Friday-Project: Everything for the Summit

Just days before I left Laos, the 9th ASEM Summit took place in Vientiane. More than 30 heads of government took part in the event and slept on land grabbed from a farming community in central Vientiane. The europeans remained quiet and missed a big chance to speak out against the growing problem of land grabbing in Laos.

Together with a friend I covered the event. An english version of the text will follow soon. The names of most people have been changed to ensure they’re safe from government persecution.

Photos: Lucas Wahl, Text: Sibut

A sandstorm is hitting the construction site of the ASEM villas. The Don Chan palace hotel in the background was constructed to host visitors of the 2009 SEA Games but is already in need of renovation.

Don Chan residents are saving worthy materials from the remains of their home as it is being destroyed to make place for the ASEM construction site.

A young Don Chan resident is watching the destruction of her home which is removed to make place for the ASEM construction site.

An overview of Don Chan Island with the ASEM villas and the Landmark Mekong Riverside Hotel in the back. 500 farmers were evicted from their fertile island to make way for the infrastructure project. The communist government of Laos said the development was necessary to be able to succesfully host the ASEM summit 2012.

A lao military police is blocking reporting on a protest against the Xayaburi dam in Laos. Thai protesters were using the occasion of the ASEM Summit to get attention from international media covering the 9th ASEM summit taking place in Vientiane. Even accredited Journalists were blocked from any form of reporting. Laos ranks 165th on the freedom of the press index of reporters without borders.

German minister of foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, is reading a paper in his private ASEM Villa. 100 families were evicted from their land to give space for the 50 Villas heads of state were using during their visit to Vientiane.

Resettled villagers from Don Chan Island are seen on the construction site of their new home 26 km from Vientiane. They never finished the new house since the promised compensation money was only partially given to them.

A view of the resettlement village for former Don Chan inhabitants. The new village is located 26 km out of town and many inhabitants have lost their jobs due to the resettlement.

A resettled villager from Don Chan island that does not want to be indentified (she fears to be harassed by the government) poses for a portrait in her new home. She claims that she never received compensation money as promised.

Alles für den Gipfel

Die etwa 30 Staats- und Regierungschefs, die zum Asien-Europa-Treffen (ASEM) am 5. und 6. November nach Vientiane kamen, nächtigten auf einem Stück Land, von dem etwa 500 Bauern eigens vertrieben worden waren. Die Europäer verhielten sich dabei erschreckend still – und verpassten damit eine große Chance, sich gegen das grassierende Land Grabbing in Laos einzusetzen.

Und plötzlich ging alles ganz schnell.

Frau Lar und den anderen Bauern der fruchtbaren Halbinsel Don Chan im Herzen von Vientiane wurde gesagt, sie müssten weichen für ein wichtiges politisches Treffen. Sie bekamen ein paar Monate, um sich in einem ausgewiesenen Gebiet etwa 26 km außerhalb der Stadt ein neues Haus zu bauen und umzuziehen.

Dann kamen die Bagger.

Während die Bewohner noch ihre letzten Eigentümer zu retten versuchten, rissen die Baufahrzeuge schon alles ab. Wenige Monate später stehen an jener Stelle 50 von chinesisch-laotischen Investoren gebaute Villen für die Staats- und Regierungschefs des Asien-Europa-Treffens; und nebenan das gigantische Landmark Mekong Riverside Hotel für die anderen Gipfel-Teilnehmer.

Frau Lar sitzt währenddessen in ihrem neuen Haus im Niemandsland und weiß nicht, was sie tun soll. Wie die meisten Anderen ist sie Landwirtin, doch auf der roten Lehmerde wächst nichts. Ihren Zusatz-Job als Hausangestellte in Vientiane musste sie auch aufgeben. Zu weit waren die Wege, zu teuer der Transport.

Sie fragt, »warum mussten wir hier rausziehen, warum kann dieses Treffen nicht hier draußen stattfinden? Die Politiker gehen doch nach zwei Tagen eh wieder nach Hause.«

Diese Frage stellen sich die anderen Bewohner des Dorfs auch. Zwar haben sie Angst mit Ausländern zu reden – es wurde ihnen ausdrücklich verboten – doch einige sprechen aus Verzweiflung trotzdem.

