In Istanbul: City of A Hundred Names, Magnum photographer Alex Webb presents a vision of Istanbul as an urban cultural center, rich with the incandescence of its past, and most of all as a border city, which is a theme he has pursued for some 30 years. The resulting body of work, some of Webb's strongest to date, conveys the frisson of a culture in transition, yet firmly rooted in a complex history. Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk contributes an essay to this piece.
Convention on the Rights of the Child by Magnum Group
This essay, curated by Peter Lucas and produced by Magnum In Motion in conjunction with Cyberschoolbus, begins with text that explains, "the rights of the child are human rights," and goes on, through the voices of children, to highlight what those rights are.
Exposure: Portrait of a Corporate Crime by Raghu Rai
On Dec. 3, 1984, a dense cloud of poisonous gas traveled into Bhopal, India, killing between 15,000 and 20,000 people on contact. An understaffed chemical plant owned by an Indian subsidiary of the American-owned Union Carbide Corporation was to blame. More than half a million survivors living in densely populated neighborhoods near the factory suffered and continue to suffer from the effects of the disaster, which contaminated area soil and water, too. Raghu Rai, Magnum’s Indian correspondent, documented the aftermath of the worst industrial accident in history. (This gallery contains some disturbing images.)
Prohibition in the United States ended officially this week in 1933, freeing many a happy reveler to imbibe to their heart’s content, legally, once again.
Quote of the Week
In all the different types of work I’ve done—editorial, travel, advertising—they’ve all had the same engine driving them, which is that I can’t think of anything that’s better than what happens in real life.
Arts & Life
