Grime In Paradise – New Guinea 2014

Being a documentary photographer is a challenge and a lifetime commitment as one needs to get into a specific environment. That requires strong character and will, adaptability, flexibility, cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Travel, which I find exciting and stimulating, is my primary source of inspiration fuelling my interest in politics, history and religion.

During my journeys I seek to explore and expose human beings, their identity and unique existence.

For this reason New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and West Papua) was my travel destination last year. The aim of my journey to this far away island was to see and discover the truth about the colonisation, occupation and their relatively new independence.

I was very interested in the impact of Western Culture on Papuans and their everyday life.

What I saw was a third world country; the creation of the Western World and human greed.

An island that used to be a paradise is now famous for crime and poverty. The capital city of PNG is crowded by official and unofficial settlements with a growing number of people coming from the Highlands. People from different tribes are forced to live together just to survive. They left their beautiful villages in the mountains in search for money, as we taught them money is power. They can see expensive cars and beautiful houses of foreigners working in mining and big international companies; who are living in their country almost without seeing them.

Lots of Papuans are lost in what is going on, they don’t understand why everything is changing, why sorcery is bad but religion is good, why they have to live in a brick house and not in traditional hut.

For the whole time I tried to stay inside my story, comprehend the reality, and spend my time with local people. My goal was to create a flow of information through my images, to create a story that might provoke a discussion.

More info: jadwigabronte.com