Art and design

Subterms

    Latest story

    213 Shares82 Views

    ‘A vivid distillation of a deeply fractured country’: a history of the United States in nine photographs

    by

    The American photographer Peter van Agtmael experienced a life-changing moment, aged 19, when he happened on a copy of Magnum Degrees, a photobook published in 2000 of dramatic images from the previous decade.“I got an instantaneous education in the beauty, violence, mystery, complexity and simplicity of photography,” he writes in his afterword to Magnum America, a much bigger, more mysterious and complex compendium of photographs spanning nine decades, from postwar 1940s to the present day.Magnum was formed as a cooperative by a group of renowned war photographers, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, in 1947. It’s cooperative nature was initially a reflection of its founders’ stoical postwar optimism in the face of the horrors and traumas they had witnessed, but also their shared spirit of creative independence.Magnum America traces the nation’s often turbulent journey from those tentatively optimistic postwar years to the existential anxiety of the present political moment in which democracy itself hangs in the balance. Though punctuated by celebrated portraits and observational series on ordinary American lives, it is the hard-hitting photojournalism that arrests, from Capa’s blurred but powerful images from the D-day landing at Omaha beach to Van Agtmael’s eye-of-the-storm reportage of the siege of the Capitol by Trump supporters in 2021.Van Agtmael and his fellow editor, the curator and feminist academic Laura Wexler, have not attempted to create a definitive visual history of the United States as reflexed through the lenses of Magnum photographers, but instead deftly explore ideas of history, culture, myth and national identity. The book comprises 600 images – some famous, some relatively unknown – culled from a total of 227,450. The selection here reflects that mix, but concentrates on images of conflict and political drama that are pertinent to today’s fraught pre-election moment.The book is also a revealing social history of Magnum itself: the ideal and the often problematic reality. For too long, it reflected the predominantly white, male world of photojournalism, the exceptions being pioneers such as Eve Arnold, Martine Franck, Inge Morath and, later, Susan Meiselas. And, though Magnum photographers made some of the most memorable images of the black civil rights struggle in the 1960s, it wasn’t until 1988 that Eli Reed became the first black photographer to enter the Magnum fold. That irony went unnoticed for a long time. Today, Magnum is a diverse organisation, but it is its relevance – and, by extension, photojournalism’s role – that is also at stake in a world of relentless image-making and instant image-dissemination, an environment unimaginable to its founders. The ongoing carnage in Gaza enters our consciousness daily on social media, where local photojournalists as well as ordinary people with mobile phones bear witness at great risk in the midst of an ongoing humanitarian disaster. Not one photojournalist from Magnum or any other western photo agency has reported from Gaza because of Israel’s refusal to admit even embedded members of the international media. The integral act of bearing witness, which is at the core of Magnum’s collective being, continues just as powerfully all the same. The next big volume of retrospective Magnum images may have to find a way of grappling with that dilemma.1940s: Robert CapaAmerican troops landing on Omaha beach, D-day, Normandy, France, 6 June 1944View image in fullscreenOn 6 June 1944, Robert Capa was one of a handful of photographers granted permission to cross the English Channel with allied forces during the D-day operation to liberate occupied France. He travelled with American soldiers from E Company of the 16th Infantry Regiment. This blurred but evocative image was taken in the immediate wake of their arrival at Omaha beach, where they were met with cannon and small arms fire from embedded German troops as they leapt off their landing crafts into cold, choppy waters. It remains one of the most visceral images of that pivotal, but at times chaotic, operation, during which about 4,440 allied soldiers lost their lives and close to 6,000 were wounded.Intriguingly, the circumstances in which the 11 images that comprise Capa’s reportage from Omaha beach were created – which he described in characteristically self-mythologising fashion in his memoir, Slightly Out of Focus – have recently been contested. Likewise his contention that they were all that remained of 106 pictures he sent to Life magazine on his return to England, the rest having been mysteriously destroyed after being left too long at a high temperature by an unfortunate lab assistant who was processing them.Whatever the truth, the photographs that were taken under extreme duress during his relatively short time on the beach – he made it on to a departing boat after a severe panic attack in which his hands were shaking so badly he could not reload his camera – are a powerful and up-close record of that day’s tumultuous events. There have been several attempts to identify the “soldier in the surf”, with Private Huston “Hu” Sears Riley the most likely contender. That he has not been definitively identified lends another level of poignancy to the image.Capa, one of Magnum’s founders, was arguably the most revered photojournalist of the 20th century. His most famous quote epitomised his cavalier approach: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” In 1954, 10 years after this photograph was taken, he was killed, aged 40, by a landmine in Vietnam, while covering the first Indochina war.1950s: Elliott ErwittWilmington, North Carolina, 1950View image in fullscreenElliott Erwitt was invited to join Magnum by Robert Capa in 1953. Having studied photography and film-making at college in California, Erwitt, aged 25, had already made a name for himself as an editorial photographer for various commercial magazines. He would go on to become one of the world’s most famous image-makers, best known for his striking, slightly surreal pictures of the everyday. His similarly offbeat portraits of dogs have been the subject of five photobooks to date. It is fair to say that Erwitt’s dedication to being, as he put it, “serious about not being serious” has tended to shift attention away from his more unsettlingly powerful images. One of the most rawly observant is his photograph of a grief stricken and bewildered Jackie Kennedy at her husband’s funeral.His photograph Wilmington, North Carolina, 1950 possesses a resonance that is at odds with its neutral geographical title. Like many images in Magnum America, it captures a significant moment, simultaneously evoking the darkness of the US’s past and signalling a turbulent future of hard-won progress. The tentative beginning of the civil rights movement was still four years away when this picture was taken, and it was 14 years before that struggle achieved one of its seminal victories when the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 outlawed segregation. The separate drinking fountains, marked “White” and “Colored”, the one modern and sleekly designed, the other makeshift and worn, speak of a time not that distant when discrimination was a given in certain states. The face of the man crouching over the sink beneath the Colored sign is blurred, and his stance suggests he is looking towards the other fountain that is so close yet out of bounds. As a signifier of the postwar era of US segregation in the south, Erwitt’s grainy image remains starkly affecting and deeply symbolic.1960s: Paul FuscoRobert Kennedy funeral train, USA, 1968View image in fullscreenIt was a year of sustained social and political turbulence in the US, the war in Vietnam dividing the country across generational lines and provoking widespread protests that often culminated in violence. The conflict on the streets reached a climax of sorts at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August 1968, when police brutally attacked activists and bystanders, the violence captured on TV cameras and broadcast nationally on news reports.By then, the already divided nation had been traumatised by the recent assassinations of two progressive leaders: the black civil rights figurehead Martin Luther King Jr and the Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy. Paul Fusco boarded the train taking Kennedy’s body from New York to Washington focused on how he would cover the senator’s state funeral at Arlington cemetery for Look magazine. When the train emerged from a long dark Manhattan tunnel into daylight, he was taken aback by what he saw. Ordinary citizens, young and old, had gathered in clusters by the railway track, standing in silent homage to the young politician whose death, like his life, had echoed that of his older, more famous brother, President John F Kennedy.The train moved slowly, perhaps out of respect for the dead senator, taking eight hours rather than the usual four to complete its journey. Along the entirety of the route, people congregated trackside in their summer clothes. Fusco shot about 2,000 photos en route to Washington. In them, he freeze-framed for posterity a nation in mourning: families and friends holding hands, men standing to attention to salute, a woman kneeling in prayer. Mostly, though, a seemingly endless succession of ordinary Americans of every race, creed and colour gaze upwards as the train trundles past from city to suburb and on through sun-dappled rural neighbourhoods, their collective silence palpable in every frame.At the time, the editors of Look bafflingly decided not to publish any of Fusco’s extraordinary funeral train series. After the magazine ceased publication in 1971, they remained unseen for another 30 years, consigned to the vast archive of the Library of Congress until they were uncovered by a Magnum researcher. Almost six decades on, they evoke another now distant US, one united in grief but also, as Fusco later put it, “grateful for the commitment and hope Bobby nurtured in the legions of the poor, the black and countless other forgotten Americans”.1970s: Alex WebbNixon resignation, Washington DC, 1974View image in fullscreenOn 8 August 1974, at 9pm, Richard Nixon, who was facing impeachment and removal from office for his role in the Watergate scandal, announced that he was resigning as president of America. He was the first and as yet only US head of state to do so. “As president,” he told the country in a live television broadcast from the White House, “I must put the interests of America first.”The evidence of his misdemeanours, as uncovered by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with the help of an anonymous source known as “Deep Throat”, suggested that sentiment had not been foremost in his mind two years earlier, when a break-in had occurred at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington DC. It had been carried out by a group devoted to Nixon’s re-election, which included his former close associate G Gordon Liddy. Along with six others, Liddy was subsequently jailed for his part in the burglary.Woodward and Bernstein’s exhaustive investigation also uncovered evidence of wiretaps of the phones of those Nixon considered his most dangerous enemies. The break-in and cover-up was exposed in detail in the televised Watergate hearings that by turns enthralled and appalled the US public over 51 days in 1973.That Nixon hung on in office as long as he did