Eyes of the Street International
Eyes of the Street is all about ‘grassroots up’ photography, a simple concept to enable those who otherwise would not have the opportunity, to show images of their lives to the rest of the world. This is how it works: hand out disposable camera’s to people who live on the street and ask them to take pictures of their lives. The images that are produced this way show us a unknown world. Why? Can’t one send a ‘real’ photographer out on an assignment to take pictures of the homeless? Yes, and it has been done many times. Great shots have been taken, but they lack the intimacy and the perspective of the homeless people themselves. Their snapshots and first-class artwork, are the real deal if you want to see what they see, experience and find interesting. Very direct and without scrupulence, their cheap disposable cameras open up a world that goes way beyond the cliché of the image of the suffering we often take for granted.
After hosting several successful projects, expositions and publishing a book in the Netherlands, photographers Mario Phrat (Faktum, Sweden) and Frank Dries (Straatnieuws Holland), both working for homeless street papers, took the concept to a global scale. 44 cameras were handed out to the global network of the International Network of Street Papers (INSP). That is, to a part of it- 80 papers all over the world was tempting, but too ambitious for a pilot project. Eyes of the Street International (ESI) was born, and the first target was to find out if and how it would works on a global scale. The members of INSP responded enthusiastically; “helping others to help themselves”, the INSP motto, fits perfectly for a project like this. Images from USA (New York), Portugal (Lisbon), Russia, Brazil, Japan, Namibia, Sweden and Holland came flooding in and within 5 months, a new international exposition was possible.
‘Eyes of the Street’ will be shown in London in July and it will be the second time that is has been shown- the first being in St Petersburg, Russia in 2006. Our goal is to find more people and organizations who want to join the project and make ESI grow. ESI needs human and financial resources to take it to a truly global and professional level. With art and photography, ESI in corporation with INSP, can make a real difference to the emancipation of the chanceless by giving them the tools to show us their world themselves.
For contact: Frank Dries, redactie@straatnieuws.nl
INSP: http://www.street-papers.com/
