https://www.meia-luz.me/projects daily 1.0 2020-06-20 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5bdeddf62b6a28f9913bff6a/1541332329221/ olhada - OUT OF THE TRAIN The 1.6 Million Indian Railways employees ensure the movement of 25 Million passengers every day. On the 14th of April 2018 I was one of them - travelling from Goa to Madurai. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5be3557103ce640993dee334/1541625201646/ olhada - TRANSCENDENTAL NECESSITY “[…] How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? During our dreams we do not now we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You […] are dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.” Zhuangzi, c. 369 BC – c. 286 BC Double exposed pictures. India. 2011. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5beb1c19562fa72c2e4b5b67/1542134809798/ olhada - MADURAI Madurai, this mystic and ancient South Indian city, is also called the temple city. Alagar Koyil, Thirupparamkunram Murugan or Vandiyur Mariamman are only few of the melodic names of the over 100 holy places in and around the city. The 500 years old Sree Meenakshi Amman Temple is the pumping heart of the city, attracting 15’000 to 25’000 praying and singing visitors a day. The highly energetic atmosphere of the Meenakshi Temple fills the surrounding streets and neighborhoods, where these pictures were taken on a beautiful late afternoon in spring 2018. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5c14d353352f53eec9570b78/1544868691765/ olhada - CIDADE DE MAPUTO Estas fotos foram tiradas na primavera ou no outono de 2018 (depende de qual hemisfério alguém está em casa). A área ocupada por Maputo hoje, começou como uma vila de pesca em 1500. Anteriormente conhecida como Lourenço Marques, é a capital e a maior cidade de Moçambique, com cerca de 1,2 milhões de habitantes e principal centro comercial de Moçambique. Nela residem cerca de 40% de toda população urbana do País. Hoje é conhecida como a Cidade das Acácias, em referência às acácias comummente encontradas ao longo das suas avenidas e Pérola do Índico Depois da independência de Moçambique, em 1975, o país viu-se inserido em uma guerra civil por 16 anos que destruiu a economia do país, vias de acesso, sistemas de comunicação e transporte. Ao fim da guerra, o governo lançou um programa para reviver a economia, embora a criminalidade continue presente. A cidade é conhecida pela sua arquitectura distinta. A Baixa de Maputo tem uma cena cultural muito vibrante com vários restaurantes, musica e historia local de cinema. Os vários mercados informais nas ruas criam uma mistura muito rica de movimento, conversa e cores. Cores estas que quando banhadas pelo sol da hora de ouro, transformam estes locais em paraísos visualmente estimulantes. Texto de Átila Cézar, 27 anos, cidadão de Maputo https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5dbd8d076164d93f9b52892c/1542135246806/ olhada Berlin 2008 A few days trip in high-school typically turns out to be the origin for heroic teenager stories. Luckily, besides my glorious contribution to these stories, I was also able to capture this photo. Ever since, this image have encouraged me to take my camera wherever I travel to. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5dbda5b1e9a2667a91765c39/1542134752481/ olhada - LUSAKA A mere 100 years ago, Lusaka was nothing more than a railway thoroughfare and sleepy nest, consisting of a group of buildings and farms. Only 1935, Lusaka was chosen to replace Livingstone as the capital of the British colony of Northern Rhodesia and the process of urbanization slowly started. Since independence and the creation of the Republic of Zambia in 1964, the population of the city has grown 12-fold from around 196’000 people to more than 2.5 million. Today, Lusaka is one of the fastest growing cities in the region. This has resulted in a city with massive contradictions and challenges. While outsized shopping centers and high standard gated communities for the middle and upper class have mushroomed, the rapid influx of new low-income urban dwellers has also led to the creation of more than 30 high-density neighborhoods with poor services and high crime rates. Due to my work for WASSER FÜR WASSER (WfW), I had the lucky chance to go and see very diverse neighborhoods in and around Lusaka. The following pictures were mainly taken during project visits in these most vibrating and vivid areas in this city in fast transition. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5eee4fcd2e52364583a23824/1592676301723/ olhada CIDADE DE BEIRA Passear pelas ruas na Primavera 2018. Beira, também conhecida como o coração de moçambique é a segunda maior cidade, logo após a capital do país, Maputo, contando com uma população de 431.583 habitantes. A cidade de Beira foi originalmente desenvolvida como cidade portuária pelo povo colonial português e rapidamente desenvolveu actividades de pesca, turísticas e comerciais. A cidade prosperou como um porto cosmopolita com diferentes comunidades étnicas. Como a capital, a guerra civil destruiu grande parte da cidade e seus edifícios de estilo mediterrâneo.O centro da cidade é muito compacto e confuso, as ruas são desorganizadas e a informação é pouca. Actualmente a cidade se encontra modernizada, embora ainda mantenha algumas áreas degradadas e problemáticas, devido a vários anos de negligência a cidade. O que cria um contraste interessante por todo o lado onde se olha. Texto de Átila Cézar, 27 anos, cidadão de Maputo https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5eee502177518e10bf622304/1592676385030/ olhada - one table to unite them all As a Co-Founder of the Swiss based not-for-profit organisation WASSER FÜR WASSER (WfW), I have been involved in developing projects in Lusaka over the past five years. This engagement provided a chance to gain new insights of the very