was testament to his tenacity as well as his sense of entitlement. Tricky Dicky, as he came to be known, escaped the humiliation of impeachment and a possible prison sentence and was subsequently pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.When the news of his resignation broke, Alex Webb evoked the country’s collective response in his image of a single, anonymous individual intensely perusing the Washington Post on the streets of the capital. The front page headline, “Nixon Resigns”, resonates across the years, through the subsequent impeachments of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as the turbulence of the latter’s first term of office, the incendiary nature of his departure from it, and the possibility of his imminent return. “It changed history,” Woodward recently said of the crimes he helped to uncover. “It was a red light for presidents.” We may find out soon enough if that is still the case.1980s: Susan MeiselasUS/Mexican border, 8am: undocumented workers discovered in a “drop off” site, Interstate 5, Oceanside, California, 1989View image in fullscreenThroughout his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised his faithful that he would construct “a big beautiful wall” between the US and Mexico, one that stretched across its 2,000-mile length, thus ending once and for all the flow of illegal migrants that, he claimed, threatened the security and identity of the US. The construction of a border wall was already well under way long before Trump began his campaign, with more than 600 miles of the southern border barricaded and protected by immigration authorities. It signified the strategy of deterrence through military-style policing that had been officially sanctioned by President Clinton in 1995.This photograph by Susan Meiselas was taken in 1989, when the border was more porous and economic migrants regularly made the crossing, mainly to do the myriad low-paid menial jobs that helped keep the American, and in particular the Californian, economy afloat. By then, Meiselas had made her name with her documentary reportage from the long civil war in El Salvador and the Nicaraguan revolution.For her series Crossings, she worked with the migrants and the border security patrols tasked with apprehending them. Many of those sent back to their homeland would try to enter again by different routes, such was their dedication to the dream of reinventing themselves in the US. This image dramatically evokes the precariousness of the immigrant journey by capturing the moment some undocumented workers are discovered by a border patrol officer at the drop-off site they’ve been left at by smugglers after crossing the border. “When people are coming across the border, they are giving up on their homeland,” she said later of this photo and others like it. “That’s a very hard thing to do. There’s an uncertainty; maybe it’s that uncertainty that you are seeing.”1990s: Eli ReedMembers of the Nation of Islam among the ruins of the Rodney King riots, Los Angeles, California, 1992View image in fullscreenThe Magnum archive is rich in memorable images of the struggle – and solidarity – of African American activists during the civil rights era by the likes of Leonard Freed, Burt Glinn, Bruce Davidson and Danny Lyon. It wasn’t until 1988, 41 years after the agency’s formation, that Eli Reed became the first black member of the organisation. “By signing him on, the agency granted loftiness to its existence,” Gordon Parks would later attest. Four decades earlier, in 1948, he had made a similar breakthrough when he became Life magazine’s first black staff photographer.From the moment he took up a camera as a young man, Reed’s ambition has been to capture the full range of black people’s experience, from the everyday to the politically seismic, the intimately tender to the collectively traumatic. To this end, his book Black in America, published in 1997, is punctuated throughout with moments of tentative optimism but also tempered by a deep anger and frustration that Reed, an activist with a camera, shared with many of his subjects.This striking image was made in the immediate aftermath of the riots in Los Angeles that followed the acquittal of four LAPD officers who had been captured on camera a year earlier brutally beating a young black man, Rodney King. It features three besuited members of the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist organisation that believes in the formation of a separate state for African Americans within the US. Despite their extremist views, they are regarded by some in the black community as role models who uphold the traditional values of discipline and self-respect, while espousing self-determination as the only alternative to endemic racism.Here, the three young men stand, alert and yet seemingly unconcerned by the proximity of Reed’s camera, in front of the ruins of a building destroyed in the riots. The stark contrast between their aura of calm authority and the wreckage that signifies chaos and disorder lends the image an edgy complexity. One of the underlying questions posed by Reed’s immersive reportage is how the black community should respond to often murderous police brutality. It has been answered in frequently dramatic fashion in the decades since, most resoundingly in the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which became a global phenomenon after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.2000s: Thomas HoepkerYoung people during lunch break in Brooklyn with the twin towers burning across the river, 11 September 2001View image in fullscreenThe terrorist attack on the twin towers in lower Manhattan on the morning of 11 September 2001 was captured by several Magnum photographers, and their images of the cataclysm and its aftermath were published in a large-format book, New York September 11, less than two months after the event. The exception was Thomas Hoepker’s complex and, for some, provocative portrait of a group of young people gathered by the river’s edge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, while a dense plume of grey smoke billows from the familiar skyline in the middle distance. The image so disoriented its creator that he chose not to include it in the book, waiting until 2006, the fifth anniversary of the attack, before publishing it.Hoepker’s initial anxiety, it turned out, was justified. After its belated publication, Hoepker wrote a short article in response to a column in the New York Times that decried his “shocking” photograph and suggested that the five young people in it were relaxing, having already started to “move on” from the shock and horror of the attack. Hoepker admitted that he had initially found the image “ambiguous and confusing”, and had swiftly come to the conclusion that publishing it so close to the actual event “might distort the reality as we had felt it on that historic day”.This, in turn, prompted one of the people in the photograph, Walter Sipser, to respond, accusing both Hoepker and the NYT columnist of distorting his reality. He pointed out that the three people chatting to him and his girlfriend were passing strangers, the group having found themselves “suddenly bound together… in the aftermath of a catastrophe”. Rather than feeling relaxed, they were, he explained, united “in a profound state of shock and disbelief, like everyone else we encountered that day”. A scene that had initially appeared “ambiguous and confusing” to the photographer felt cynically manipulative to the subjects, for whom it is a stolen and distorted moment in which nothing but the unimaginable horror unfolding in the background is what it seems. Here, the idea of bearing witness that has traditionally underpinned photojournalism in general, and Magnum in particular, seems to collapse in on itself.2010s: Alec SothLockdown drill, Belle Plaine high school, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2014View image in fullscreenSchool shootings are a particularly American phenomenon, the deadliest of which have imprinted the names of their locations – Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech – on our collective consciousness. According to a recent CNN report, there were at least 58 shootings on US school grounds and collage campuses between January and mid-October of this year, resulting in 28 deaths and more than 72 injuries.Alec Soth’s dramatic photograph was taken during a school lockdown drill that had interrupted an eight-grade gym class at Belle Plaine high school in his home town, Minneapolis. These kinds of drills are compulsory in more than 20 states. That they are now such a common feature in US schools, that they have become almost normalised, speaks volumes about US gun culture and the failure of legislation to control it. Kenneth Trump, the president of National School Safety and Security Services, told the New York Times: “The majority of today’s generation of students and school staff view lockdowns as a routine part of the school culture, just as we have viewed fire drills for many years.”Soth’s deftly composed photograph is startling in its stillness and atmosphere of vulnerability. The young girls huddled together, faces hidden in hands, heads bowed in silent thought. Their pale limbs are in dramatic contrast to the deep red of their school T-shirts and the shiny gym lockers. The drama here lies in the dread possibility of what might one day come to pass, and one cannot help but ponder where the schoolgirls’ thoughts have wandered in this silent, confined space. It is an image neither violent nor transgressive but that disturbs all the same in its evocation of a singular kind of collective cognitive dissonance.2020s: Peter van AgtmaelStorming of the Capitol, Washington DC, 6 January 2021View image in fullscreenThe tumultuous events of 6 January 2021, when a riotous mob stormed the Capitol building after an inflammatory speech by Donald Trump, hang like a storm cloud over the imminent US election. As the election results pivoted towards a Democrat victory, Trump had urged his followers to converge on the Capitol to “stop the steal”. Many thousands responded, fighting their way into the Capitol building where they ransacked offices, smashed furniture and wandered the corridors in search of the politicians that Trump had demonised. Chief among them were Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mike Pence, his presidential running mate, who had refused to challenge the result. Both were perilously close to the rioters inside the building before they were safely evacuated.Peter van Agtmael, whose photojournalism over the past few decades has interrogated the US’s foreign wars and its concurrent domestic discontents was in the midst of the mob at Capitol Hill on the day. From the eye of the hurricane, he captured protesters clashing violently with outnumbered police armed with batons and pepper spray. This image distills the greater scattered disorder that erupted around the Capitol building and the dogged determination of the protesters, one of whom has scaled a high wall, his hand clinging to a marble ledge as he bends to help others beneath him. Only his baseball cap is visible and beyond it a panoramic of the unruly horde spread out across the grounds, many of them carrying US flags.In the background, the tall Washington Monument, built in honour of the first US president, points towards the sky, a symbol of the birth of US democracy. Beneath it, all is chaos and disorder. Van Agtmael’s dramatic image is a vivid distillation of a deeply fractured US. It may also be an augury of more turbulent times to come.

