© Pieter Hugo, 2009-2010, Abdulai Yahaya, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra / Ghana

This photo is part of the exhibition ‘Pieter Hugo - This Must Be The Place / Selected Works 2003-2011’.

Exhibition Dates:
Mar. 3 - May 20, 2012 at The Hague Museum of Photography in Den Haag / Netherlands.

“The South African photographer Pieter Hugo’s (1976) monumental photographs, centred around contemporary Africa, are now well known around the world. The Hague Museum of Photography will be the first museum to exhibit a comprehensive survey of Hugo’s work from 2002 – 2011. Together with many previously unseen works, the exhibition will include a curated selection of his most well-known series: The Hyena & Other Men, the bizarre Nollywood and the striking Permanent Error.

In the series Permanent Error (2009 – 2010) he offers portraits of young men and woman who live amidst an immense waste dump of broken computers, mother boards and keyboards. To earn money these young people burn the computers dumped here as a means to extract valuable metals. The dangerous and poisonous vapours produce a hell on earth, where the quality of life is already challenging. The people who pose for Hugo stand in front of the camera with a defiant self-confidence.” (read more; thanks to ArtBlart)

burnedshoes:

South African photographer Pieter Hugo’s latest book, Permanent Error, pictures Agbogbloshie, a Ghanaian dumping ground for global electronic waste and home to slum-dwellers willing to endanger their health burning the techno-trash to harvest precious metals.

The area is referred to by local inhabitants as Sodom and Gomorrah, a vivid acknowledgment of the profound inhumanity of the place. When Hugo asked the inhabitants what they called the pit where the burning takes place, they repeatedly responded: “For this place, we have no name”.

Related post: Nyaba Leon Ouedraogo - ‘The Hell of Copper’ (‘L’Enfer du Cuivre’)

» find more exhibitions here «

(Source: burnedshoes)