The Streets of Mopti by risa
Michael in Mali part 1: Arrival
Michael in Mali part 2: Moto Yamaha
Michael in Mali part 3: Chez Moi
On the Niger: the first photo in the series
Somehow, this picture makes me wonder what kind of position we are being put in as a viewer by its gaze. It is aesthetically nice, but are the people happy? Does its composition somehow echo the picture-taker’s expat, researcher, neighbor perspective, or his understanding of the history and bureaucracy that have slumped and slammed themselves against this place? For some reason this picture makes me think of bureaucracy. Maybe it’s the family and the feeling of a long corridor and all the beige. But the fact that these thoughts occur to me if I keep poking at my feeling of disquiet doesn’t mean they are quite the cause for it. These are accessory observations or relationships, but the deeper knowledge that disturbs me when I look at it is of inequality. Of being, in many ways, at the benefiting end of a distorted global system- one that hasn’t yet got its bias and kinks out.
For more thoughts on the ethics of looking at pictures, I’d like to recommend a short piece by Neil Balan on Front Page Horror in the Globe and Mail.
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