    Magnum America by Peter van Agtmael and Laura Wexler is published by Thames & Hudson (£125). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      The joke’s on Truss for backing Trump | Brief letters

      by

      So Liz Truss thinks the lettuce joke is “puerile” but supports Donald Trump, whose unhinged rants largely comprise pitifully childish schoolyard insults (Liz Truss leaves stage over ‘I crashed the economy’ lettuce banner, 14 August). Trump and Truss are united not just in their politics but also in their absolute lack of self-awareness, sense of humour, and belief in demonstrable fact.Hilary KnightVictoria, British Columbia, Canada Banksy’s rhino is described as an “artwork”, a “mural” and an “installation” (Banksy rhino artwork in London defaced with graffiti tag, 13 August), yet the individual who added their own composition to the image is a “mindless vandal”. Double standards perhaps?Stuart HarringtonBurnham-on-Sea, Somerset Letters on accents (Letters, 15 August) reminded me of my educational ambitions in 1960s Liverpool. My Toxteth teacher learned of my aspirations for further education and counselled: “You’ll have to lose your Liverpool accent. But don’t worry, the catarrh will disappear when you move away.”Dr Ken BrayBath A while ago, I was surprised that a delicious delicacy was signed on one of the market stalls as asparagu’s, thus becoming, perhaps, a medieval mid‑European warlord (Letters, 16 August). I taught English in town for years.Ian RunnaclesBury St Edmunds, Suffolk Re “How to rein in the malign influence of Elon Musk” (Letters, 15 August). Hands up all those who own a Tesla.John PeacheyWoking, Surrey More

    • 175 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We invest in artists as changemakers’: using art to help increase US voter participation

      by

      Everything is politics, so the saying goes, and never more so during an election year. With its newest collection, Art for Change is taking the “everything” one step further.Since 2018, Art for Change has curated programs of online sales and exhibitions to raise money for a number of charities. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Art for Change has partnered with When We All Vote, a non-partisan non-profit founded by Michelle Obama that seeks to up voter participation.On their own, many of the pieces in this collection may not feel overtly political. An art novice would probably imagine a collaboration like this to include art similar to the red, white and blue of Shepard Fairey’s Hope and We The People posters – not Jordan Kasey’s surreal illustration of a baby and mother, Daniel Gordon’s still life of red apples and white poppies, or Aaron Johnson’s vivid auroral depiction of a couple with a bird flying from one’s heart.But interspersed with pieces like Caris Reid’s playful rendering of the word “VOTE” against a starry backdrop and Rico Gatson’s colorful celebration of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, each piece in this collection takes on new context. Especially under the mission statement of When We All Vote, which will receive a portion of all the sales of prints and original works, the artwork of this collection come together to show what’s at stake with each election – what exactly a person risks losing by choosing not to vote.“The When We All Vote collection as a whole creates a narrative that we hope evokes various nuances of America,” said Jeanne Masel, founder of Art for Change. “As a group, they convey a sense of Americana, from the image of an apple to a whimsical take on a ‘Vote’ poster, to abstractions that evoke raw emotions.”Masel added: “What I love about this collection is how varied and multivalent it is, which I think can also be read as reflecting our country’s diversity.”Johnson completed Oh My Heart in 2023 and had not originally intended for it to convey a political message. “My piece can be looked at as kind of a love story,” he said. “It’s a coming together of two figures, melded together into like a non-duality.”As part of this collection, the love story of Oh My Heart comes to represent the ties that hold us together. “In a lot of times in my work, I’m thinking about the interconnectedness of all beings, our interconnectivity with each other as humans or interconnectivity with nature,” Johnson said. “I think that all wraps back around to the idea of community and the idea of why of it’s important to vote, having empathy for others and having a sense of a shared community. I feel like that’s a message that runs kind of kind of parallel to what we’re looking for when we’re going to vote. How do we function together as good citizens? How do we take care of each other as citizens?”View image in fullscreenLike Johnson, Kenny Rivero’s body of work, which looks at architecture and outdoor street space as sentient observers of our daily lives, does not always translate into something political. But once he agreed to work with Art for Change for this collaboration, he thought of Witness Revelator, a painting he finished in 2020 of a Black individual emerging from a dark rectangular portal in a gray brick wall. The witness in Witness Revelator is “a witness to your vote”, Rivero said.“There’s a lot of things that we do alone, that we do intimately and in private and in secret, and I think voting is one of those things, especially now where everything is so polarized,” he said. “There’s this thing you’re doing that is private but you’re being tallied in something greater, something much more impactful. Witness Revelator, for me, is connected to that in the way of somebody witnessing the effort that you’re making to create progress or create change.”Since its start six years ago, Art for Change has raised more than $300,000 for nonprofit partners and has collaborated with more than 100 artists, all of whom are guaranteed 50% of the profits from sales. Masel describes Art for Change as “art for the socially conscious collector”, but also a way for artists to have a platform for social change. “We invest in artists as changemakers,” she said.View image in fullscreenThis collection is the second time Rivero has worked with Art for Change, in part because he said he believes that artists have a unique role in a democracy, no matter the subject matter or intended message of their work.“I think that artists are on the frontlines of creating new ideas on how to relate to each other,” Rivero said. “Because we’re constantly engaging with these ideas around family, community and relationships, so I think that we look to artists, not necessarily on how to rebuild society, but to tell us what’s wrong with it. Where does it hurt?”Art for Change collaborated with When We All Vote for the 2020 election, working with four artists to raise more than $30,000 for the non-profit. This year, 14 artists are participating, with Art for Change pledging to donate a guaranteed $10,000.“A visual medium has the power to drive social change and impact, and having these artists involved and spreading the word to get out and vote is so important,” Masel said. “This project really harnesses a great creativity and joy to inspire change.”

      The When We All Vote virtual exhibit is now available on the Art for Change website More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Redone, hidden, burnt: seven famous subjects and the portraits they hated

      by

      Vincent Namatjira’s portrait of Gina Rinehart has found no favour with the subject, with the mining tycoon asking the National Gallery of Australia to remove the painting from an exhibition. But Australia’s richest womanis not the first person to take a painting of their likeness to task.Here we take a look at seven notable examples.Winston Churchill by Graham SutherlandDespite being one of the most highly regarded artists of his time, Graham Sutherland produced a portrait of Winston Churchill that was so detested it was secretly burnt by his wife.The painting was commissioned by the Houses of Parliament to mark the former prime minister’s 80th birthday in November 1954. In it, Churchill was seated and wore a dark suit, displaying his famous bulldog demeanour.The wartime leader is said to have found his likeness “like a down-and-out who has been picked out of the gutter”. The painting was taken to his home, Chartwell in Kent, where destroyed it in a bonfire.Germaine Greer by Jeffrey SmartPrim, seated and with her hands clasped around a handbag, a likeness of the author and feminist Germaine Greer was so unlike her, the sitter reportedly complained of the 1984 portrait painted by Jeffrey Smart.The sitter and artist were friends but Greer reportedly refused to pose after seeing initial pencil studies of her face, forcing Smart to use a body double. While Greer may have hated the painting, it sold for $1,227,273 in 2022.Bernard Breslauer by Lucian Freud A double chin was to blame for the destruction of the portrait of the millionaire antiquarian book dealer Bernard Breslauer by Lucian Freud. The art academic Catherine Lampert made the discovery in 2008 after visiting Breslauer’s New York apartment, where she reportedly learned that he had not been flattered by Freud’s depiction of his baldness and bulging chin.Freud was told of the painting’s fate when he was 85, some 50 years after the portrait was completed. Had it survived, the portrait could have fetched a seven-figure sum at auction. Malcolm Fraser by Bryan WestwoodThe prime minister’s first official portrait was instantly rejected when it was revealed in 1983, with Malcolm Fraser reportedly “loathing it at first sight”.Bryan Westwood, who went on to twice win the Archibald prize, captured the prime minister standing with folded arms against a dark background.Westwood’s agent, Robin Gibson, told the Canberra Times that the late former PM saw the painting as “too casual and domestic”. The painting was originally consigned to a National Gallery storage unit but was eventually moved to Old Parliament House. Lyndon B Johnson by Peter HurdThe president is said to have called his likeness, standing and clutching a history book with the Capitol at dusk in the background, “the ugliest thing [he] ever saw”.In turn, its painter, Peter Hurd, was not shy about calling LBJ’s behaviour “very damn rude”.Theodore Roosevelt by Théobald ChartranAfter the 1902 portrait was unveiled, Theodore Roosevelt felt the Frenchman had made him look more like “a mewing cat” than the powerful leader he preferred to imagine.He reportedly hid the painting in a wardrobe before having it destroyed. A second – and more successful – official portrait was commissioned, this time by John Singer Sargent.Ronald Reagan by Aaron ShiklerThe 1989 official portrait of Ronald and Nancy Reagan was a second attempt after Aaron Shikler’s first version was rejected because it reportedly lacked a “twinkle in his eye”.Two years later, the official portrait was replaced by a third, by Everett Raymond Kinstler.Other notable unlikenessesGough Whitlam refused to sit for his prime ministerial portrait after his dismissal. His Archibald-winning likeness by Clifton Pugh was instead chosen as his official portrait. Lucian Freud’s painting of Queen Elizabeth was both admired and derided when it was unveiled in 2001. While some said the likeness was more like that of a corgi than the Queen, the sitter tactfully told Freud: “Very nice of you to do this. I’ve very much enjoyed watching you mix your colours.”  More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      In Maryland, female migrant laborers face an uncertain future as sea levels rise – photo essay

