26 March 2012

Wintergarten Ltd. - Chinese Bondage in Peru


Title: Chinese Bondage in Peru
Artist: Wintergarten Ltd., Featuring Text by Ed Steck
Publisher: Wintergarten Ltd.
Type: 3-zine set, zine trilogy
Printing: Laserjet on newsprint
Number of pages: 108
Dimensions: 5.5"x8.5", 14cm x 21.6cm
Price: $25

Chinese Bondage in Peru is a collection of found photographs, printed matter and accompanying text organized around the vague fictitious narrative of a North American journalist's travels between the the continents of Latin America and Asia.  While the title of the series is taken from an academic publication on the exploitation of Chinese migrant laborers in Peruvian guano pits by 19th century colonists, in the context of these images it might just as easily refer to the Sendero Luminoso, a group of Maoist inspired revolutionaries organizing indigenous Peruvians to overthrow the country's government, or to the questionable role currently played by Chinese investors in Peru's mineral extraction sector.  While constructed from "real" ephemera of vernacular image production, the work is anything but documentary, taking its cues instead from sources such as Japanese "pink films" and the french photo-anthropology magazine "Zoom."

website / to order

No comments:

Post a Comment