A series of photographs shared by Alessio Mamo, an Italian freelance photographer on World Press Photos’ Instagram handle underlining issues of hunger in India have received a lot of flak ever since it was posted on Sunday.
The images, by Italian photographer Alessio Mamo, show a series of malnourished and poor people standing in front of a table of food, with their hands covering their faces.
Photo Courtesy: Web
The images posted on the social media portal showed a series of pictures, called “Dreaming Food,” with malnutritioned and underprivileged children standing with their hands on their face, covering their eyes, in front of a table of fake food. The photos were taken in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
The photographer said in the caption that he had “brought…a table and some fake food, and…told people to dream about some food that they would like to find on their table.”
Mamo said he thought of doing the project after learning how much food is thrown away in the West.
Mamo had won the second prize in the People category of the World Press Photo of the Year Awards 2018, for his photograph of an 11-year-old victim of a missile explosion in Kirkuk, Iraq. The awards are organised every year by the World Press Photo Foundation, a Dutch non-profit that aims to support photojournalism.
Ever since the pictures were posted, the photographer and the non-profit organization have been subject to numerous criticism over social media from many users including photojournalists, with many saying that the photograph had depicted poverty in a way that was exploitative and gimmicky, a portrayal that is known as “poverty porn”.
Mamo’s post on Instagram too received many critical comments, with users calling it “ethically deplorable” and cruel. In his responses to some of the comments, Mamo clarified that the photos were not shot with the involvement of World Press Photo but with a local humanitarian organisation.
The post got over 700 comments on Instagram and a number of users took to Twitter to unleash their outrage as well.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
