Thought this was important so am sharing it. This is a rather impassioned email I wrote THE CANADIAN MUSEUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. The museum earlier sent me a kind, polite rejection note for the “Families of the Dump” documentary photography series. They sited a full schedule until 2020 but complimented the CONCEPT of the Project.
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I wrote this rather impassioned email to the Canadian Human Rights Museum today while waiting for and on my flight. Am sending and posting it now from th DM airport in Bangkok.
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I am writing you again so that I can send a documentary photograph made in the Mae Sot Thailand garbage dump last night at 10pm. This photograph is part of a series I have been working on here in Mae Sot for the last 5 years, called “Families of the Dump”. These peoples lives matter to me deeply and I am going to continue to fight to have their voices heard regardless of how many times I hear the word “No”. Their reality demands a fight, commands that we care.
A child living and working in a garbage dump is not a vague artistic concept to me, it is a blood and guts brutal reality. This young boy “Thu Zad” I have been photographing for 5 years now. He is one of two young sons in the Win family (the Win’s also have 3 young daughters). I have watched Thu Zad work the garbage, play in the garbage, grow up in the garbage and here in this photograph he eats found oranges from the garbage. That needs to be fought against, it simply has to be. We are not human beings if we let lives like Thu Zad’s be ignored and pushed aside.
“Families of the Dump” is a human rights story, a story of the failure of our society to protect children and others from living a life in filth surrounded by cockroaches and rats. They have little hope for a positive future of any kind. THEIR STORIES MUST BE TOLD, THEIR VOICES MUST BE HEARD! If not in a HUMAN RIGHTS museum then where?
I return to Canada after 6 months of making photographs in April. My plan is to make a formal submission to “The Canadian Museum For Human Rights”, including b/w film photographs (harsher, less beautiful images) from the years 2013, 2015, 2016. As well as the new colour digital photographs from 2017-2018. You can watch Thu Zad grow up, you can visit his world, experience his reality.
If you are still not interested in telling the families HUMAN RIGHTS story (in 2021, 2022, 2023?) maybe you can recommend some one, somewhere that will.
Thank you for your time.
Note* I have video shot earlier this trip (November 2017) where Thu Zad digs through a box of oranges he found in the garbage. He teaches me the Burmese word “orange” in the video, LEM-OH-DEE. You can hear his voice. If I am granted the privilege of giving a talk about the “Families of the Dump” exhibition I would use the video in conjunction with the photograph I am sending you today. I have hours of video and thousands of photographs about the families and their lives.
Note** I must apologize for my tone. I am just so frustrated by the injustices I see, sometimes my anger comes out. How can we live in a world where certain SPECIAL PEOPLE like the Trump family live in golden palaces and even sit on 18k golden toilets, yet others, so many others, like Thu Zad live on food found in garbage dumps. Sometimes it is good to get angry and fight back. Please help me win the fight!
Note *** I should mention my real last name is not Yaum (Yaum = security guard in Thai, my job in Canada). I use a pseudonym because I do not matter, only the people in the photographs are important, this is only about them.
Note**** Canadians and Americans want to help, you just have to give them a friendly and gentle push sometimes. Before I left Canada in October, people I work with and online friends donated $3400 CAD. I have been able to use that money to buy goods here in Mae Sot Thailand and then hand those items (rubber boots, headlamps, rice, suckers for the kids) directly to those in need. You can see the colourful boots and head lamps in some of the photos I have sent you. The pink boots Thu Zad wears in the orange eating photo were donated by people back home. People can be heroes, they will help others, you just got to give them the chance. Hopefully we can work together to create more heroes.
