SAD BUT TRUE
Barely a day seems to go by without news of someone killed. On the street where I live, three people have been murdered in the last six months. Last week I came out the tube and all the roads around had been cordoned off. It was six o’clock. A young man had been knifed. A young man had died.
These and other issues affect Amanda Greenidge and the city at large. But Greenidge is determined to do something about it, to say something about it, to try and bring to light social problems through more powerful means. We hear about these things happening, but what do we do about them? We read about them in the paper and listen to the newsreaders on TV but, again, not much seems to happen. I found looking at Greenidge’s pictures different, more moving, and so here I am writing about them. She has perfectly captured the issue in line and form, presenting here two kids with nothing to do, no one to tell them what to do, no school to go to; even the playground beyond them, a symbol of the things that once kept kids occupied, holds no interest to them. But judging by the look on their faces, a gun certainly does.
In these pictures, Greenidge finds a more penetrative route to social commentary and presents to us far more vividly than any newspaper column ever could the fierce realities faced by many kids growing up in under-privileged areas of the UK. And in so doing, she makes us stop and think, even for a moment.
It’s using creativity to hold a mirror up to society. And it doesn’t always look good.
Check out Amanda’s other works here.
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