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practicing the arts of cogitation since the late 1900s.

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Posted on | July 30, 2007 | No Comments

We are pleased to announce the publication of FAZAL SHEIKH’s new book Ladli (Steidl 2007). The companion volumes Ladli and Moksha received the International Henri Cartier-Bresson Grand Prize in 2005 and are currently on view at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Paris, May 10 – August 26, 2007.

Fazal Sheikh is dedicated to making his projects as widely available as possible, and this website continues to explore innovative ways of publishing and disseminating his work. We hope you will use it and understand a little more about the world in which we all live.

Moksha is a sympathetic study of the lives of India’s displaced widows who, having lost their husbands, traditionally lose their status in society, forfeiting their legal, economic and civil rights and, in many cases, are cast out of their homes for good. Others leave of their own accord. The majority make their way to find sanctuary in India’s holy cities, and it is in one of these, in Vrindavan, home of the Hindu god Krishna, that Fazal Sheikh follows the lives of the women, as they abandon themselves to the worship of their god, and pray for deliverance from the cycles of death and reincarnation to reach their final paradise – Moksha. As in his other projects, Sheikh spends time with the women, listening to the stories of their early lives, and learning more about the privations and sacrifices required of these women in a community which, to most observers, remains closed.
Online Edition
It was after listening to the life stories of the widows in Vrindavan that Fazal Sheikh returned to India in 2005 to find out more about the younger generation of women growing up in a society that, whatever its economic advances, is still prejudiced against them. Ladli, which in Hindi means ‘beloved daughter’, is the result. Sheikh visited orphanages, children’s homes, women’s shelters, and brothels and recorded the stories of girls and women living there. The stories he heard will come as a shock to many: the abortion of thousands of healthy fetuses every year because of their gender; the murder at birth of baby girls; the abduction and rape of adolescents forced into prostitution; the exploitation of child labor, the physical abuse of domestic workers and, worst of all, the murder of young women whose dowries, or performance as wives, does not match their husbands’ or their husbands’ families expectations.
What does it say about a country that it mistreats its women? It is not for lack of legislation that women continue to be abused in India, but because the police, the judiciary and the government fail to enforce the laws made to protect them. How can such an ingrained system be reformed? To answer that, we need to understand more about its victims, and in this Fazal Sheikh is a reliable guide.
Online Edition

We are also pleased to announce the new online edition of The Victor Weeps (DVD Edition), Fazal Sheikh’s major study of the Afghan communities living in exile in camps on the North Pakistan border, first published by Scalo in 1998.
Online Edition


THE VICTOR WEEPS
Returning to the land of his grandfather, Fazal Sheikh lives among Afghan refugees sheltering in northern Pakistan.
Online Edition

A CAMEL FOR THE SON
This volume relates the stories of Somali women and children who have survived for over a decade in Kenyan refugee camps.
Online Edition

RAMADAN MOON
A Somali asylum–seeker in Holland, on the eve of being evicted, remembers her homeland.
Online Edition

WHEN TWO BULLS FIGHT
Published on the eve of the US bombing of Afghanistan, this pamphlet is a plea for greater understanding and tolerance.
Online Edition

Other projects include:

SIMPATIA
A meditation on the spiritual beliefs of immigrant workers in Grande Sertão, Brazil.


PATRONESS OF THE AMERICAS
Stories from the passage of thousands of Mexicans crossing into the United States.

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  • CARLAGIRL PHOTO was founded on 14 February 1999 by Carla Willliams, a photographer, writer, and editor, born, raised and heading back to (yea!) Los Angeles, California.

    It was established with two goals: to be able to make my own work widely available for free, and to make accessible my research about artists of the African Diaspora, especially photographers, and in particular women. As it developed it grew to also include GLBTQ artists.

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