Police an' Tief Adele Todd
A desire to come to terms with crime in Trinidad and Tobago is at the basis of an ambitious five year production of embroidery by Artist Adele Todd. She began by collecting the strongest images she could find from daily newspapers, beginning with a look at the police service. Her colour choice for this grouping of work was based on the grey linen shirts that officers wear. This she stitched by hand with grey threads. Ms. Todd has reprised her interest in social issues in Trinidad and Tobago, as she did in her first solo show, Hit! A visual documentation on Domestic Violence. Most gallery shows on the island focus on appealing, representational themes. Miss Todd is determined to look at her island as it is. Police an' Tief the title of this body of work is an old, common saying from colonial times. She segregates her embroideries into three more subtle tones to tell her thread stories, pale yellow for the judiciary, pale brown for the criminals and white for the victims. All threads are the same as the fabric, and occasionally she places an alternate colour from another grouping to state, criminal police or criminal lawyers. Police an' Tief has been seen in Trinidad and Tobago, the United States and Glasgow, Scotland. |
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Left Behind. Clary Estes
In the wake of China’s rapid industrialisation, many young people are moving to the city for greater opportunities, or as migrant workers to support their families back home. This phenomenon has created a generation of elderly and very young children who are left behind to live their lives in rural Chinese villages. Seen through the eyes of the Huang family, ‘Left Behind’ explores how globalisation and the exodus of young people to the city for work affects the families they have left behind. The story exposes life and death experiences and the day-to-day struggles of the Huang family and asks the question: what does it mean to be left behind? |
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My Diaspora. Clary Estes
My name is Clary Estes and I was born and raised in Central Kentucky. I recently moved from DC to Japan as part of my career in photojournalism. I have found that experiences throughout my life have informed and influenced my work in ways that I have not always realised. Recently, I have been interested in better understanding my personal identity as I continue to grow both as a journalist and as a photographer.‘Home’ is defined by Merriam-Webster as, ‘one’s place of residence’. However, after living in a city that is hundreds of miles from the people I love and the places in which I feel most comfortable, it was not hard to find that ‘home’ is much, much more than that. Therefore, during the brief asides back home, I have gone in search of what my ‘home’ really is. I then found myself looking at the pieces of a life I once lived, and that I continue to recall in my memory. |
The People's Health. Clary Estes
China is a country of haves and have-nots. In the city, people have access to good heath care in good facilities, but in the rural countryside, people have to scrape together what they can to pay-as-you-go for the most basic of services or, at times, lack-luster hospital care. As China continues to industrialize, this gap is widening and more and more people are being left behind in rural villages as their relatives move to the city. This coupled with the overall poorer state of health in rural China is contributing to a growing problem for the health of China’s very young and very elderly rural citizens. This is an ongoing photojournalistic meditation on the state of health in the rural and suburban communities of China. The state of healthcare in China’s hospitals, clinics, Chinese traditional medical shops, shaman tents, etc. is reflected onto society, in homes, on the streets and on the faces of those looking for care. In the second largest economic power, why does the rural countryside look like the third world? Who are the faces of rural China’s ever changing health care landscape? |
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Second to None. Clary Estes
In a photojournalistic presentation entitled “Second to None,” Clary Estes, shares the emotionally charged moments captured during her yearlong examination of Stanton Elementary School. Deemed a ‘turn around’ school in Washington DC’s Anacostia neighbourhood, Stanton was the second worst performing schools in the district three years ago. To remedy this problem, a very large majority of the staff was fired and replaced with new enthusiastic teachers who have worked to get the students up to grade level and turn the school around. The school has been a testing ground for the DC Scholars program, a program that is running in both DC and Philadelphia. Throughout the project it becomes more and more clear that the teachers are committed and invested in their students who are very bright and have a great deal of potential. It is not only the school that is changing; it is the surrounding community. |