The Image in our Mind
by
Jörg Arnold, November 2021
Development organisations influence public opinion about societies in the Global South with their communication. Wide-reaching fundraising campaigns convey emotions that are intended to convince donors. They shape perceptions of injustice and poverty on the African continent, in Latin America and Asia.
„The world has changed and communication has changed with it. It’s not the same as it was 30 years ago. We have to learn to communicate the international cooperation of today. With Agenda 2030, we now speak a common language internationally,“ says Patrizia Danzi, SDC director since 2020. The anonymous pictures of emaciated children have disappeared from the mailings and websites of most development organisations in recent years. But has the way they talk about the Global South actually changed as well?
Photo: Nipah Dennis / Arthur Waser Foundation / Fairpicture
"The world is moving. And Fairpicture is moving with it."
Global challenges need global competence
Climate change, the pandemic, and a new political order present huge challenges to "the world.“ That this "world“ is suddenly (and finally …) the whole globe makes things complex. Only if we understand the global inter-relationships can we, as a global society, design smart and positive action plans for the problems at hand. Visual stories, photographs and videos help us reduce complexity and make reality "understandable.“
Solar technology training in secondary technical schools in Ghana. Desmond Aryee, 17, a first-year student, poses for a photo in the automotive workshop at St. Paul Technical School in Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region of Ghana on Sept. 14, 2021.
Photo: Nipah Dennis / Arthur Waser Foundation / Fairpicture
Challenging the visual regime
Images, however, are deceptive helpers. Since colonial times, for example, Western photography has developed a „visual regime“ of stereotypes that continues to inhibit the development of countries in the Global South to this day: poor, dependent, unable to act, corrupt. The fixation of entire continents and their people in such images is discriminatory. To hold people captive in the role of grateful aid recipients is degrading. And beyond that, such stereotypes simply deny the people in the Global South the willingness and ability to constructively contribute to the solution of the problems at hand. This is unacceptable.
Local photographers and video producers should gain ownership and implement their view of reality in their countries in their own storytelling.
Jörg Arnold, Co-founder Fairpicture
Photo: Nipah Dennis / Arthur Waser Foundation / Fairpicture
Fairpicture as a change agent
Together with a growing network of local visual creators from all parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia, Fairpicture wants to help change this. The image that prevails in Western countries of people in the Global South should become a different one. We want to produce other images. Not for exhibitions, but for wide-reaching publications of aid organisations, companies and international organisations.
Gaining ownership
Local photographers and video producers should gain ownership and implement their view of reality in their countries in their own storytelling. With their local, cultural and linguistic knowledge, they can create authentic visual stories with their cameras. Images should be created and published that break stereotypes and express possibilities instead of lack. The people in the Global South should no longer be degraded to aid recipients, but should appear as competent partners when it comes to solving the problems of our shared globe.
Selected blog posts
September 2021 - Jörg Arnold
The moment of photography
We asked ourselves: For how long beyond the momentum of photography is it ethical for NGOs to use images for their communication? Jörg Arnold reflects in this blog.
July 2022 - Daniel Caspari
Why you should always work with local visual creators
Or how I met Fairpicture, learned new perspectives and now can’t wait to repeat the experience I made with this illuminating zebra.
November 2023 - N'Deane Helajzen
Navigating Generative AI in Ethical Visual Communication: Opportunities, Challenges, and the Role of Authenticity
Discover how AI reshapes creative storytelling and faces ethical hurdles in our latest post.