DECOLONIZE PHOTOGRAPHY

LANGUAGE

The impunity of "Isreal" while continuously breaking international law is the flagrant part of it, yet many still try to justify it in a toxic language of dehumanization, that is rooted in colonial and occupation. These techniques are too familiar to historians & Peoples who have witnessed ethnic cleansing in their own communities. I will not engage in the passive agressive vocabulary of mainstream media in two following ways:

1. prioritizing the human experience by getting my facts straight from the source: the oppressed. this means following grassroots and independent media.
2. photography language has been entrenched with colonial vocabulary like "shoot, headshot, capture..." and I will be mindful of using better terms like create, photograph etc. (source: photographywithoutborders)

CAPITALISM

I heard this in a post:’Colonialism is extractive by nature’ . It made me realize the huge enabling role of capitalism system to colonialism. From Congo, to Panama, passing by Gaza. ressources are awaiting to be extracted by the Colonizer. Coltan from DRC and latin countries being the most critical currently with the tools i use in photography. Immediate reflection is while photography brands like CANON & SONY have committed to transparency of mineral sourcing, they are unfortunately not enough and incomplete. Thus, failing at their claim of "peace of mind".

I began looking at our current policies (US and Canada) in parallel with brands like apple, canon, dji etc that use rare minerals. I ask: what is our role in this? Why did our governments choose not to apply the policies they already voted on to protect vulnerable populations and ethical extraction of rare minerals? Why do we repeat, as content creators, the endless cassette of ‘did you see the new camera x’ almost everyday.

TECHNOLOGY

This has two deep implications:

1- the use of technology in ethnic cleansing ( surveillance, AI, drones), making sure my tools don’t support unethical compagnies like HP (used by militaries accused of warcrimes), Pic-Time ( office based in an Apartheid state),

2- the responsible consumption of technologies. Are we as a content creator community encourage a durable & responsible consumption of technology or are we just puppets of this capitalistic system? How does that reflect with our own ethics and values? Is it normal to qualify as success the deals to promote new tech at the expense of ethical mining?

SOLIDARITY

i often hear content creators insist on staying out of politics. They end up living in a bubble. What people often forget is that the virtual world is not a parallel universe, it's a product of reality, a reflection of the real world. Content creators that ignore this topic are directly complicit in the colonial privilege. The tools & tech you use, and for many countries like canada, USA, UK, FR, your taxes are directly used to fund a war machine and an international modern slavery system responsible of ethnic cleansing, silent Holocausts and genocides.