Sie beschweren sich über deutlich weniger Land und Kompensation als versprochen. Viele Häuser stünden nur als Gerippe, weil das Geld nicht mal für diese gereicht habe. Es gäbe keinen Tempel und keine Schule. Und nie habe mal jemand mit ihnen gesprochen, was sie denn eigentlich bräuchten, um trotz Umsiedlung gut leben zu können.

In der Tat gleicht der Ort einer Geisterstadt. Von laotischer Lebensfreude und Miteinander ist nichts zu spüren. Das gesellschaftliche Leben scheint still zu stehen. Und Alles liegt unter rotem Staub.

Für diesen sind die vielen Lastwagen verantwortlich, die Baumaterial für eine 110-Hektar große Chinesisch-geführte Sonderwirtschaftszone ranschaffen, den Vita-Park.

Der Betreiber sagt, die Regierung habe ihnen versichert, dass Investoren auch dort, 26 km außerhalb der Stadt, ausreichend Arbeitskräfte finden würden. Es scheint kein Zufall zu sein, dass die letzten drei umgesiedelten Dörfer aus Vientiane allesamt in diese abgelegene Gegend verlegt wurden.

Die ersten Fabriken sind bereits fertig. Sie zahlen $65 im Monat für 10 Stunden Arbeit am Tag, 7 Tage die Woche. Solche Bedingungen sind selbst nach laotischen Standards inakzeptabel.

Das ist die traurige Realität von Land Grabbing in Laos; Investitionen in große Ländereien, die praktisch ausschließlich den Investoren und korrupten Offiziellen dienen und die Interessen der betroffenen Bevölkerung völlig unberücksichtigt lassen.

Etwa 18% aller Dörfer und Tausende Menschen im Land hätten solche Formen von Vertreibung bereits erfahren müssen, schätzt die Organisation Global Witness. Weil Land Grabbing aber so schwer zu identifizieren ist, könnte der tatsächliche Umfang deutlich höher liegen.

Die Regierung selbst nimmt an, dass bis 2011 etwa 5.000.000 Hektar – oder 21% der gesamten Landesfläche – als Konzessionen an Investoren gegangen sind. Einige 10.000 Menschen in Laos sind nach einer Studie von SOGES auf Grund von solchen und anderen Maßnahmen umgesiedelt worden.

Vor diesem Hintergrund geht eine Entwicklungorganisation mit Projekten vor Ort so weit zu sagen: »Laos wird zunehmend zu einem Land von internen Vertriebenen.«

Und wie stehen die europäischen ASEM-Partner zu land grabbing im Land und den Umständen, unter denen der ASEM-Gipfel stattfand?

Erst im Februar 2012 hat sich der deutsche Entwicklungsminister, Dirk Niebel, während seines Aufenthaltes in Laos gegen das Problem stark gemacht. Und nun hat sein Kabinettskollege, Guido Westerwelle, beim Asien-Europe-Treffen in einer Villa genächtigt, die nur durch einen land grab hatte entstehen können.

Aber die europäischen Partner sehen das anders.

Sie halten das Umsiedlungsprojekt für ASEM für das wahrscheinlich transparenteste und am besten gemanagte im gesamten Land, und gehen davon aus, dass alles im Einklang mit den relevanten Gesetzen abgelaufen ist. Zweimal haben sie das Dorf zudem selbst besucht, ihr Ergebnis: die neuen Häuser sahen gut aus, die Bewohner waren zufrieden.

Leider waren die Europäer in ihrer Rolle als Diplomaten und in Begleitung von hochrangigen Regierungsoffiziellen in das Dorf gefahren. Wer da glaubt, er habe im autoritären Ein-Parteien-Staat Laos Einblicke bekommen, wie es den Menschen wirklich geht, der will zu keinem ehrlichen Ergebnis kommen.

Für den ASEM-Gipfel schauten die Europäer weg.

