• Home
• /
• Lifestyle
• /
• Interviews

Hunting for humanity

Photographer Jeroen Swolfs on how his search for commonalities took him around the world - to all 195 countries - in seven years, and why a positive legacy is a better one to leave behind

It took Dutch photographer Jeroen Swolfs seven years to complete his latest project titled 'Streets of the World'. The goal of the project was to highlight what daily life looked like in each of the capital cities of the world. At the heart of it all though, it was about far more than merely capturing conventional life on the streets - he was looking for humanity. Did he find it? Well, you can now ascertain that for yourself at what is being billed the longest photography exhibition in the world - a 1.8km exhibit organised by Dubai Culture and currently showing at Al Seef by Meraas till April 5.
To Jeroen, those seven years were like "a life in itself" and the photo exhibition translates into memories. He remembers how, disillusioned by all the negativity he was constantly seeing in the press, he set out to make a 'positive' project. The photos, therefore, aren't so much about capitals or countries as they are about themes ("things you could find anywhere, like friendship, love, hope, resilience, perseverance, people working together.").
The Herculean nature of the task he was setting for himself was not one he was unaware of. "How do you photograph humanity?" he asks, rhetorically. "It's too big and all around you. I decided to go with streets of the world in the end, because it was a small way in which I could ensure everyone would relate to the images. Everyone's capital is in this project."
It took Jeroen three years to find the necessary financing for the ambitious project. Even then, he acknowledges there were other challenges. "It's quite a hectic way to live. a different capital every week at times. Seven years is also a long time to be travelling by yourself." But, he adds, considering the friendships he's made, the stories he's heard and the perceptions he's had shattered, it really was worth it - so much so that he's even written a book about this 'ultimate world trip' called Streets of the World: The Stories.
Travelling helped him discover the little landing strip on the atoll called Funafuti, on which the island nation of Tuvalu stands, that the locals use as a community ground on which to play ball games in the evening - when flights aren't incoming, of course. It's how he met people like the owner of a famous tea house in Baghdad who lost four sons in a blast but "wanted to talk about tomorrow, not yesterday". And it's how he reaffirmed his belief that everything is not as horrific as it seems on paper - or rather, in the papers.
"So many places have a really negative reputation - and that has to do with choices being made by major media on what to report on," he says. "Of course, it's very important to tell the world about what's going wrong, but because it's so one-sided, we get a skewed idea of those places. In this exhibition, when people don't look at the name of the country first, they often can't believe that the photo is from that place. It's not to say that life isn't difficult there - but, in all those places, there are people trying hard to survive, bounce back and make things better."
He illustrates this with the picture of a 1,000-year-old Baghdad 'book street' that shows people simply looking through books, and otherwise engaged in the buying and selling of them. "No one who looks at that photo ever guesses it's from Baghdad, because the image we have of the place is of one torn apart by war, where normal life is not possible. The street was bombed in 2007 but the locals rebuilt it really fast because they all felt, unanimously, that it was their street and they didn't want to be intimidated by people who didn't approve of books being there. I thought that was a really strong story from a place that we only hear bad news about."
If there's one thing he's learnt about the human race, it's their dual ability to keep moving forward and not give up. "Even in a place like Somalia, which is one of the most difficult countries to live in the world, the locals have places where they go to enjoy life and unwind. Our resilience is one of our biggest strengths and something we should portray more often."
It's part of the reason he was keen to change the narrative in a media culture that prefers the unwritten diktat 'If it bleeds, it leads', when it comes to deciding headlines. "The things that bind us as humans are already within us, and they're very basic intrinsic emotions that we all share. We all love our children, all hope for a better future, all have an ability to feel bad when we hurt someone else. I see people laughing everywhere - even in really 'bad' places." As Jeroen found over the course of his project, these are not emotions exclusive to a certain group in the world. If he waited long enough, he always found the same stories were bound to play out in front of his lens - no matter where in the world he was.
The necessity of 'balancing the story' is one he cannot emphasise enough. "It's because of the unfair amount of attention that negative stories receive in the media that everyone thinks it's the end of the world," he says. "Humanity is very complicated - but when you start approaching people, looking for basic commonalities, you'll find it. Yes, you'll find differences too - but you get to choose what to focus on."
karen@khaleejtimes.com