Kickstarter

With my project 'In Marseille; photographs and sounds of the French Maghrebi,' I want to explore the city of Marseille, in France, and take black and white photographs and record sounds on the streets to paint a multi-media, multi-sensory portrait of the unique energy and pulse of the city. I want to present photographs and sound separately, instead of using video, because it is easier to lose yourself and focus on one sense at a time. The city itself is unique in France, and indeed the world; it has always been a major port city with an influx of many different cultures, and it has evolved an energy and cultural blend all its own. I will be concentrating on the North African district of Marseille, which i feel is most interesting and poignant in these days of questioning the viability of multiculturalism in Europe, as well as the influence of modern Islam. I believe that this city is an example of a place in which multiculturalism has worked to a point, out of necessity, with the added dynamic of a large population of immigrants from the former French colonies in North Africa creating lives in Marseille. This has created a unique identity of a culture within France, and it could be seen as the clear product of reverse colonialism. I am interested in what this hybrid identity looks and sounds like in the twenty-first century, as it is an important model or a testing ground for post-colonial cultural and societal evolution. I will be using only black and white film to make photographs, as an artistic choice, and I will take field recordings of any and every sound that comes to me on the streets and splice them together to form an audio collage, without manipulation. Using these mediums, I will create a very complete, accurate, and beautiful documentation of the dynamism of Marseille in 2012, to be released as a gallery and book-ready set of photographs with accompanying audio. I will be using the funds I hope to raise from Kickstarter to pay for film and media, and to recoup some of my logistical expenses. Thanks for looking, and I hope you would like to become a part of this project.