      by

      @font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}nav+aside+section,nav+aside{display:none}.element.element-atom{padding:0;height:0vh}.element.element-atom.interactive-video{height:80vh;max-width:1300px;opacity:0}.element:not(.element.element-atom){margin:0;height:100vh}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.element:not(.element.element-atom){height:80vh;max-width:1300px}}nav+section{display:none}article.content–interactive,.article{position:relative}@media (min-width: 46.25em){article.content–interactive:before,.article:before{content:””;width:1px;height:100%;position:absolute;background-color:#ffffff40;z-index:1;left:calc((100vw – 740px)/2 – 8px);top:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){article.content–interactive:before,.article:before{left:calc((100vw – 980px)/2 – 8px)}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){article.content–interactive:before,.article:before{left:calc((100vw – 1140px)/2 – 8px)}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){article.content–interactive:before,.article:before{left:calc((100vw – 1300px)/2 – 8px)}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){article.content–interactive:after,.article:after{content:””;width:1px;height:100%;position:absolute;background-color:#ffffff40;z-index:0;right:calc((100vw – 740px)/2 – 8px);top:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){article.content–interactive:after,.article:after{right:calc((100vw – 980px)/2 – 8px)}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){article.content–interactive:after,.article:after{right:calc((100vw – 1140px)/2 – 8px)}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){article.content–interactive:after,.article:after{right:calc((100vw – 1300px)/2 – 8px)}}#new-header-wrapper{transition:backgroundColor 1s ease,opacity .2s ease;background-color:#213b2f;position:relative}#new-header-wrapper[style]{transition:backgroundColor 1s ease;background-color:var(–colour, #111)}#new-header-wrapper[style] [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper[style] .article__body p,#new-header-wrapper[style] #new-caption-wrapper{background-color:var(–colour, #111)}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] img{filter:invert(1)}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] a{color:#dcdcdc}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper{overflow:hidden;position:relative;position:sticky;top:0;z-index:1;height:100vh}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper{margin:auto 0;position:relative;top:50vh;opacity:1;width:100vw;height:auto;transition:all 1.25s ease;aspect-ratio:2/5}@media (max-width: 46.24em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{top:40vh}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper [data-index=”1″]{position:relative;vertical-align:baseline}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper [data-index=”1″] picture:before{content:””;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;height:50vh;transition:opacity .1 .25s ease;background:linear-gradient(#12121270,#12121200)}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper{left:50%;transform:translate(-50%);aspect-ratio:3/4}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-inline picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–inline picture{max-width:580px;max-height:540px;aspect-ratio:1/1}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-showcase picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–showcase picture{max-width:700px;max-height:466.6666666667px}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive picture{max-width:unset;max-height:unset}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height .interactive-wrapper,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height .interactive-wrapper{transition:all 1s ease;max-width:740px;max-height:85vh;height:493.3333333333px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper){margin:auto;left:50%}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-inline picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–inline picture{max-width:620px;max-height:580px;aspect-ratio:1/1}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-showcase picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–showcase picture{max-width:780px;max-height:520px}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive picture{max-width:unset;max-height:unset}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height picture{transition:all 1s ease;max-width:980px;max-height:85vh;height:653.3333333333px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper{aspect-ratio:3/2}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-showcase picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–showcase picture{max-width:940px;max-height:626.6666666667px}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height .interactive-wrapper,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height .interactive-wrapper{transition:all 1s ease;max-width:1140px;height:760px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element–immersive.add-max-height picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).element-immersive.add-max-height picture{transition:all 1s ease;max-width:1300px;height:866.6666666667px}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.reduceOpacity{transition:all 1s ease;opacity:.3;filter:blur(10px)}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper figcaption{display:none}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper img,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:bottom;object-position:bottom}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper img,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper video{-o-object-position:center;object-position:center}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper),#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper .figure__inner{height:100%!important;width:100%;position:absolute;margin:auto;opacity:0;transition:all 1.25s ease}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper):nth-child(1),#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper .figure__inner:nth-child(1){opacity:1;transition:all 1.25s ease}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper):nth-child(1).hideMe,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper .figure__inner:nth-child(1).hideMe{opacity:0}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper div:not(#new-caption-wrapper).inView,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper .figure__inner.inView{opacity:1;transition:all 1.25s ease}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper video{transform:translateY(-50%);height:100vh;width:100vw}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper video{transform:translate(-50%,-50%)}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper a img{overflow:hidden;transform:translateY(-50%);transition-property:transform,aspect-ratio,height,width;transition-duration:1.25s;transition-timing-function:ease;height:auto;aspect-ratio:2/5;width:100vw}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper a img{aspect-ratio:3/4}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper a img{transform:translate(-50%,-50%);max-height:100vh}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper a img{aspect-ratio:8/7}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper a img{aspect-ratio:3/2}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{width:100vw;aspect-ratio:3/2}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{width:740px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{width:980px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{width:1140px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe{width:1300px}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe [data-index=”1″]{position:relative}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe [data-index=”1″] picture:before{opacity:0}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe video{transform:translateY(-40%);height:100vh;width:100vw}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe video{transform:translate(-50%,-50%)}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div a img{width:100vw;aspect-ratio:3/2}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div a img{width:740px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div a img{transform:translate(-50%,-50%);width:980px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div a img{width:1140px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div picture,#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div a img{width:1300px}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div:nth-child(1){opacity:0;transition:opacity .75s ease}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper.resizeMe div.inview{opacity:1}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper{position:absolute;top:34vw;z-index:100;padding:2px 10px;font-family:Guardian Text Sans Web,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:130%;color:#dcdcdc;font-style:italic;z-index:0;max-width:620px}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper{padding:2px 20px;z-index:2000;top:calc(50vh – 90px);left:0}}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper span{font-family:Guardian Text Sans Web,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:#dcdcdc;font-style:normal}#new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper span svg{fill:#dcdcdc}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{position:relative;height:100vh;top:0;z-index:2;bottom:0;padding:8px 10px 0;display:grid;grid-template-rows:auto 1fr 88px;grid-template-areas:”headline” “standfirst” “meta”;margin-top:-100vh;margin-bottom:20vh;transition:opacity .2s ease}@media (min-width: 30em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{padding:4px 20px 200px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{padding:4px 20px 0;max-width:740px;left:calc((100vw – 740px)/2)}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{max-width:980px;left:calc((100vw – 980px)/2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:before{right:980px;left:calc((100vw – 980px)/-2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:after{right:calc((100vw – 980px)/-2);left:980px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{max-width:1140px;left:calc((100vw – 1140px)/2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:before{right:1140px;left:calc((100vw – 1140px)/-2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:after{right:calc((100vw – 1140px)/-2);left:1140px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{max-width:1300px;left:calc((100vw – 1300px)/2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:before{right:1300px;left:calc((100vw – 1300px)/-2)}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper:after{right:calc((100vw – 1300px)/-2);left:1300px}}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline]{margin:0 -10px;padding:0 10px;grid-area:headline}@media (min-width: 30em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline]{padding:0 20px;margin:0 -20px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline]{border-bottom:none}}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] div{max-width:unset}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] >div >div{padding-bottom:16px}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] .content__headline{font-size:47px;letter-spacing:-2px;line-height:90%;font-weight:200;color:#fff;margin-bottom:40px}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] .content__headline{font-size:70px;line-height:85%}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] .content__headline{font-size:70px;line-height:100%;width:65%}}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst],#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Headline Full,Guardian Egyptian Web,Georgia,serif;margin-top:-10px;max-width:460px;text-wrap:balance;grid-area:standfirst;filter:drop-shadow(0px 0px 4px #23354a)}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst],#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst{margin-top:-28px;padding-left:10px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst],#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst{padding-left:0}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst],#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst{border-left:none}}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] .content__standfirst,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .content__standfirst{margin-bottom:0}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] ul,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst ul{display:none}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst],#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst p{color:#fff;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:0;font-size:17px;line-height:115%}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:first-letter,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p:first-letter,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst:first-letter,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-letter{text-transform:capitalize}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] address span,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] address a,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst address span,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst address a{color:#fff;font-weight:500;font-style:italic;font-size:17px;line-height:115%;display:inline-block;margin-top:5px}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] address a,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst address a{border-bottom:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72);transition:borderBottom .3s ease}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] address a:hover,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst address a:hover{border-bottom:2px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72);text-decoration:none}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] .byline,#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .byline{padding-bottom:0;margin-bottom:-2px}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title]{display:flex;flex-direction:column;padding-right:5px;grid-area:meta;width:100%}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title]{border-top:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.25);margin-left:-20px;margin-right:-20px;padding-left:20px;padding-top:8px;margin-top:0}}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] .content__labels >div{padding-top:0}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] .content__labels >div a{color:#fff}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{grid-area:meta}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social{border-top:none;margin-top:0;padding-top:0}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social svg{fill:#fff}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover span{background-color:#fff;border-color:#fff}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover svg{fill:#000}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__comment{display:none}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .content__meta-container_dcr div{color:#dcdcdc}#new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .content__meta-container_dcr >div div+div{margin-bottom:-5px}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body],#new-header-wrapper .article__body{position:relative;z-index:100}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{background-color:#213b2f;color:#fff;max-width:660px;margin:0;padding:0 10px 14px;opacity:1;transition:opacity 1s ease}@media (min-width: 30em){#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{padding:0 20px 14px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{margin-left:calc((100vw – 740px)/2)}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{margin-left:calc((100vw – 980px)/2)}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{margin-left:calc((100vw – 1140px)/2)}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p{margin-left:calc((100vw – 1300px)/2)}}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p:first-child,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p:first-child{margin-top:50vh}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p a,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p a{color:#fff;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72);transition:borderBottom .3s ease}#new-header-wrapper [data-gu-name=body] p a:hover,#new-header-wrapper .article__body p a:hover{border-bottom:2px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72)}[data-gu-name=lines],div.keyline-4:before{display:none}#maincontent,.article__body{background-color:transparent!important;overflow:hidden}#maincontent .element figcaption,.article__body .element figcaption{margin:0 10px;opacity:0}gu-island[name=ShareButton] button{color:var(–share-button-border)}body.ios .article,body.android .article{overflow:unset}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper figure.inView a img,body.android #new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper figure.inView a img{transform:translateY(-70%)}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper,body.android #new-header-wrapper #main-media-wrapper #all-images-wrapper #new-caption-wrapper{top:34vw}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper{padding:8px 12px 0}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper #headline,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper #headline{background-color:transparent!important;font-size:47px;letter-spacing:-2px;line-height:90%;font-weight:200;color:#fff;padding:0}@media (min-width: 46.25em){body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper #headline,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper #headline{font-size:70px;line-height:85%}}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst{padding:0;margin-top:16px;background-color:transparent!important}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner{padding:0;background-color:transparent!important}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner:first-letter,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner:first-letter{text-transform:capitalize}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline{color:#fff!important;font-weight:400;font-style:italic}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline__author a,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline__author a{font-weight:400;color:#fff!important;font-style:italic;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72);transition:borderBottom .3s ease}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline__author a:hover,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .standfirst .meta__byline .byline__author a:hover{border-bottom:2px solid rgba(255,255,255,.72)}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .content__labels{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Headline Full,Guardian Egyptian Web,Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;text-wrap:balance;color:#fff}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta{padding-top:0!important;background-color:transparent!important}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__misc{padding:0;background-color:transparent!important}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__misc .alerts,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__misc .alerts{display:none}body.ios #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__published,body.android #new-header-wrapper #furniture-wrapper .meta__published{background-color:transparent!important;font-weight:400;color:#fff}body.ios #new-header-wrapper .article__body,body.android #new-header-wrapper .article__body{position:relative;z-index:100}body.ios #new-header-wrapper .article__body p,body.android #new-header-wrapper .article__body p{margin:0 -12px;padding:14px 12px}
      @font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}

