UB BORDERLINE
UB Borderline Winter 2008-2009
Author Statement
World is unavoidably modified by our Presence as soon as we go through it. The essence and reflection of my own relationship with whatever surrounds me – this is photography to me; and the action of shooting (photos) the relationship itself. All the photos we shoot are, by extension, a self portrait. But the Presence, a double being as witness and actor at the same time, is, in its duality, the physical and emotional energy which establishes the relation between the inner and the outer.
A Presence which is constantly in search of balance between moulding and being mould.
The UB Borderline project investigates the periurban areas of the Mongolian capital city laying the gaze where the relation between human and environment becomes manifest. The borderline is meant both as geographical and social, as they usually match. These areas are the result of recent urban immigration stirred by climate change, desertification and new social models.
I meant not to take photographs of salient, outstanding moments but to seize recurrence and lasting in the every day instant.
Subject of the series
Recent urban immigration in the capital city of Mongolia brought to the formation of periurban areas with high level of unemployed and high poverty income levels. In this contest, kids are often forced to work and many do not attend school.
The periurban areas, called “Gers District”, have developed without a planned strategy or infrastructural services as roads, water, electricity, sewers. At the beginning nomads settled with their Yurts, and this has been their luck compared with other cities slums, but now many are building houses.
In December the outside temperature it is normally around -30 Celsius. Coal or wood, which is very expensive, are the only heating sources for all the periurban areas of UB.
Air pollution caused by the smoke of burned coal of the four power plants and of the stoves of Gers often causes pulmonary diseases.
Poverty brought around 300 people, of which almost 50 are children from 5 to 18, to live collecting and differentiating waste in the garbage dump. 100 of them have their homes build in the dump.
4 people can live in a 2,50 x 3 meters home made of wood, plastic and bed nets.
To make a living for their family in winter time, poor kids can steal coal from running trains and burn or resell it. Many of them do not attend school and often their parents don’t work due to TB or lack of documents.
Malnutrition, lack of hygiene and pollution are the main causes of TB. Therefore TB disease is closely connected with social welfare.
Photos and Text by © Matteo Gozzi 2009-2010
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