If I grow a moustache will you give me a job?
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
How to have good ideas
Day two
A timely instruction on 'how to have good ideas' courtesy of MOTHER
"Play a game of pinball!"
A timely instruction on 'how to have good ideas' courtesy of MOTHER
"Play a game of pinball!"
Onedotzero_cascade
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Monday, 21 February 2011
My thinking
This is the statement I read out at the YPHR debate on Human trafficking and the 2012 Olympics on 15/02/2011
Human Trafficking and the 2012 Olympics
Critical Perspective: ‘Campaigners do damage themselves.’
The subject of human trafficking is noisy with opinion. I have used my work to explore the voices that clamour to assert themselves. Some of these voices speak from the past into the present. Today’s newspaper headlines of ‘The White Slave Trade,’ come from the mouths of the Victorians and Edwardians. In Britain, this took the form of the ‘Social Purity Movement’ and, across the Atlantic, a storm of sensationalism greeted the release of White Slave Films, such as ‘A Traffic In Souls,’ (1913), lingering on historical rumours of women forcibly taken across state boundaries for ‘immoral purposes.‘ The debate has also been subsumed into discourses on Black Slavery, with some critics arguing that it is demeaning to attach today’s victims to those of the Atlantic Trade. In current society, human trafficking cannot be considered in isolation from the subject of immigration, (although many will attempt to ignore this conjunction.)
I have used found images from the historical archives and today’s press to demonstrate the cacophony of voices that seek to attach themselves to the human trafficking debate, be it the National Front, the English Collective of Prostitutes, NGOs, MPS, or those looking for equivalents in our past. In the construction of my work I hope to show the weight of the burden that has come to rest on the term ‘human trafficking,’ and to raise the question as to the efficacy of this situation. The soft, hand-drawn figure of the girl, curled over in despair in the foreground, represents the effect of this burden. She is assaulted by images and words from the past and present. These may be words of help, recognition, and sympathy but, in effect, they are not improving her situation. Are they any less harmful than the confrontational association between human trafficking and immigration? The campaign to stop trafficking has, in essence, become immobile due to the burden of words, histories and politics that have no relevance to the girl.
The image I have included of Martin Luther King is significant as it relates to a speech he made to the press in 1968, shortly before his death. He directly refers to the way in which sensationalism was being used to shape the Civil Rights Movement, not by those within it, but from outside forces.
‘I don’t know if you realise it, but you are driving a non-violent people like me into saying more and more militant things. If we don’t say what you want, we don’t get in the news. Who does? The militants. By doing this you are, first, presenting militant black leaders as civil rights leaders. And secondly, you’re making violence the way to publicise our cause.’
Martin Luther King, speech to the press, 1968.
I felt that his words were pertinent as they question the way in which we shape our stories, our own desire for scandal, sensation and salaciousness. When the viewer looks at my work, what do they see first? The neon sign for ‘live nudes’? The National Front? The nude photograph? It is only afterwards, as you look closer, that you will notice the despairing girl in the foreground, or perhaps the faint imprint of the child washing pots. Is sensationalism helping them change their situation? It is making us debate, but our debate is on whether stories of human trafficking are being ‘sexed up.’ This means we are not talking about the child worker trafficked from her family, or the women used as domestic slaves. The polarities of the immigration debate, as exercised by the BNP and National Front, may make good copy, but they have also made politicians fearful of making the obvious correlation between trafficking and immigration and allowing a sensible debate as how to stop trafficking when people who exist in life inhibiting situations can only improve their prospects through the trafficking of others, their families or themselves. Do we want to furnish the impression, (given by the press), that there is an insatiable desire in the West for bought sex, because these are the stories that sell papers, or do we want to have a meaningful discussion on the entire question of trafficking?
My piece is entitled ‘Sex Sells. Sells Sex.’ Current debate on human trafficking is using sex as a commodity just as much as the sex worker and her customer.
Helen Broadbridge. Illustrator. February 201. ogopogo@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.aucbillustration2010.co.uk/helen-broadbridge/
Human Trafficking and the 2012 Olympics
Critical Perspective: ‘Campaigners do damage themselves.’
