide) printed on tarmac are laid out in such a way that people have to zigzag across the bridge.
Raphael Dallaporta
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Raphaël Dallaporta’s landmines are things of great beauty: small, perfectly designed for the job they are meant to perform, fine colours and shapes. Elegantly photographed, simply framed, starkly displayed, they are at first sight remarkable for their esthetic value. View five and wonder at the art, view two more and shivers start to go down your spine as the realization sinks in that they have one purpose: sheer cruelty.
Dallaporta’s images are part of an effort by Switzerland and Geneva to use art and theatre to draw public attention to the deadly damage caused by landmines and cluster bombs.
