A Modest Proposal – Dog for Thanksgiving

Eating dog for Thanksgiving may be considered shocking and taboo by many Americans but is actually a well documented practice.  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt first commissioned a survey of American’s eating habits as part of the WPA, turkey was often substituted for duck, pig, rabbit, and other household livestock.  In amongst the list is dog. It is not surprising that dog gets on the list more often in times of financial crisis, when other types of protein are harder to come by.  Although a modest proportion of the American diet overall, dog meat consumption spiked in 2008 and has not dropped considerably since.

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5th Dali International Photography Festival – Jan Smith

5th Dali International Photography Festival – Life is Elsewhere

Short Essays on Decay – Photographs by Jan Smith

The ErdmannContemporary Gallery of South Africa is proud to present the work of Mexican photographer, Jan Smith at the 5th Dali International Photography Festival, in China.  Life is Elsewhere (Short Essays on Decay) spans forty images of Jan’s work, across five of his series.  The collection will be on display in the city of Dali from the 1st to the 5th of August 2013.

Nouadhibou 14 AyA 4 Brochure-3Described by the Cape Times of South Africa as “beautiful compositions of absence”, and by Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun as “a visual voice that is firm and elegant”, Jan’s work explores the archeology of absence.

Short Essays on Decay features images  from the abandoned village of Kolmanskop (Namibia) and the island of Gunkanjima (Japan), the ship cemetery of Nouadhibou (Mauritania), and the nuclear wastelands surrounding Chernobyl (Ukraine) and Fukushima (Japan).  The carefully composed photographs evoke a paused beauty that invites the viewer to question the concept of progress.

Jan Photo 160