Showing posts with label Vanishing coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vanishing coast. Show all posts

23.11.09

Exhibition Program



This is my exhibition program. I uploaded a PDF version of the document to Issuu (I website I think is great and has a lot of potential). We are selling the 30-page booklet at the exhibition for a nominal fee and it is doing well. With a combination of print sales and the program, hopefully I can at least break even.

I'm now planning a closing party-an idea that I got from a Wimba Arms discussion. I'm going to keep it a lot simpler and more casual than the opening, and am asking one of my subjects (a capoeira group) to perform there. Of course, I plan on paying them. Yesterday, I did another interview in Portuguese. This time it was for television. It went okay, but they just popped in without any warning yesterday morning when I was looking pretty ragged in jeans and a t-shirt. It ran yesterday evening on a weekend cultural show. I guess my whirlwind visit to press offices last month worked.

5.10.09

Major Project Tutorial Update

My final project is titled "Vanishing Coast," and I will present it in an exhibition scheduled November 14 – 28 in Maputo, Mozambique. With the exhibit, I will have a 30-page catalogue printed up as well as promotional posters. The exhibit will include 40 prints and ambient sound that I have collected from various groups I have photographed.

This project is a continuation of one that I began at the start of the course examining the 10 kilometer strip of coast in Maputo called the Marginal. Working from the idea that coastal erosion, a major problem not only in Maputo but throughout Africa, may completely wash away the beaches here in what an expert estimated between 10 and 50 years. It is an ethnographical study of the people who use the beach: religious groups, fishermen, and those using it for recreation as one of the only green spaces in the city, whether for football, martial arts or sunbathing.

Ultimately, I'd like to have the work published in book form, using the exhibition and catalogue as a selling point in pursuing publishers.

Here's where I am. I have tight deadlines. My catalogue and posters must go out to print in two weeks time to make the show. Yet, I am still pushing for at least one more sponsor. At this point I only have one, Southern Sun Hotels, and have gone to several corporate entities such as Anadarko (an American oil company), Mozal (an aluminum corp), several banks, telecommunication companies, and a major beer company. This week, I should get the answers from the remaining groups I met with and did presentations.

Next, I actually have to have my work printed, which will be done in Nelspruit, South Africa-four hours away. However, I am working on my final edit, which has been very stressful. Then I will start doing promotion and publicity in the city. I have a friend, a photographer and former sports marketing expert, who has been assisting me. I also have a Mozambican photographer friend who will help me in publicizing and translating into Portuguese.

This has been an intense experience so far and has been underway really since February, but has picked up steam as the date approaches. It has been eye opening as far as the amount of work, planning and money it takes to do a credible exhibition that one can be proud of.

Finally, I intend to do a multimedia piece aside from my exhibition for the final which will include interviews and ambient sound. I don't intend to shoot anymore for the project but am planning a number of interviews with several of my sources in researching. Editing, again, I expect to be toughest.

www.vanishingcoast.info