Renzo Martin

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

Martins ethics: Poverty is a structure Poverty is a resource = which should be exploited (by the poor, not the rich) (own the means of production) But property owners benefit from the resources of poverty

  • the poor need to stay poor for this resource to stay profitable

- marten shows how the structure of poverty is mediated -" the heart of darkness"  : through the "ideological specs" Western guy goes into the river and is driven mad by the darkness


Renzo martin: enjoy poverty

"Too much work", more than one can handle for little money

You shouldn't give them anything they dint already have- teach them something that can help them

Martin teaches those with the camera that they can make more money taking photos of the local misery.

But ultimately, that business will never take off because they don't have the access they need to make quality photos, or access to the market to sell them they way photojournalists do. They have no internet.


The congo: receiving more money in aid for poverty than in revenue of exports But the money is not changing the lives of the poor

70-90 percent of the aid given by a developed country ends up in one way flowing back into that sane country.

Poverty is a resource of the country since the aid is the largest sum of money enerting but the poor do not benefit. They stay poor

Corporations: excuse themselves from their role in creating the poverty

Doctors wo borders restricts their visit to the areas which have resources to export Is this because they want to observe the lives of the people who are employed by foreign companies , yet their children are starving to death


Un cracks down on militias that are active in areas of gold resources And they are scared away and the companies which exploit the workers can resume their work Un is not helping the community but helping the corporations

The villages help feed the workers The workers are killed by the militias trying to protect the villagers

The media paints militias as enemys of the country- that their violence disrupts the work of the government to help the people, but their motivation may be not as it seems

The exports that are so valuable are taken for nothing from the workers and the community