A group of Georgian dissidents, the Doukhobors, was founded in the 19th century. But despite their pacifist beliefs, they managed to keep their traditions alive throughout the Soviet era. However, now that many have finally returned, their heritage has almost disappeared, except for those remaining inhabitants. From 2014...
Varanasi. Was there ever a place more suited to explore an earthbound life through art? To utter this conceit is as infuriating as it is unavoidable. What can the observer of life's injustices and inherent contradictions do but play one's role to the hilt by doing it exceedingly well? Rajesh Singh not only followed his journey to this mysterious place as a young man, but he also continues to bear witness to and rail against those past inequities that have persisted for much too long through the "ancient auras" of a city that never fails to adapt to the damning present. His photographs, which he calls his "physical meditations," are nothing less than portals to a higher calling in a city known for its promise of salvation. From 2017...
Capturing the spirit and traditions of Northern Italy, Massimiliano Gaglio reveals a world rarely seen anywhere, let alone in the West. Deep in the Valle'd'Aosta in the Coumbra Freida, he gives us a glimpse of a people who still find meaning and joy in their customs and shared celebrations. From 2015...
They carry the world on their small frames: Shafik, Azgar, Jamal, Kalo, Rubel, Sonya, Roni, Liton, Poli, Ridoy, among millions in the third world, are only a handful of the endless stream of child laborers who keep the wheels and cogs of the globalized world greased, supplied, and in working order with a disposable workforce; in garbage dumps, aluminum factories, and brickfields, photographer Md Shahnewaz Khan has befriended them and dedicated himself to telling the story of their plight, whether the world wants to hear it or not.
Fallen Stars
Taking his cue from the great Persian poet Nima Yooshij, Ali Agharabi turns his journalist's eye toward a more poetic view of the world, capturing the contemplative moments that exist within nature and in the questions posed by the playful abstractions often missed in the hustle and bustle of everyday living, from the aspiring reach of a mosque's minarets to the solemnity of a cathedral to exchanges of shadow and light, snow and sand, graffiti and inner reflection at the edges of boundaries of unexplored landscapes, or where they meet clearly with sea and sky.
Getting old is never easy, but especially so in places like Romania, still caught between an obsolete Soviet influence and an impotent Western agenda. In an age of austerity and corruption, this could be the future for more and more of us. Nicoleta Gabor captures these stories, faces, and gestures with compassion and tenderness.
September 2014's cynical deal between Cambodia and Australia not only sealed the fate of 1,100 refugees but, for a price of $35 million, brought the concept of human trafficking to a whole new level, one that foreshadowed the current crisis of Syrian refugees now flooding Europe. Powerful photographs of refugees being rendered disposable by competing states.
While it is impossible to predict accurately how many people will be displaced over the next few decades, the best estimates indicate that sea-level rise alone will displace 18 million within the river delta country's borders, which will present Bangladesh with an enormous challenge for coping with the reality of simply caring for its citizens. Probal Rashid takes us there.
Crisis in Bangladesh
Photographs by Probal Rashid
Moscow: the name evokes an aura of poetic and historical connotations. A resident of the great city, photographer Nina Ai-Artyan captures its endless streets full of lingering history. The great filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein stated perhaps accurately: "Language is much closer to film than is painting." Ai-Artyan captures those ineffable moods that the great Russian writers attempted to in words. Alongside her images are the thoughts and ideas of Akhmatova, Dostoevski, Tsvetaeva, Chekhov, Berberova, and Turgenev. From 2016...
As a result of a globalizing world economy, the inter-connectedness of derivatives-driven markets, resource-defined ecologies, rigged trade agreements, and shock-and-awe speculation, the West is once again violently crashing into the East—no thanks to the Western mainstream media for having failed to stir up the dregs of rice bowls now empty of easily discarded truth. Dipu Malakar's finely-honed vision of Dhaka draws upon the joy of everyday living, the mystery, the adversity, the heartache, and the longing, the very essence of a people's life in a city they call home.
%20Adj.jpg)
One of the most persecuted people on the globe, the Rohingyas have resided in Burma for generations. Yet they are still unaccepted, even—or especially—by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of state who has consistently denied their oppression. Having migrated from Bengal in the 1600s, the Rohingya settled in Rakhine (originally Arakan), but were stranded in 1948 upon the nation's independence. Victims of human rights abuses, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, these stateless people are unable to receive basic medical care or access to education for their children, and they are increasingly vulnerable to violent attack by the Burmese military and militant Buddhists.
In the face of the New Cold War the planet's northernmost megacity thrives. Designated an "alpha city," Moscow is a crucial nexus in the global economic system; a cosmopolis that has survived a history of invasions that would give a Mongol chieftain pause, it is one of the most densely populated in Europe. Its citizens are also among the most literate on the planet. Perhaps there is something in the light along the banks of the Moskva River that explains it. The great Russian writer Anton Chekhov wrote: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me..."
A growing number of youths are spending their lives on the streets of Cambodia's cities and towns, trying to survive while desperately attempting to numb the pain of their pasts. The United Nations has estimated that as many as half a million people in Cambodia may be drug users. But rehabilitation often comes in the form of hard labor and military drills.
"As it would be for any nation struggling under the weight of government corruption, as well as the forces of encroaching globalization, "the battle between man vs. man has been compounded exponentially by nature throwing its weight into the fray. "The people of Nepal, now living in tent cities, live in fear of landslides, chronic homelessness, water and food shortages, outbreaks of disease, aftershocks or, even worse, another earthquake."
The tenth largest city on the planet, Dhaka, contains over 12 million people who not only survived a genocide a little more than a generation ago but carved out their own unique identity and independence despite the nonstop forces of globalization around them. Rivers, monsoons, protests, and, of course, salat...
When one thinks of photographers who have documented the changing faces of major cities, one usually looks westward to classic examples like Bill Brandt, Ezra Stoller, or Gabriele Basilico. But the father of them all, Eugene Atget, was more than a documentarian. A surrealist, he was determined to capture the essence of Paris before the ravages of modernization erased them. Such is the intention of Mohd Azlan in documenting Kuala Lumpur. A medical imaging specialist by day, he is also a fine art photographer and a surrealist in his own right who has transcended the useful limits of science and seeks those essences that cannot be reproduced, or reduced to mere anatomical notation or societal prognosis. From 2016...
Nicoleta Gabor's penetrating vision reveals a deft understanding of the physical world surrounding her. A civil engineer by training, she has poetically captured a Romania still laced with the apparitions of a defeated communism; unmoored from a dominant ideology, its inhabitants float through the gray light as if in a dream.
"I believe it is always necessary to remember and never forget the horrors of the Second World War. This war is important for its survivors in order to describe the darkness and the limits of those who were not capable of acceptance."
— Nicoleta Gabor
Caracas has one of the highest murder rates globally and, since 2008, continues to reel from a flagging economy that is mainly dependent on oil revenue. Venezuela is the original home of 19th-century liberator Simón Bolívar but has barely survived the policies of both Presidents Maduro and Chávez. At street level, livable standards are out of reach for far too many Caracans, and cases of violent crimes committed against ordinary people commonly remain unsolved by police. From 2017...
Cormorant Garamond
Cormorant Garamond is a classic font with a
“I have never thought of my life as divided between poetry and politics... I am a Chilean who for decades has known the misfortunes and difficulties of our national existence and who has taken part in each sorrow and joy of the people."
— Pablo Neruda
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Cormorant Garamond is a classic font with a modern twist. It's easy to read on screens of every shape and size, and perfect for long blocks of text.
©2024 The Quiet American All rights reserved
The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by The Quiet American or by the individual authors or artists and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.