The subject of human trafficking is noisy with opinion. I have used my work to explore the voices that clamour to assert themselves. Some of these voices speak from the past into the present. Today’s newspaper headlines of ‘The White Slave Trade,’ come from the mouths of the Victorians and Edwardians. In Britain, this took the form of the ‘Social Purity Movement’ and, across the Atlantic, a storm of sensationalism greeted the release of White Slave Films, such as ‘A Traffic In Souls,’ (1913), lingering on historical rumours of women forcibly taken across state boundaries for ‘immoral purposes.‘ The debate has also been subsumed into discourses on Black Slavery, with some critics arguing that it is demeaning to attach today’s victims to those of the Atlantic Trade. In current society, human trafficking cannot be considered in isolation from the subject of immigration, (although many will attempt to ignore this conjunction.)
I have used found images from the historical archives and today’s press to demonstrate the cacophony of voices that seek to attach themselves to the human trafficking debate, be it the National Front, the English Collective of Prostitutes, NGOs, MPS, or those looking for equivalents in our past. In the construction of my work I hope to show the weight of the burden that has come to rest on the term ‘human trafficking,’ and to raise the question as to the efficacy of this situation. The soft, hand-drawn figure of the girl, curled over in despair in the foreground, represents the effect of this burden. She is assaulted by images and words from the past and present. These may be words of help, recognition, and sympathy but, in effect, they are not improving her situation. Are they any less harmful than the confrontational association between human trafficking and immigration? The campaign to stop trafficking has, in essence, become immobile due to the burden of words, histories and politics that have no relevance to the girl.
The image I have included of Martin Luther King is significant as it relates to a speech he made to the press in 1968, shortly before his death. He directly refers to the way in which sensationalism was being used to shape the Civil Rights Movement, not by those within it, but from outside forces.
‘I don’t know if you realise it, but you are driving a non-violent people like me into saying more and more militant things. If we don’t say what you want, we don’t get in the news. Who does? The militants. By doing this you are, first, presenting militant black leaders as civil rights leaders. And secondly, you’re making violence the way to publicise our cause.’
Martin Luther King, speech to the press, 1968.
I felt that his words were pertinent as they question the way in which we shape our stories, our own desire for scandal, sensation and salaciousness. When the viewer looks at my work, what do they see first? The neon sign for ‘live nudes’? The National Front? The nude photograph? It is only afterwards, as you look closer, that you will notice the despairing girl in the foreground, or perhaps the faint imprint of the child washing pots. Is sensationalism helping them change their situation? It is making us debate, but our debate is on whether stories of human trafficking are being ‘sexed up.’ This means we are not talking about the child worker trafficked from her family, or the women used as domestic slaves. The polarities of the immigration debate, as exercised by the BNP and National Front, may make good copy, but they have also made politicians fearful of making the obvious correlation between trafficking and immigration and allowing a sensible debate as how to stop trafficking when people who exist in life inhibiting situations can only improve their prospects through the trafficking of others, their families or themselves. Do we want to furnish the impression, (given by the press), that there is an insatiable desire in the West for bought sex, because these are the stories that sell papers, or do we want to have a meaningful discussion on the entire question of trafficking?
My piece is entitled ‘Sex Sells. Sells Sex.’ Current debate on human trafficking is using sex as a commodity just as much as the sex worker and her customer.
Helen Broadbridge. Illustrator. February 201. ogopogo@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.aucbillustration2010.co.uk/helen-broadbridge/
final artwork
The final artwork (click on image to enlarge)
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| Sex Sells. Sells Sex. by helen broadbridge ogopogo@hotmail.co.uk To view more of my work please go to http://www.aucbillustration2010.co.uk/helen-broadbridge/ |
I wanted to further explore the idea that human trafficking was having to carry the burden of so many expectaions and organisations -both good and bad. As part of this it became evident that it was the idea of sexual trafficking that had become the most prominent strand of trafficking. It felt like sex was for sale on many fronts. It wasn't just about the physicality of selling sex for money but also that the modern world's desire for salaciousness and sensation means it is stories of sex trafficking that sells newspapers and also capture the attention of the public, in terms of supporting a cause to 'right' the 'perceived' wrongs.
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