https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eEYZJCAvCsVTPd-9o9FjrUrFJAxYymjV/edit https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/society/vizualizing-edgelands-surveillance-reports/
A global collective of artists and storytellers, Magnum Photos is an international photographers’ collective, established in 1947, a cooperative of great diversity and distinction owned by its photographer members. Magnum Photos has pioneered an experimental approach in the creation of an entrepreneurial, commercial platform for photojournalism. This approach evolved over seven decades in direct dialogue with changing media and technologies, and in parallel with artistic and personal investigations of the medium of photography.
Magnum x Edgelands is a three-year initiative covering six cities, with the focus of looking at how technology is impacting and transforming our societies — especially in cities where digital surveillance is becoming more prominent. In each of the six cities, a Magnum photographer works closely with Edgelands researchers, grassroots organizations and cultural institutions to visually interpret the findings of their reports. Using the work made in each city, spaces for discussions will be created through pop-up exhibitions, visual literacy workshops, talks, and online publications. These events will allow Edgelands to engage local and global audiences with the topics and findings of our research pop-ups.
To answer the question: Is it possible to visualize surveillance and security through narrative photography?
Magnum X Edgelands took place the last week of March and the first week of April. 2022
(From the final Medellín report) Documenting the invisible with Peter Van Agtmael of Magnum Photos and Juan Fernando Ospina of Universo Centro and workshop at MAMM In collaboration with Magnum Photography, international photographer Peter Van Agtmael spent 10 days (between the end of March and the beginning of April 2022) in Medellín documenting surveillance in the city, guided by photographer Juan Fernando Ospina. Also, in collaboration with Magnum Learn, a 2-day workshop on visual narrative and documentary photography was held with the participation of 10 national photographers.
As part of the second chapter of the “Magnum Photos X Edgelands Institute” initiative, the photographer Thomas Dworzak documented the regular daily life of residents in Geneva and their digital imprint. Taking as a starting point the Edgelands’s diagnostic report on Geneva, this project aimed to use photography to further explore and tell a story on how the digitalisation of our day to day has an impact in our (in)security. Thomas chose to focus on the digital traces that the inhabitants of Geneva leave in their daily lives. A process that led him to photograph the "digital watchers" (surveillance cameras, cookies on the web, etc.) and then to search the web for the places where our digital lives are stored in order to photograph them in Switzerland or abroad. A photographic investigation that proved to be very difficult and revealing of a serious lack of transparency. Finally, to finalize his project, Thomas sent to the participants of this photographic survey "postcards" of the storage places of their "digital double". A way to make us aware of the physical distance that separates us from our digital integrity
Thomas’ presented the first results of this work on February 5 at the event Watching Me, Watching You: When Magnum Photos Photographers Observe What Is Observing Us, at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. During his presentation he mentioned some of the challenges he had when thinking about this project, including the question of how do you capture in a picture something that is “invisible” such as the digital footprints we leave as we go on our daily routines.
As part of this second chapter, we also invited two emergent photographers to create, in a period on 1 month, a new work on the challenges of the digitization of security and the emergence of a "surveillance society" in Geneva.
Edgelands being an art-focused institute. Narrative photography can capture stories and create narratives that traditional research cannot.