      In the evening light, Maribel Malagón stepped outside into a rain storm.It was late October and Malagón, 53, had worked all day picking crab off the eastern shore of Maryland. That night, she and a handful of other seasonal workers walked to a neighbor’s house for an evening of prayer. On the way, Malagón clutched a pendant of St Judas, the patron saint of lost causes, that hung around her neck; she hoped he would hear her prayers for more work.About an hour later, when the women were ready to call it a night, the coastal waters had risen so high that the road leading back to their house was completely submerged.“We didn’t know which way to go. We were afraid that we would fall into the ditches,” Malagón said in Spanish, thinking back on that night two years ago. To make it back home, the women waded through knee-high murky waters. “The island is changing every year.”View image in fullscreenFor more than 20 years, Malagón has been coming to work in crab processing plants on Hoopers Island, one of the many island communities in the Chesapeake Bay.Hoopers Island, a chain of small islands linked by causeways, has been the center of the state’s seafood industry since the early 1900s. Due to its low-lying nature, the region has faced erosion and destructive storms over the years.But rising sea levels are increasing the frequency of flooding, creating uncertainty for the village’s watermen and their families, who have long depended on the seafood industry for their livelihoods. The situation is especially worrying for female migrants such as Malagón, who have limited job prospects back home in Mexico and wonder how long they will be able to work on the island.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreen@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}