Charity Exhibition

»Good Photos – Good Cause« is the title of the charity exhibition that will take place from November 8, 2012 to January 17, 2013 at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg. In favour of the FREELENS Foundation pictures of photographers such as Peter Bialobrzeski, Thomas Hoepker, Eva Leitolf, Gerd Ludwig, Rudi Meisel, Marco van Duyvendijk and many more will be shown and sold at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg.

Lene Münch donated a framed picture of her New York series »Set & Setting«.

Kathmandu – City of Kings

Lucas Wahl donated a picture from his Kathmandu series.

Visitors will have the unique opportunity to attend a multi-faceted exhibition of contemporary photography and buy their favourite images right away – freely based on the motto »Do good and take good things home«. Additionally the exhibition will be shown online. The entire proceeds will go to the FREELENS Foundation.

Opening
Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 7 pm at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg.

Friday-Project: Airports

The Friday-Project is the new Friday-Portrait at www.kollektiv25.de. The game has changed though: Each Friday one of us is going to show a small project of a self chosen topic. Be it portraiture, reportage, fashion, landscape or whatever else. There are no restrictions and no limits, but enough room for creativity and fun for us to have.

I am starting this week with a little series of iphone pictures taken on airports over the past year. I have been travelling quite a bit and during the long hours of waiting i’d oftenly wander around snapping a few shots here and there. Using a phone is great because people hardly notice that you are taking a picture at all.

I find that there is almost always something interesting going on at airports. There are a whole lot of veeery boring things going on there as well of course. Anyways, one time something happened i’d never seen before and i DO NOT have pictures from. It went like this: My girlfriend and me were flying into Kunming in China. So we come down to the immigration counter and suddenly about three camera men and five photographers appear behind the immigration ladies and start taking pictures of us and filming the whole process. They later stopped us at the security checks using us as photo models and showing off their fancy security stuff. It turned out to be the opening day of their new airport they had just built. The thing is immense – Kunming is a city about twice the size of Berlin, yet it was impossible to either get any money there nor was it easy to get a taxi, it was a complete chaos. But i’ll long remember my 15 minutes of fame i got out there in Kunming, being the first westerner to arrive at their Airport.

Well, pictures now:

On the bus to the plane. Bangkok, Thailand

Domestic terminal. Vientiane, Laos

Ashtray. Helsinki, Finnland.

Waiting for departure. Bangkok, Thailand.

Smoking room. Kunming, China.

Transit. Dubai, UAE.

Lucas now based in Asia

Two weeks ago I’ve moved to Vientiane, the capital of Laos together with my girlfriend. I’ll be staying here for quite a while now. The past weeks have been a rush. We had to get rid of our appartment in Frankfurt, write tons of mails, say goodbye to friends and so on. Once we got here, organizing went on. But it’s a much nicer kind of orga now. We’ve already found a nice place to live and even internet is working.

The people living in Vientiane complain about their city becoming noisy, dirty and hectic but compaired to other cities around Asia, Vientiane really feels more like a village. I must admit though that I’ve seen a traffic jam once.
And just to sit outside on my terrace writing these lines while listening to cicadas and watching geckos munching moskitos feels mighty good.

My neighbourhood is mostly local and the people are kind. The trees are packed with ripe mangos and people share them together with sticky rice over some beerlao. There are so many invitations for dinners from the neighbours that it’s gonna be a tough time to eat all that food;-)

I’m gonna work on personal projects here and I am available for assignments. I can easily reach places in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. And Thailand is just across the river. So if you need something to get done in Southeast Asia, just let me know.

Statue of King Anouvong, last ruler of the Lan Xang (million elephants) empire, situated on the Mekong riverbank in Vientiane.Statue of King Anouvong, last ruler of the Lan Xang (million elephants) empire, situated on the Mekong riverbank in Vientiane.

Portrait of a young monk in his monastery, Vientiane.
Portrait of a young monk in his monastery, Vientiane.

Family walking on a sandbar on the Mekong river in front of Vientiane.Family walking on a sandbar on the Mekong river in front of Vientiane.

