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Kyrgyz Crisis

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:39:37 +0100

Opposition leaders were arrested and police tried to prevent opposition party supporters protesting in the capital Bishkek, las week. The demonstrators were protesting about the President’s failure to manage the economy, steep rises in electricity and water charges and continued allegations of corruption amongst government officials.

During the demonstration police opened fire on the demonstrators and in the fighting which followed more than 80 people were killed and 1600 taken to hospital suffering serious injuries. The president left Bishkek and is currently taking refuge in his home village in the south of the country. An interim government has been established led by opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva.

Things settled down very quickly despite the violence of the events in Bishkek and local people have been working hard to get the country back to normal as soon as possible.

I have been able to contact almost all of our friends in Kyrgyzstan and I am happy to hear that they are all safe and well. The photos on this page were taken the morning after the uprising in Bishkek and show fires in Government buildings and local people and fire fighters working together to try to control the blaze

Check the Visible Voice Twitter feed for regular updates on events in Kyrgyzstan over the coming weeks.

Visible Voice field trip 2010

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:47:26 +0000

This year our field trip took is to the villages of Eki Naryn and Karakola. We haven’t worked in these villages before so it was a new experience. Ian Convery, from the Faculty of Science and Natural Resources at the University of Cumbria, came along to find out about how Snow Leopard Trust projects are working in the villages.

Kate, my daughter, also came along as part of her work experience for this year. She helped out taking photographs of the project workshops and filming our work. We are working through the photos and video footage with a view to putting together a new film on village life in Kyrgyzstan.

There are three new films made by villagers in Eki Naryn and two films from Karakolka. Kenesh and I are working our way through the translations and adding English subtitles. You can view the films by following the links from the media index.

Kyrgyzstan 2009

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 08:51:40 +0100

In a couple of weeks I will be heading off for Kyrgyzstan to work with Kenesh (KSMA) Nazgul and Adilet (Ak Terek) on a new project. We are hoping to work with villagers in Eki Naryn, a remote community in the Tien Shan mountains. But given the time of year and the possibility of heavy snow, we may need to alter our plans when we see what the travelling conditions are like on the day.

This year I will be accompanied by Ian Convery, an environmental scientist and ethnographer based in the National school of forestry at the University of Cumbria. Ian will be looking at social and environmental conditions in the area and we will be meeting with Kyrgyz academics and environmental specialists to discuss potential research collaborations in the future.

My daughter Kate will also be working with us, helping to provide technical support to the villagers during film production as well as filming and photographing the project in action.

Moving Images

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:04:17 +0000

I am working with refugees and asylum seekers in Salford in a project sponsored by Community Arts Northwest The project, Moving Images: Refuge and Asylum aims to help the participants develop basic film making skills and to produce short films for public exhibition later this year.

Pat Makela and Emmanuela Yogolelo are helping as assistant artists during the workshops.

Preliminary edits from the first three day workshop are available here.

World Social Forum

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:04:17 +0000

Next week I will be in Belem with Flavio, Helena, Silvio and others from Viramundo attending the World Social Forum
I am hoping to do a lot of filming for a new film on Visual Activism. My aim is to interview people attending the WSF who are using visual strategies as a primary means or to support social change actions. I will also be filming a performance of ‘Talking with Dr Health’, a street performance that Flavio and Helena have been performing for some years. You can see some photos from their performance at last year’s Rio Com Vida events in Rio de Janeiro on the Viramundo website

We are hoping to be able to produce a daily video report covering events at WSF throughout the week so keep checking back in to LIVE page on this web site.

Rocinha Developments

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 15:18:48 +0100

Our work in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro is going well. The University of Cumbria have provided a MacBook Pro and a DV Camcorder so the group can begin to work on developing their own videos. I bought another Mobileme account so they have everything they need to edit and develop the Viramundo website. You can find the website in Portuguese and English versions at www.viramundo.org

Take a look at the 2008 Galleries to see the work the groups are doing around topics such as TB and teenage pregnancy.

It’s well worth a look.

IVSA

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 11:43:15 +0100

Almost back from the International Visual Sociology conference in Buenos Aires. I’ve got a 2 hour wait for a train from the airport so i thought I would see if there are any Wi Fi Connections. And yes there are. If you sit in the waiting room there is free Wi Fi.

The papers that Me Flavio, Gordon and Gonzalo presented went down well and I think it will help to

I met with some really nice people in Buenos Aires and we are looking into ways we can work together in the coming months. Next year’s conference is at the University of Cumbria and we have already started making plans.

SIMTECH

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:58:30 +0000

On 26th November I will be presenting a paper on our work n Kyrgyzstan and Brazil at an Association of Computing Machines Special Interest Group workshop on Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies.

You can view and download a copy of the paper at SIMTECH

Scranton marathon

Mon, 8 Oct 2007 20:34:49 +0100

I stayed at the Scranton Econo Lodge after a long but very pleasant drive up from Long Island, through new York City and on up through the Catskills on my way to the “Steamtown Marathon”, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

I know I shouldn’t have been in the catskills but I missed yet another turn on the interstate and just kept going North. It was a beautiful day. Sun shining and the trees starting to turn orange and red all along the way. I almost ran into a couple of deer as they strolled across the road outside this little town on the border of New York and Pennsylvania.

The marathon was great for me. Starting off in a small town called Forest City in the middle of the forest we ran pretty much downhill for about 8 miles. It was hot (around 24C) but overcast so as long as I kept drinking everything was fine.

The little towns and villages along the way had clearly seen better days. Mostly mining towns they looked pretty run down but the people came out to cheer us on as we ran through.

Running in to Scranton we hit the first real hill at around 22 miles and then a much more serious climb between 23 - 24 miles. Not the ideal place but I still felt okay at that point. I didn’t run up the hill though. It’s been a long time since I trained properly and I’d only managed about t70 miles in total in the last three months so I wasn’t taking any chances. I had to drive back to Cortland on my own and teach the following day so I didn’t want to make myself ill on such a warm day.

I finished in 3:51 (real time 3:49) which I was happy with given my overweight state and lack of training. I felt good and that’s what matters. No pain just tiredness. It did take me a while to find where I had parked the car but the walk around Scranton helped keep me loose and gave me time to drink and eat before I started driving. This was my 16th marathon and I’m really pleased that I did it. I had begun to seriously question whether I would ever run again never mind run another marathon. Now I feel much more committed to keeping my running going and I’m running a 5K this Sunday just to keep my self going.

Post marathon blues are just around the corner but I’m going to keep running right through them

Night driving

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 20:35:25 +0100

We drove along the Long island expressway i search of a station so we could get into NYC. But not so easy as it might seem.