It seems to be a picture of a found poster while travelling through western Kenya. The jagged split within the post caught my eye. It’s imposing a clear dichotomy, just as a conversation between real vs. fake establishes a clear boundary and binary. I think this is complicated in the caption, but the poster itself pushes that binary forward.
I wonder how the complication that is brought out in the caption could be brought into the image more.. Maybe something could be photoshopped over the image? Last year, one of hte participants photoshopped the chemical makeup of DTE onto the poster. I wonder if something similar could be done here? Maybe as a way to debunk this fake vs. real binary they are attempting to draw out.
I think the chemical and environmental toxicity is drawn out here, BUT I would love to see more about maybe political toxicity or even a broader conversation on toxic nationalism? I think that could add some layers that are alluded to in the caption, but could pull the convo back to different layers of toxicity.
This image conveys the power of quilting as mode of activism and memorialization. Allowing for juxtaposition and collage of various materials and perspectives over time, quiliting is a particularly affective medium, evoking senses of domesticity and comfort while also conveying political message, this image is particularly striking in its parallels to the 1980s AIDS quilt.
I wonder what would be accomplished if the contributor could replicate the patchwork/collage motif into the image itself. Part of what feels so compelling about the quilt is the way the quilter was able to tell a story through the quilt squares.
This image gives us a farmer's-level view of the use of agricultural pesticides, placing us directly into the field as if we are accompanying the farmer himself during a spraying routine. The perspective of the shot is appropriate given the author's intention to encourage empathy in the viewer, to get us to imagine the trade-offs and dilemmas that real-world people face when they decide whether to make use of toxic substances in their everyday lives.
The artifact expands the ethnographic insight on existence of multiple toxicities and destruction of 'nature' in the Amazon forests due to presence of deforestation leading to increase in illegal farming and mining practices and due to ongoing legacies of war like landmines. It connects the narratives of peace and war as both poison and cure for the forests.
I think the caption is too elaborate, the main arguement of the caption brought in the beginning for a better reading of the artifact.
The images are borrowed from a websites and are juxtaposed in one to show gradual deforestation. It definitely captures the scale of the events.
If possible the ethnographer can add locations of the landmines and areas destructed by legacies of war, illegal mining and illicit crop production. This will enrich the image by showing overlaps of multiple narratives of toxicities.
