Find lost relations – Page 3 – followthethings.com

“Ballet Shoes“
Undergraduate coursework written by Maya Motamedi, published in the Primary Geography journal.
Full text below.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Birmingham is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Maya Motamedi – is a ballet dancer. She loves her Grishko pointe shoes. They’re part of her dancing body. After some online detective work, she’s finds who made them for her, far away in Russia. The shoes’ component parts come from plenty of other places. This kind of thinking, this kind of detective work, means you are never alone, never do anything by yourself! The lives of thousands of people are wedged into those shoes, says Maya, dancing with her.

Page reference: Maya Motamedi (2006) Ballet shoes. followthethings.com/ballet-shoes.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 28, 2025 by Mark

The Eternal Embrace

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Fashion

“The Eternal Embrace“
A photograph by Taslima Akhter.
Photo blurred due to sensitive content. Available online.

Bangladeshi photographer and activist Taslima Akhter visits the ruins of the collapsed Rana Plaza factory. On April 24th 2013, over 1,100 garment workers were crushed to death there as they made clothes for high street brands including GAP, Primark and H&M. In the rubble, she spots two dead factory workers – a woman and a man – who appear to have died in each other’s arms. Her head is tipped back and a bloody tear has fallen from his eye. She takes a photo and posts it online. There are thousands of press photos of the disaster, but this one is said by many to be the most heart-wrenching and haunting. Commentators are repelled and drawn to its horror and beauty in equal measure. What were the final moments of these garment workers’ lives like? What was their relationship? What caused them to be killed like this? What impacts can a photo like this have on people who buy clothes made in factories like this? It’s profound.

Page reference: Nancy Scotford (2013) The Eternal Embrace. followthethings.com/the-eternal-embrace.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024January 6, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Forgotten Space

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Ship my order

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

KNOW YOUR HISTORY

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

“The Forgotten Space“
A documentary film / film essay written & directed by Nöel Birch & Alan Sekula, produced by Frank van Reemst & Joost Verhey and narrated by Alan Sekula for Doc-EyeFilm & WILDart Film Vienna.
Trailer and pay-per-view stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here.

So much attention is paid in trade justice activism to producers and consumers, where they live and work, how their lives are connected, how they might be responsible for one another’s lives and lifestyles. But there’s more to the world economy than that. There are plenty of other people and places that make it tick, each with their own concerns and struggles over ethics, justice and sustainability of one kind and another. The Forgotten Space that’s the subject of this documentary film is the sea, and the thousands of container ships that are constantly moving between ports carrying 90% of the commodities that are sold on the world market. This is a whole other world of trade and trade justice, a world that connects the places and the people that virtually all trade justice activism seems to concentrate on. One of its directors – Alan Sekula – is best known as a photographer and, just before embarking on this project, had published a celebrated photo book set at sea called Fish Story. He and co-producer Nöel Burch shared a fascination with perceptions and ideologies of the sea, travelled on board container ships, hung around at the ports they connected, filmed the people they met there – working and protesting – as well as in some of the factories whose goods were being sent in the containers on board. There are two things that are notable about this film. First, it’s about the ‘forgotten space’ of the sea – as mentioned – and sits the viewer amongst the containers on board ship as they are taken slowly across vast seas to deliver their precious contents. But, second, it’s not a straightforward documentary. It’s more of a ‘film essay’ which Sekula narrates, and which is illustrated by the footage that’s included. It’s fascinating, often bleak and beautifully shot. Lots of viewers seem to appreciate the lesson that they have been given. They like Sekula’s polemical and pessimistic Marxist approach – making visible a whole new group of unseen labourers at sea and crises of capitalism that container shipping so vividly illustrates – along with the film’s surprising, sometimes sweet meanderings. Commenters like his open and generous interest in the lives of people he meets. And this leads to some fascinating discussion about how a bleak Marxist understanding of trade is perhaps easier to convey through photography, while the moving image is more unruly and briefly shows glimpses of happiness and humour.

Page reference: Rachael Midlen, Rosie Cotgreave, Lowenna Carlson, Nacim Meziane, Floss Flint & Alex Manley (2024) The Forgotten Space (taster). followthethings.com/the-forgotten-space.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>) groupa a

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.