WHEN ARTIST PUT THEMSELVES IN HARMS WAY TO PRACTICE THEIR ART

Rory Peck Award of Photography

Winner: Soumen Guha and Dipak Chandra Sutradhar

Hazaribagh: Toxic Leather

2012 Bangladesh

Rory Peck was  an Irish photographer that was killed filming during the Russian conflict of 1993by Yeltsin loyalist. He was later, posthumously, the Yeltsin Award for Personal Courage.

Soumen Guha and Dipak Chandra Sutradhar are two photographers who put themselves at risk to gain access to a leather factory in Bangladesh that had deplorable unsafe conditions for its workers.  As you watch the film, you will notice not only the horrific environment people are being ask to work in, but the way in which these two artist present the events to you.  The filming is exquisite, and done with such great artistry it pulls us in and smacks us right in the face with the dangerous, toxic environment these workers are being made to work in.  It disgust you, it pulls in your emotions and puts right in your face conditions no person should ever have to work in.  
Most artists art not ask to take such risks when we do our art, but we must honor and appreciate when artists chose to do this to educate us, enlighten us, and motivate us.  
The 2013 Awards went to Olly Lambert for Across Syrian Lines.

No matter where one sits politically or morally about any event, that artists take these risks to document and present life events that need to be seen, we must value and applaud their dedication to their art.