Young man watching dawn at the Mekong.Young man watching dawn at the Mekong.

Young women knee down in front of a statue of King Anouvong lighting candles as a sacrificial offering.Young women knee down in front of a statue of King Anouvong lighting candles as a sacrificial offering.

Gecko: the moskito haters best friend.Gecko: the moskito haters best friend.

Exhibition »Explaining man to man«

»When I first became interested in photography… my idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don’t give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself.« said Edward Steichen quite a while ago. Based on this credo of the famous photographer the photo exhibition at our University in Hanover got its title »explaining man to man«. The exhibition is meant as an anthology to report on the photo-journalistic work that originated here in the last ten years. Among the 63 works that are shown in the exhibition there are 5 reportages made by Kollektiv25-members.

Until April 8th 2011 the exhibition will be on display during the opening hours of the Design Center in Hanover.

The catalogue »Den Menschen den Menschen erklären« has been published by Rasch Verlag and can be ordered for 24 Euro, ISBN 978-3-89946-160-2.

Kollektiv25 joins Agency FOCUS

We’re happy to announce that all four of us have joined the german agency FOCUS. FOCUS has gained a lot of renommée for promoting photojournalism over the past 30 years and represents photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, David Burnett, Sebastião Salgado and agencies like Magnum and Contact Press in Germany.

We’re looking forward to a good cooperation and to make some pennies, too 😉
Our images are waiting to be licensed in the agency – go for it!


Photo- und Presseagentur FOCUS
Alter Fischmarkt 3
20457 Hamburg
GERMANY
www.agentur-focus.de
TEL +49 (0) 40 4502 23-0
FAX +49 (0) 40 4502 23-50

Halloween 2010 NYC

Two weeks ago Halloween took place in NYC. I spent some time roaming the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn capturing scenes going on in the city. People go pretty mad in this Event but it’s something quite enjoyable.

bread ’n butter

This shall be the beginning of a little series of blog entries I’m gonna make from here on. I decided to post some of the little jobs I’m currently doing for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). It’s bread ’n butter in a way but not necessarily boring. You get to know quite some people from time to time.

Last week I photographed Thilo Sarrazin for Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The man was the number one news topic in Germany last week. He published a book in which one of his most provocative thesis‘ is that migrants of muslim descent would have a genentic pool limiting their intelligence. And since they have a higher birth rate would be a threat to the intelligence of the entire german population. This is scientifically proven wrong but getting him a lot of attention from the german media. The man is certainly very smart and I personally think that most of his provocation is nothing but a very clever media campaign. His book is already sold out in some parts of germany. So he is making a lot of money out of the whole thing.
The meeting took place in a small café in Frankfurt. The writer and Thilo Sarrazin sat in the dark back corner of the room with mr. Sarrazin facing the wall. I was promised about 20 minutes for the shooting but after about ten he called his driver to pick him up. He seemed to be very tired after the week he had had. At the time his political party was trying to kick him out and a few days later he also lost his job as a member of the executive board of the german Bundesbank. His face remained expressionless in almost every shot.

Exhibition of Lucas‘ Kathmandu story in Neuenkirchen

My story Kathmandu – City of Kings is gonna be exhibited at Springhornhof in Neuenkirchen. After the story won the VGH-Fotopreis 2009, this is the 4th time it’s exhibited in rather small towns. Previous shows took place in towns like Wedemark and Osterode. Whoever feels like having a small trip to the countryside is warmly welcome to the Vernissage on the 24th of august 18:00. I’m sure drinks and snacks will be provided 😉

Catalogue of the 2nd Lumix-Festival

We are happy, that we were part of the exhibitions at the 2nd Lumix-Festival for young photojournalism in Hanover. For those who couldn’t come to Hannover to see the exhibitions, or for those who were there and would like to have a souvenir to remember all the great works, there are good news: A catalogue with extracts of each reportage, that has been exhibited + all information about the photographers has been published.

In case you missed to buy one at the Festival, you can now get the catalogue for 20 Euros at the Bookshop in the House of Photography in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg or you can order it via email: bookshop@deichtorhallen.de

The countdown of the »2nd Lumix festival for young fotojournalism« is on!

