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blood samples have been obtained in exchange for help. However, the majority of these
researchers do not return or contact the boys after the data has been collected. The
alienation felt by the boys is cultivated through these researchers who present the
cultural baggage of European idealism within their projects.
Through an inquest of interviews, visual methodology and fieldwork, this project
has attempted to challenge these misrepresentations. The western gaze, that which
perpetuates the archetype of Agbogbloshie as a dystopia, has overridden the ethics of
planned obsolescence embedded in digital commodities.
The work attempts to highlight the biases that are still at work within popular culture,
due to the historical framings of the African people and the selectivity with which
they are presented throughout visual culture. The work intends to exaggerate these
discrepancies creating an embellishment of the visual aesthetic whilst confronting our
obsession with African poverty.
IOGRAPHY
The way in which we experience cities can often be embedded in imagined realities
(fictions) and faulty representations. One can no longer be a flaneur whilst carrying a
heap of cultural baggage that has skewed possibilities of authentic experiences for both
subject and photographer. I have discovered the way in which re-imagination can play
a part in photographing the urban realm as a means of self reflectivity and opening a
wider critique to how our gaze can sometimes affect our realities.
Heather Agyepong is a visual artist and photographer who lives and
works in London. Heather atten Y H[