A series of photographs by an award-winning Italian photographer seeking to show underprivileged Indians alongside fake food has been widely discredited as “poverty porn”.
Alessio Mamo, a Sicily-based photographer, had submitted a series of photographs showing a group of poor children and adults in Uttar and Madhya Pradesh.
While explaining the photographs on his Instagram handle, Mamo, who uses the subject ‘Dreaming About Food’ says, “Despite economic growth, a majority of the Indian population still lives in extreme poverty and disease. Behind India’s new-found economic strength are 300 million poor people who live on less than $1 per day. Government figures may indicate a reduction in poverty. But the truth is, with increasing global food prices, poverty is spreading everywhere like a swarm of locusts. These pictures are taken in rural areas where conditions are worse than in the cities and where close to 70% of India’s population reside today. Statistics show that 2.1 million children under 5 years old die of malnutrition annually. The idea of this project was born after reading the statistics of how much food is thrown away in the West, especially during Christmas time. I brought with me a table and some fake food, and I told people to dream about some food that they would like to find on their table.”
Mamo’s series has received a lot of backlash, with people on social media abusing him and the series. Photographers, too, have called the series ‘insensitive’ with some people calling Mamo a ‘vulture’
Poverty porn, as critics have termed the series of photographs, has been defined as "any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor's condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause". It's also a term of criticism applied to films which objectify people in poverty for the sake of entertaining a privileged audience.
If one travels to South Mumbai then, they are witness to tour operators convincing Caucasians to do a 'slum tour of Dharavi', one of the biggest examples of poverty porn. The number of tourists have increased since Danny Boyle directed Slumdog Millionaire.
“Around the world, the popularity of poverty tours including orphanages, slums or even dumpsites is increasing. These types of tours exploit children and their families for the financial gain of the organisers and can lead to further exploitation,” UNICEF had recently written in a blog, highlighting why such gimmicks should be banned.
Notably, Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist shocked the world with his photograph in Sudan depicting a vulture waiting for a starving child to die. The photograph won Carter a Pulitzer, but the photographer, unable to handle the haunting memories the photograph brought with it, committed suicide in 1994.
The series titled Dreaming About Food, shows poor children and adults from UP and MP averting their eyes as plats of fake food are placed in front of them - World Press Photography/Instagram
Critics have said that the photographs are insensitive, with some of them saying Mamo has exploited the poor in a 'horrid case of povety porn' - Instagram/World Press Photo
The photos, according to Mamo, were inspired by statistics on the amount of food thrown away in the West and the number of Indian children dying of malnutrition annually. - Wolrd Press Photography/Instagram
As part of the project, Mamo placed fake food in front of locals in rural Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and asked them to “dream about what food they would like on their table”, an idea that has been panned as “exploitative”. - World Press Photography/Instagram
I brought with me a table and some fake food, and I told people to dream about some food that they would like to find on their table, Mamo said while describing his photographs - World Press Photography/Instagram