diverse challenges that fast-growing African cities are facing. On the one hand, there is a rapid influx of urban dwellers coming in from rural areas or migrating from other countries, driven by poverty and attracted by the hope of a new life with regular wages and modern technology. Most of the cities understandably are not able to absorb this fast urbanization. The creation of high-density neighborhoods with poor housing and services as well as high crime rates are almost an inevitable consequence.On the other hand, a growing middle and upper class demands higher living standards and security. Over-sized shopping centers, various entertainment amenities and high security gated communities are mushrooming. This results in cities with parallel structures and manifold daily realities. Arriving in Cape Town with the sole intention of improving my English, I quickly realized that Cape Town was different from what I’ve seen so far. Still deeply scorched with the colonial and the apartheid legacy, the Mother city appeared to me as pinnacle of separation and inequality. Although much has been achieved since independence in 1994, South African society, and especially South African cities like Cape Town, are still shaped by great social division and race issues, unequal distribution of wealth and access to education as well as basic services. Soon the wish arose to find an expression for the visible contradictions and apparent public tension I felt in the city. Many walks through parts of the city and numerous discussions with “Capetonians” help me to get grasp of the multi-layered nature of the social and racial disparity this city lives in. Time and again I felt the deep longing of the people to change the situation for the better, but at the same time a sense of feeling overwhelmed due to the sheer size and complexity of the problems the city and the country as a whole is dealing with. Obviously in a place with such a disturbing history, positive change needs generations and the combined effort of many great women and men. Or as Nelson Mandela put it: “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” In order to give my above-mentioned desire a framework and at the same time to look deeper into my favourite medium of expression, photography, I spontaneously signed up for a short course at the Cape Town School of Photography. In an intensive process I shifted my attention more and more from dividing to uniting factors. As division is mainly man-made, I felt that something beyond human aspiration could serve as a symbol of unity. At last I found a table who unites them all – the Table Mountain and its not less impressive little companion, the Lions Head – which together tower over the city and its inhabitants. Whether you’re living in the Cape Flats, in Woodstock or in Green Point, the beauty and transcendence of this unique scenery is accessible to everyone and serves as uniting element in the cluster of diversity of Cape Town. Finally, I spent seven consecutive days walking the streets of Cape Town with my camera, documenting the city from my very own perspective as an outsider and trying to find uniting aspects of human life: family, work, the yearning for pleasure and the veiled absurdity of our daily human experience and common suffering – and in many cases overseen by the royal scenery of the Table Mountain and the Lions Head. November 2018 https://www.meia-luz.me/wfw daily 0.75 2021-11-01 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5bdefbf71ae6cf53b459aa58/1541340151733/ wfw HYGIENE TRAINING Besides clean drinking water and basic sanitation, hygiene is key for maintaining human health. On these grounds, the Swiss based not-for-profit organisation WASSER FÜR WASSER (WfW) and their local partners always involve systematic door-to-door hygiene training before, during and after infrastructure improvements. In May 2018 I could accompany the activists of AJUDEM in a “Barrio” in Maputo and was able to witness their dedication towards the postive change in hygiene practices in their own community. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5bdefc2f352f5316b2fa8d8a/1541340207853/ wfw - VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN ZAMBIA Since 2014 the Swiss based not-for-profit organisation WASSER FÜR WASSER (WfW) supports Lusaka Vocational Training Center (LVTC) in providing water related skills training. Already more than 200 students, mainly from low-income households, have taken part in the plumbing and water operations program. Graduates contribute to the strengthening of the water providers, and the water sector in general, across the country. These pictures were taken over a period of four years at LVTC. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/61805cac920405214d3b2306/1541340177515/ wfw - IMPROVING WATER PROVISON More than 50% of the low-income urban dwellers in Zambia’s capital Lusaka lack access to clean drinking water. Therefore, the Swiss based not-for-profit organisation WASSER FÜR WASSER (WfW) supports the local water provider in improving their services in terms of network coverage, as well as management and awareness raising mechanisms. These pictures were taken over a period of five years in different WfW project areas in Lusaka. https://www.meia-luz.me/new-index daily 0.75 2021-11-20 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5be2fe801ae6cfaff6955484/1541602944570/ iphone - CIDADE DE MAPUTO Primavera ou outono - 2018. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/5be2ff4c1ae6cfaff6955d86/1537983400416/ iphone https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bab475f0490796f8eb95358/t/61994af268ccc541a4f67718/1541624899380/ iphone “Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.” Zhuangzi, c. 369 BC – c. 286 BC Layered Images, created with the Tales Of Us app, 2014-2017 https://www.meia-luz.me/about daily 0.75 2018-11-08