South Sudan: Birth of a Nation – powerful new series by photographer Zed Nelson of Love Me fame, captures the journey of the world’s newest nation as Africa’s largest country officially split into two after Africa’s longest-running civil war.
Many of South Sudan’s political bosses are former rebel fighters who have lived through a lifetime of war. The long-suffering population are mainly poor, completely uneducated, and living in conditions described by the UN as ‘the least developed place on earth’. The country has oil reserves promising vast revenues which could kick-start development, but $20 billion dollars in oil revenue is already unaccounted for. The capital has grown from little more than a village to a booming city over the past few years. Deals are being made in South Sudan’s new, inexperienced ministries, and the future of South Sudan is up for grabs. Foreigners here are either running charities trying to give money away, or oil companies and entrepreneurs trying to suck profit out of the country as quickly as possible.
Nelson is represented by INSTITUTE for Artist Management.
Weightist Declaration
America’s attack on the internal threat of obesity is sickening. You’d think we would have learned to stop blaming the victim. Obesity is a national epidemic, yes, but we cannot continue to blame people for their lethargy when an industry is designed to cater to this lethargy and make it more intense and more crippling. The media exploits obesity and is aware that it is a problem, but has no solution to fix it. We cannot continue to send our children to fat camps when they know very well that once the weight is dropped and skin is tight, the supply of crippling and saturated foods will only bring back the fat and gluttony that they worked so hard to stave off. We cannot continue to blame children for being obese instead of punishing the bullies for picking on the fat kids. We cannot allow the separation of fit and fat.
We are living in a new age; an age in which weightism has gain control of the population and has threatened the sanctity and validity of our nation. The remains of racism still fester in the shadows of our nation’s backwoods and gutters, but weightism now plasters itself across our flag, throughout our cities and as of recently, has infiltrated our schools. Never should a child be given special treatment because of his weight just a child should never be given special treatment because of his gender, orientation, religion, race or culture. For most, obesity is a choice; a choice to be respected by all, even if the obese person has no respect for him or herself.
To be weightist is to attempt to withhold a person’s freedom of self-manifestation. To be weightist is to attempt to usurp a person’s self-governance.