      Twenty-four years ago, when Malagón first arrived on the island, her output was prolific. With the precision of a machine and a sharp tiny knife in hand, she would break off the claws, crack open the shells, remove the legs, and scrape out the white meat into containers in seconds. She estimates picking between 40 and 48lb of crab meat in her eight-hour shift.Now, she says 10 hours could go by, and she’ll only have picked 30lb. She suspects the crab population has decreased in number and size over the years.“The crab was huge in my first years here. Our hands would hurt from how big they were. We produced a lot of pounds, but unfortunately, we were paid $2 a pound back then,” said Malagón, who works for one of the five crab houses that remain.View image in fullscreenAubrey Vincent, the owner of Lindy’s Seafood, a processing plant on the island, said wages have significantly increased for her employees. They make about $16 an hour, compared to four or five years ago when they made $7.52 an hour, she said.Some employers pay workers per pound, so the more abundant the catch and meatier the crabs, the more money the women can send home.“For the past five or six years at least, the work is not 100% consistent every season, and it seems to sometimes vary across workplaces,” said Julia Coburn, director of projects and special initiatives at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), an advocacy group that supports workers in the region.“The workers are coming with certain expectations about what they can pick in a season and how much pay they can take home, and that’s changing. It’s having a widespread impact on their families beyond their immediate circumstances.”View image in fullscreenVincent said the unpredictable nature of the work has to do more with shifting environmental conditions and weather than any fluctuations in crab availability. She described an industry at odds with numerous economic conditions.“You’ve got a certain amount of costs [of doing business] that have gone up, just like everybody else’s expenses,” she said.Crab populations fluctuate yearly and have always been difficult to predict. But recent years have raised concerns among the state’s seafood houses, which have relied on the temporary worker program since the 1980s, to stay open.Each winter, when crabs are in semi-hibernation, Maryland and Virginia conduct a survey to estimate the number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. In the mid-1990s to the late 2000s, there was a dramatic decline in the blue crab population. Biologists, as well as the federal and state governments, believed that the problem was due to overfishing and poor water quality, causing a decline in habitat and food, which ultimately led to restrictions on the number of crabs caught for commercial sale in 2008.View image in fullscreenThe 2022 survey estimated 227 million crabs, the lowest ever recorded in the survey’s 33-year history. This led to new limits on the number of male and female crabs watermen could harvest. In 2023, the population bounced back to 323 million, a 40% increase; while these figures are encouraging, scientists urge continued vigilance based on low numbers of juvenile crabs.Today, researchers believe overfishing is less likely to be the sole contributing factor, and instead argue that factors related to the climate crisis could be affecting blue crab reproduction and survival.“We’re certainly seeing evidence in the data that reproductive success is declining,” said Tom Miller, a professor of fisheries science at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences who studies blue crab populations.View image in fullscreenThe climate crisis could affect the blue crab population in other ways. With shorter winters, crabs could face a longer fishing period, meaning more of them would be caught, said Miller. However, he added that the impact is unclear and an active area of research. Ocean acidification may also contribute to the shells of blue crabs becoming less strong, making them more susceptible to predators.Conservationists also believe pollution and the recent decline in the Bay’s underwater grasses is probably contributing to low blue crab numbers. Another factor could be the presence of the invasive blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay.“They’re going to be doubly impacted by not only shorter winters, but the shells will become less strong than they once were. There’s a lot changing in the world for crabs,” said Miller.The 2024 blue crab winter dredge survey results will be released in May.View image in fullscreenDespite the unpredictable and temporary nature of the work, many women in central Mexico vie for these positions when recruiters come to towns, hoping to score work authorization.“What we make here in a day would take us a week to make back home,” said Elia Ramírez Rangel, a crab-picker from Hidalgo.For women in particular, there is a dearth of job opportunities in their communities in Mexico and abroad in the US. For some, crab-picking is their best chance of finding sustainable work, said Coburn.View image in fullscreen“There is no source of work back home,” a laborer working on the island for 14 years said in Spanish. She spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity for fear of employer retaliation.In 1996, she left Mexico to make a living picking crabs in the Carolinas. She described having to make the arduous decision to leave her two children, aged nine and 11, in the care of her sister and family friends. Over the years, with her earnings and faith in God, she said she was able to afford a house and basic necessities like food and clothing for her children, who are now grown.“It’s been very difficult for me to be far away from them. Even though they’re grown up, I still feel like there’s a void,” she said in Spanish. “When I left them, I didn’t see their achievements, for example, in school. I missed their birthdays.”View image in fullscreenIn 2021, women made up just 12% of H-2B visa recipients to the US. On Hoopers Island, these women often describe coming to the US for work out of necessity. For nine months out of the year, they report leaving their families and children behind for a steady, albeit seasonal, paycheck.Some workers, like Malagón, come to Hoopers Island year after year to work in the local seafood industry, so long as their seasonal work visas are granted. Her father spent decades picking under the hot sun in California’s farmlands as a bracero. At the age of 22, she said poverty and desperation led her to follow in her father’s footsteps; later, she switched to picking crabs, a job her father described to her more suited for women.Over the course of the 20th century, crab-picking in the US became gendered and racialized work. Research shows picking crab meat was work delegated to women based on beliefs that their hands are typically smaller and more nimble. Some scholars argue hiring immigrant workers was a way to pay women less for the work.Crab houses say they have turned to workers from Mexico in recent decades because of a local labor shortage. In order to obtain visas, they need to prove local workers are not able to fulfill those jobs. Before the 1980s it was low-paid work largely carried out by Black women.View image in fullscreenThe journey from central Mexico to Maryland involves an arduous three-day journey by bus. For Malagón, the biggest sacrifice has been the time spent away from her sisters, mother and son.“Leaving was horrible,” said Malagón, who sends money home to her ageing father. Seasons spent laboring abroad have allowed her to transform her family’s once-dilapidated property in the countryside of Guanajuato into a comfortable living space.“The grace of God has given me license to build everything I wanted. I have comforts that I didn’t have before,” Malagón said in Spanish. “We used to sleep on the floor when we were kids, but now, thank God, we have beds. We’ve got a fridge, we’ve got a TV.”View image in fullscreenWith the rising cost of living and less predictable hours, some women report earning less than they once did.Previously, working 10-hour days six days a week could earn them $280 a week, but now, with workers reporting dwindling crab harvests, they sometimes only work three to four days a week and for shorter periods of time. Vincent said women have the opportunity to earn above their hourly rate if they are more productive.View image in fullscreenOther crab-house owners acknowledge that workers may take home less pay depending on the harvest. Jay Newcomb, the former owner of Old Salty’s, a popular crab house and restaurant on the upper island, said his employees make $5 a pound or $17.50 an hour.“That can fluctuate due to the quality of crabs, males versus females, the size of the crabs. Some days it may be better but we have to pay whatever is the highest,” said Newcomb, who downsized his operations in 2021 and sold Old Salty’s to open a smaller restaurant on nearby Taylors Island.The federal average rate is currently $16.42 an hour.View image in fullscreenTo fill their idle hours, many of the women make phone calls home, watch TV together, or look for ways to earn extra income. Currently, workers in Maryland’s seafood industry are exempt from minimum wage and overtime protections under state law.Without public transportation, they often pay or rely on favors from acquaintances to drive them 40 minutes to the nearest city of Cambridge for errands.Over time the repetitive hand motion of picking crab can result in arthritis, back pain, allergies to crab meat, and cuts to their hands from working quickly with the knives used to cut the shells open, according to CDM. Vincent acknowledged that crab picking, like other production jobs, can be physically demanding.View image in fullscreenThe advocacy group also said that women are disincentivized from reporting work-related issues or take sick days because their immigration status is tied to their employer, making them susceptible to labor abuses. Vincent said she provides an anonymous tip line where employees can report issues.Despite the challenges, the women emphasize that they are grateful for the opportunity to work and note that there have been some improvements over time.Today migrant workers have successfully gained more labor protections in part due to laborer testimony and a coalition of groups such as CDM, which have fought for policies that improve working conditions.Some women have begun organizing a Comité de Defensa, where they discuss ongoing issues such as Covid-19 vaccine information, accessing healthcare in this remote region, and how to report work-related injuries. Part of that work also involves disseminating information about their rights with other women on the island and their families, many of whom are also contractors.View image in fullscreenThe view from the cabin where Malagón rents from her employer overlooks the Honga River estuary and distant pine forests. A tree directly outside the house that once provided shade and a place to hang dry clothes was swept away in a storm recently, leaving only a small stump behind.This three-and-a-half-mile stretch of land known as Hoopersville is the middle island of the three that make up Hoopers, dividing the Honga River from the Chesapeake Bay.Surrounded by a lush ecosystem of marshland, wildlife and tall seagrass, the women are also geographically and socially isolated.View image in fullscreenNestled in Dorchester county, a tight-knit community with predominantly conservative values, the women say they turn to their faith in God and seek solace in each other’s company while away from home.@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}

      The narrow bridge connecting the middle to the upper island routinely floods in high tide, leaving the women trapped. Lower Hoopers Island, formerly Applegarth, became uninhabitable due to erosion, and a hurricane washed away the bridge in 1933.Malagón vividly remembers the first time she saw the bay’s waters encroaching on the doorstep of the house in 2006. “When I looked outside, I was terrified,” she said. “We had never seen the tide rise that high. Now we see it as more normal.”Flooding has become routine in recent years, threatening the daily lives and futures of locals and women alike.The Chesapeake Bay has risen by about one foot during the past century, which is nearly double the global average. By 2050, sea levels are projected to rise by as much as two feet. Climate models predict that over half of Dorchester county, the third-largest county in Maryland by land area, could be underwater by the end of the century.View image in fullscreenVincent said she has an emergency management plan for a major flooding event during work hours, where she would evacuate her employees, but says there’s only so much she’s responsible for as an employer.CDM argues there is a pressing need for climate adaptation measures from both governments and employers to safeguard seasonal workers’ wellbeing in the long run.“With roads washing out, the communication lines go down – it just increases all these layers of vulnerability,” said Coburn.“The truth is it’s very beautiful living here – except when the tide rises,” said the laborer who has worked on the island for 14 years. During a recent grocery trip to Walmart, 40 minutes away, she said her housemates were unable to return to the island because the bridge was closed due to flooding.View image in fullscreenLanguage barriers can make it difficult for women to stay informed and they often rely on word of mouth from other workers about the bridge flooding.With every passing season, the grueling nature of the job and looming precarity can take a toll emotionally and physically – some of the women question whether it’s worth coming back.“As long as we’re here, we’re going to make the most of it,” said Clara Ramrez, a worker at GW Hall & Son, one of the crab processing plants on the island. (GW Hall & Son did not respond to requests for comment.)Some owners share a common sentiment.“We just do the best we can with what we’ve got, and ultimately, everybody’s goal is the same: to try and make a living,” said Vincent.View image in fullscreenBack at the house, a group of women started to arrive for the new crab season that started on 1 April.This year more visas have been made available, and Vincent scored 80 visas for her employees through the lottery system. Speaking via WhatsApp from Mexico in early April, Malagón said she was getting ready to make the trip to Maryland via bus. If all goes well, she and the other workers from Lindy’s will arrive by 15 April.Newcomb, the former owner of Old Salty’s, said he won 23 employee visas this season, up from the roughly 18 or 20 he’s gotten in previous years.AE Phillips & Son, another crab house on the island, was unable to obtain visas and will not be operating this season, a major setback for the company and its employees.View image in fullscreenMalagón says she has put her faith in God for a bountiful season, with hopes of returning every year to have enough money to retire. Still, she worries for the future of the industry and the region itself.“If God allows it, my goal is to work for 10 more years. But if there’s no crab, what will we do then?”View image in fullscreen More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It’s our job to change it for the better’: can artists influence the US election?