Next week on Wednesday the 16th, the »2nd Lumix festival for young photojournalism« will start in Hanover!
Today the official festival newspaper was released. The cover of the 14 000 copies shows a portrait of Hermann Völxen, the protagonist of Florians story »The last remaining farmer in Hanover« which will be exhibited at the festival.

Meeting in Berlin!

It’s already a few days ago, but we still want to show you some photos of our meeting at the beginning of this month in Berlin.

On May first, we went to the big demonstration of right-wing extremists to cover the event. There were around 700 fascists trying to walk through Berlin, but got stopped after a few hundred meters by an enormous amount of counter-demonstrators blocking the streets.
At the demonstration we found ourselves between hundreds of photographers, journalists and film-teams. It felt as if there were at least two press-members
for every demonstrator. Anyways, it was nice being »on assignment« with the whole collective.

Lumix Festival for Young Phojournalism

Three members of Kollektiv25 are nominated for the FreeLens-Award 2010.
The nominated reportages will be exhibited at the Lumix – Festival for Young Photojournalism in Hanover, Germany from june 16th to 20th 2010.

Florian Manz with »The last remaining farmer in Hanover«
Lucas Wahl with »Kathmandu – City of Kings«
Lene Münch with »The Secret World of Fraternities«

Website of the Lumix – Festival for young photojournalism
Or watch the trailer.

»The last remaining farmer in Hanover« by Florian Manz
»Kathmandu – City of Kings« by Lucas Wahl
»The secret world of Fraternities« by Lene Münch

New story now online

Along the wall is a photographic essay about people living on and next to the ancient city wall in Istanbul. Lucas tried to capture situations only a few kilometers but seemingly a lot further away from the world famous beauties of Istanbul.

To see the whole story click here…

German photo-magazine refers to Kollektiv25

The german photo-magazine »Profifoto« reports on our collective. On page six of the newest issue you can find an introduction of our characters and you get an idea of our philosophy.

Next to that, we had some other online-publications in the last weeks. Here is a list with links, refering to photos and interviews of us.

Flare – Magazin für junge Fotografie
Augenblicke – Fotomagazin
Photo Presse – Online News
Urbanshit – Blog für StreetArt und urbane Kultur
fotoMagazin – Online Magazin

Lucas publishes story on romanian gypsies in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung


In the beginning of january I travelled to Romania for the german newspaper »Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung«. My collegue Phillip Eppelsheim and I went there to cover another story, but we got a couple of extra days to look around. Maramures, the region where we have been, borders the Ukraine and is one of the poorest and most remote places in the EU. In the city of Viseu de Sus we found gipsy families collecting plastic bottles and metal at the cities dump. We were surprised to see that, because we didn’t know that this poverty is still existing in Europe. We spent two days with these people on the dump. Toxic gas was flowing in the air and one sank knee deep into the garbage. The gypsies get five euro cent per kilo of plastic bottles so they generate an income of about three euros per day. The harassment of gipsies is a common issue in Eastern Europe. The people working on the dump don’t get paid welfare even though they’re entitled to it and most of their children don’t go to school for long. People working on the dump don’t become that old. Almost everybody has liver problems from breathing toxic gases and the chances that one injures himself by grasping into glas, or even worse, injection needles from a nearby hospital, are pretty high.

It’s a bad situation that’s going on down there and it shouldn’t exist in the EU.

We are Kollektiv25

After three and a half months of planning, long discussions, 16 hours of skype conferences and a snowy weekend in Hannover, it’s finally done: our website is online! Of course we are very curious about getting feedback, recommendations or critics. Feel free to leave a comment or contact us at mail (bei) kollektiv25 [punkt] de. If you’re interested in Kollektiv25, become our fan on facebook, follow us on twitter or stay updated about our newest projects via RSS Feed.

A very special thanks goes to Timo Höner who spent way too much of his precious time designing and programming everything for us! Timo, you did a great job!
Enjoy and spread the news!