      by

      “I think what we’ve learned is that one man’s hope is another man’s fear,” broadcaster Alex Wagner observed in the final episode of the Showtime channel’s The Circus. “Barack Obama was the embodiment of hope for a lot of people and the embodiment of fear for a sizable portion of this country. And the same is true for Donald Trump. They are twinned emotions and we as a country cannot reconcile that.”Street artist and social activist Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster was a defining image of Obama’s winning 2008 election campaign. Sixteen years on, with another presidential poll looming, it can often feel like fear has the upper hand in American politics. But Fairey is again at work to show that art can make a difference.The 54-year-old is co-chair of Artists For Democracy 2024, a campaign launched this month by the progressive advocacy organisation People for the American Way. It aims to create art that will motivate citizens to vote against the authoritarian Trump and reclaim concepts such as “freedom”, “patriotism” and “the American way”.The lineup of more than 20 artists includes co-chair Carrie Mae Weems along with Beverly McIver, Titus Kaphar, Hank Willis Thomas, Victoria Cassinova, Christine Sun Kim, Alyson Shotz, Amalia Mesa-Baines, Angelica Muro and Cleon Peterson. Together they are setting out to cut through the political noise to surprise, entertain and shock voters out of apathy.Fairey, who has contributed four images stressing the importance of democratic participation, says by phone from Los Angeles: “The amazing thing about art is that it can get to someone’s emotions around empathy, compassion, seeing that the country should work for everyone, not just for the super rich and powerful. Some of these goals with outreach are just to stimulate that moral centre of people.“All humans are capable of making good choices, bad choices, having moments of joy, moments of pain, moments of hope, moments of fear. If we’re following the wrong story, the wrong narrative, making a more compelling alternative narrative can shift the wind back in the other direction, so that’s what I try to do all the time.”View image in fullscreenArtists for Democracy 2024 also includes a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of billboards in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and an effort that will include peer-to-peer texting, radio PSAs, on-the-ground organisers, targeted digital ads and art activations with potential expansion into more battleground states such as North Carolina and Georgia. Activities include the release of visual prints, custom-made merchandise, radio ads, digital ads, celebrity videos, bus wraps and billboards.People for the American Way was founded in 1980 by the TV producer Norman Lear as an advocacy group aimed at countering the rising power of the evangelical right. One of the pieces included in the campaign is a portrait of Lear – who died last December aged 101 – by Fairey that was inspired by the photographer Peter Yang.The organisation has long engaged artists, from an advert narrated by the actor Gregory Peck urging Americans to reject the nomination of Judge Bork to the supreme court to board members including Seth MacFarlane, Alec Baldwin, Josh Sapan and Kathleen Turner.During the 2020 election it ran an Enough of Trump campaign in swing states featuring billboards, street teams, art installations, digital content, organising and a six-figure crowdfunding campaign. Trump was indeed defeated, only to roar back with a 2024 White House run that is even more radical, extreme and driven by vengeance.Fairey admits: “I never thought that Trump would be viable after January 6. He made many efforts to undermine all the institutions that preserve a functioning democracy while he was president the first time and he failed to completely undo all the safeguards.“But he has more people who will be complicit with his malfeasance this time and so, if he’s elected, it will be a lot more destructive. I actually really care about democracy and care that people will have a say in all of the things that government does that affect their lives, so it’s pretty fucking important.”Warning of Trump’s dictatorial tendencies, he continues: “I’m not someone who is prone to hysteria but this is an existential threat for a lot of the things that Americans have taken for granted and the success of this country has been built upon.”But the notion of artists diving into politics might set off alarm bells. The perception that Hillary Clinton was palling around with Hollywood stars in 2016 fed an “us v them” narrative, dividing America between coastal elites and Trump-loving “deplorables” in the heartland. Could artistic interventions be seen as patronising, preachy and counterproductive?Fairey insists that that some issues cut across partisan lines. “The idea that your freedom to vote might be limited can appeal to some people who normally don’t like liberal ‘woke’ talking points.“I grew up in South Carolina which always votes for Republicans and yet I had and still have tons of progressive friends. Sometimes the outreach in those places makes people who might feel apathetic or like they don’t have allies feel a little bit more courageous. I don’t think it’s a wasted effort at all.”There is another challenge this time. Opinion polls show that Biden’s staunch support for Israel as it wages war in Gaza is alienating young people, progressives and Arab Americans. More than 100,000 Michigan voters in the Democrats’ presidential primary election cast “uncommitted” ballots in a massive protest against the president.View image in fullscreenFairey understands the concerns but makes a case for pragmatism. “I do think that’s a problem but what I would say to any of those people is, regardless of how you feel about Joe Biden, if you can understand that your idealism has to be married to the pragmatic side of having a functional democracy, your next round of opportunity to place someone you like more than Joe Biden in the White House or any other political office is going to depend on democracy working.“So don’t be shortsighted. Consider that, whatever you don’t like about Joe Biden, Trump will be much worse. Anybody who’s young who has listened to Trump talk about Israel should know that Israel is going to get more unconditional support from Donald Trump. If you care about a ceasefire and human rights in Gaza, Trump will not be the person to perform better on that.”Fairey will vote for Biden, albeit not with the same enthusiasm that he felt for Obama. “I’m an idealist but I also understand that there is never going to be someone who’s running a perfect party, a perfect president or perfect Congress. This is where I get very frustrated with people who decide that it just doesn’t make any sense to participate at all if they don’t get precisely what they want, because all they do is ensure that they’re going to get even less of what they want.”McIver is another veteran of the Enough of Trump initiative four years ago. This time she has produced Black Beauty II, an image of a woman patterned with flowers beneath the word “VOTE” – in which the “T” is stylised as a woman’s fallopian tubes and uterus.The 61-year-old year old was “horrified” when the rightwing supreme court ended the constitutional right to abortion. “As a woman, I’m past the age where I would ever have an abortion but I still think it’s extremely important that all women fight for women’s rights,” she says by phone from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.McIver, who is African American, is clear-eyed about what a second Trump presidency would mean. “To even fathom that could happen makes me incredibly uncomfortable and very worried for humanity at large. I just think that we have to beat them. We have to get out there and vote.“I’m gonna take people to the polls, I’m gonna make phone calls, whatever it takes to get people out to vote is extremely important because I can’t imagine that the humanity of the world has gone that low that it would be acceptable for Trump to be president again. That’s a hopeless thought.”View image in fullscreenMcIver is convinced that art can make a difference and rejects the charge of liberal elitism. “That’s funny as a Black woman who grew up in the projects in Greensboro, North Carolina, whose family was raised on welfare, who wasn’t expected to amount to anything and art saved me, if you will.”Living with “roaches and rats” in the projects, she recalls watching Lear’s sitcom Good Times, about a family living in a public housing project in inner-city Chicago. “They were in the projects and the character JJ was an artist and he made paintings –that gave me hope about what my future could be, so the last thing I think about myself is an elitist. My family tells me I’m not all the time.“I’ll definitely own being a humanitarian and wanting good for everyone – guilty of that for sure. ‘We can’t trust the artist because they are elitist. Their work sells for X dollars.’ All that’s about fear, which is how Trump is running this campaign and has run it in the past. We just gotta realise that, before fear, we’re all human.”For Peterson, the political wake-up call came in 2017. A brawl erupted outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s diplomatic escort beat up protesters, leaving nine people injured and two under arrest.“I thought, well, this is strange, this is something different with all this divisive language and hatred and everything going on in the public dialogue, getting people riled up with fear,” the 50-year-old says from Los Angeles. “It looked very similar to stuff I’d seen in history and that’s when I started getting scared.”Peterson, too, regards Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy. “He’s trying to destroy institutions and we’re becoming like a culture of grift. I’ve found within myself that I can be all right with a certain amount of grift in the world but, when it become all-encompassing, I just can’t deal with it any more.“In terms of what’s going on, you can’t take this stuff seriously. This guy’s selling Bibles and NFTs – it’s just gotten crazy. We’re listening to super-technical arguments in the courts that that are just meant to be disruptive. Nothing is productive any more. It’s just a battle of fake ideas all day long.”Peterson has faith in the power of the artist to effect change. “I see it as our job – not just visual artists but writers, musicians, painters – to tell some form of truth in the world and also express some form of ideals and also have some kind of vision reminding people of the past and also a hopeful image of the future.“People feel disengaged and alienated, like they’re powerless nowadays, and maybe our role as artists is to say look, you guys actually do have some power here. In a world like where we can become overwhelmed with crisis, it’s our job to change it for the better if we want a better life.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      In A Time of Panthers: Jeffery Henson Scales photographs Black history

      by

      In A Time of Panthers: Jeffery Henson Scales photographs Black history An absorbing pictorial history of a key component of the Black Power movement shows its relevance has not receded todayJeffrey Henson Scales is a New York Times photo editor. His latest book is most compelling in how it helps place the relentless quest for equal treatment in easily understood context. Beyond beauty or mere appealing images, In a Time of Panthers is a highly valuable work.Sisters of the revolution: the women of the Black Panther partyRead moreCharacterizing the Black Panther movement as “the vanguard of the African American civil rights struggle”, Henson Scales shows how it emerged. The movement became “focused on police violence and community needs in over-policed and under-served communities of color”. To Henson Scales, “So much in all of our lives would continue to change in ways unforeseen to me … so many of the issues that motivated us during these inspired years of activism in America remain unresolved.”For sure, the scourge of urban crime is still hotly debated. The writer Adam Gopnik once remarked that so long as you promise to keep them safe, even in Manhattan, the white middle-class is “pretty much content to look away when the rights of others are being violated”.This, according to a Bronx politician who spoke on condition of anonymity, “is why New York state’s recently hard-won amelioration of bad police policy is threatened now”. Jeff Mays, a Times reporter who lives in Harlem, concurred. He observed the irony of how closely the new Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, echoed the Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, a Trump supporter. Repeatedly, as hard as he could, Zeldin hit Governor Kathy Hochul with the upsurge in crime attendant to the Covid pandemic. Though making their other differences clear, Mays said of Adams and Zeldin: “Certainly their rhetoric has been very similar on things like bail reform.”Changing discriminatory bail laws, an historic accomplishment meant to equalize justice, was hardly easy. In reaction to Black Lives Matter activists, responding to a rash of police murders, progressive leaders sought to finally fix one of the many issues raised by the Panthers.“Even with it taking until now to address, there’s pushback,” said the Bronx official. . “Some seem eager to retreat to where we were. Man that’s a pitiful shame! And, without a shred of evidence, Adams connecting crime to the bail law – that was just short of a Willie Horton ad. And for Democrats, in the most enlightened place there is, New York, it was just as destructive too.”To Henson Scales, crime is complicated.“It requires nuanced thinking,” he maintains. Yes, today’s increase of violent crime is still “only” producing a few hundred annual homicides, versus a few thousand in the smaller city of 1990. “But with many, many more guns, with magazines capable of cutting down hundreds of victims in seconds, sometimes I do feel as unsafe as I did in the 1990s.”He cautions: “It’s imperative not to overreact and at all cost to avoid unintended consequences, like the mass incarceration that accompanied the Rockefeller drug laws [of 1973]. Black preachers and politicians, thousands of African Americans, favored and voted for such laws. But look where they led.”How did Henson Scales come to produce his book, which morphed into an exhibition associated with Art Basel, on display in Miami’s Black Overtown neighborhood, across from the Red Rooster Restaurant?“Well,” he said, “Four years ago, not long after my mother’s death, my family was preparing our house for sale. It’s a cool place, big enough to have a ballroom and a darkroom too. In one spot they discovered this stash of 40 rolls of film. They reasoned it was mine. And it was. I was so glad they were not lost.“This stuff dated from the late-1960s. I was around 14, a high-school freshman. My dad was a hobbyist photographer and my mother was a painter. Even before I turned 11, when dad gave me a Leica camera, both patiently instructed me. That earliest footage of mine contained a mixed bag of images. There were people and places I hoped to remember. I photographed protest and riots in my home city of Berkeley, California. Sly and the Family Stone and other acts that appeared at the Fillmore, across the bay in San Francisco, were represented too. And then among it all, was this cache of 15 sleeves with negatives showing various aspects of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The two of us, we grew up together.”Oakland and Berkeley, Haight-Ashbury, the Castro, LA, the summer of love, women’s liberation, Vietnam, uprisings in urban ghettos.“They were,” recalls Scales, “all of a piece. But the Panthers were the coolest people.”He seems caught up in the dynamic of art utilized in the service of action and change, taking note of great style.“The whole presentation with the leather jackets, the berets. They were very cool. You had the hippies … and then you had the Black Panthers … and it was very powerful … The movement was feeling like we could change society. We could have an effect. It was a very exciting place to be. It was dangerous because of police violence against the Panthers … As a teenager that’s all very exciting because you’re not that concerned with safety like you are as you get older.”In discussion, Henson Scales squarely addressed this short-lived Black empowerment movement’s flaws, its misogyny, homophobia, infighting and FBI infiltration. By contrast, his book is more a testament to the group’s strides in overcoming such drawbacks. In pursuit of recognition, handsome Huey P Newton, the Panther’s minister of defense and co-founder, stressed the value of alliances among all oppressed outcasts:.css-rj2jmf{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#866D50;}Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. I say ‘whatever your insecurities are’ because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.”Coming to boast a membership of more than 10,000, 50% of whom were women, the Panther party shone a spotlight on police and political corruption, brutality and injustice, a story also related in a film by an early Panthers member, Henson Scales’s Harlem neighbor Stanley Nelson.The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution debuted in 2015. It elaborates on the party’s wide-ranging social programs. They established community support systems including food and clothing banks, clinics, transport for families of inmates, legal seminars. In the 70s the Panther’s Free Breakfast for Children, nationwide, fed thousands. All this was achieved amid near-constant surveillance by police and J Edgar Hoover of the FBI, who demonized the BPP as “the greatest internal threat to national security”.The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution review – blistering account of a misunderstood movementRead moreRather than giving a daily rundown of all they did and didn’t do, Henson Scales’ portrayals show these revolutionaries as part of the pantheon of Black valor.When Viola Davis’s recent film The Woman King appeared, many critics were astonished. Projected to gross around $12m in its opening week, it grossed $19.05m. Worldwide, the “history-based” epic has earned nearly $100m. A similarly misunderstood historical fantasy, the astutely named, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, has earned more than three times that.As history, both are unashamedly inventive and melodramatic – much like Shakespeare. The “African-inspired” costuming and architecture is highly inauthentic. Heavy reliance on spectacle is akin to Braveheart or Gladiator. Resoundingly praised performances notwithstanding, some have wondered aloud about the appeal of such movies to Black people.If African American motivations and culture seem inscrutable to many, they ought not. Only now are we both able and fully prepared to embrace our heritage.In a Time of Panthers is an arresting look at some mighty heroes from the recent past. We revere them along with never-enslaved Blacks and those held in captivity. We celebrate our ancestors and adhere to Neo-Africanism. Whether such sources are accurately drawn or totally fabricated, the inspiration we take is legitimate. This is today’s aesthetic and intellectual answer to white supremacy’s neo-classical domination: a realization that we too are the heirs of greatness.
      In a Time of Panthers: Early Photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales is published in the US by SPQR Editions
      TopicsBooksBlack power movementRacePolitics booksHistory booksUS politicsPhotographyfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘My gut-felt, heartbreaking decision’ – Tracey Emin on her ‘A-Z of abortion’ blanket

      by

      ‘My gut-felt, heartbreaking decision’ – Tracey Emin on her ‘A-Z of abortion’ blanketThe artist made The Last of the Gold to help women considering a termination. With the issue dominating tomorrow’s US midterms, the work seems more potent than ever “I felt pretty vulnerable. I was so broke, homeless, in debt … I had worked so hard at my education and coming from my background … I knew I wanted to be an artist and I knew that if I had a baby on my own, I felt that I had zero chance of that happening. It seemed ironic that now after all my education and fighting … that I was going to end up being a single mother … And I just thought, I can’t bring a baby into the world with all this …”These are the words of Tracey Emin reflecting on her two abortions from the early 1990s. They highlight the reality endured by so many women around the world. Emin has been making highly political work for decades. Through painting, textiles, films and more, she unveils the rawness and truths of life. Abortion is an issue she has constantly explored, yet its importance in her work has too often been dismissed.TopicsArt and designThe great women’s art bulletinTracey EminAbortionUS politicsWomenfeaturesReuse this content More