Everything changed on the night of January 31, 2020. At 11:00 p.m. (12:00 a.m. Continental time) that winter night, the United Kingdom officially ceased to be a member state of the European Union. Three years had passed since the unexpected result of the referendum. 47 years of European integration were over. A Feast Day for the Leavers; a disaster for the Remainers. Among the crowd that gathered in Parliament Square in London was the Spanish photographer Alejandro Acín, who was ready to document the events with his camera in very special premises. He began to give shape to a project, The Rest is History, a photographic series articulating a book and an exhibition of the same title that will be on view at the Sala Kursala of the University of Cádiz at the end of September.

“Brexit was a very long process for everyone,” says Acín. A change that affected the photographer personally and in which he was unable to actively participate despite having lived in the UK for twelve years. So he tried to approach this break more creatively. During his career as a photographer, Acín has worked with various historical archives such as the Bristol British Empire Commonwealth Collection which served as the basis for his latest work in progress, Alone with Empire, which he co-produced with Isaac Blease (author of the text) of this latest Photo book attached), in which he questions the way the colonial film archive is presented and experienced, using the folk collections of that institution. In this way, the Brexit Day scenario was presented to the author as a new way of examining the construction of collective memory. “A way of responding to the media narrative that was created in relation to the transcendence of this historical moment,” emphasizes the author.

Approaching the subject like a photojournalistic report, the photographer made his way through the crowds gathered in the square next to Parliament for a celebration called by the UKIP party, the UK Independence Party became. founded by ultra-nationalist Nigel Farage. In the same way, he decided to photograph the British Museum, covering two locations in the British capital of great historical importance. Several aesthetic limitations were imposed: works in black and white and digital. “I liked the versatility of shooting both indoors and outdoors at a public event. For this I used a very high sensitivity in the camera sensor. I was interested in digital noise, the random appearance of traces as a reference to the social noise surrounding the Brexit process and its consequences,” explains the photographer. The idea was to create a third space where past and present could be united. Find the point of confluence in time where it is difficult to understand today without alluding to yesterday, and vice versa. “Create a conflict between individuals, artifacts and history, which is accepted as something under construction that has just been born,” emphasizes the author.

Image belongs to “One of Yours” by Daniel Mayrit.Daniel Mayrit

From the opening pages of The Rest is History, the reader is confronted with the burden of a nation’s past. Overwhelmed by voluminous columns that transport you into a dense and opaque atmosphere. A space that is sometimes claustrophobic and sometimes dreamlike, where two different scenarios collide. They are decontextualized images in which details and symbols predominate. A petrified theater where it is difficult to distinguish people from ancient statues. A phantasmagorical setting that “refers to how history pervades our days,” the photographer adds to the nostalgia for empire some attribute to Brexiteers. Meanwhile, the hours are marked between the pictures, the story is being built.

And who is the new leader?

Populism is the main theme of Daniel Mayrit’s latest project One of Yours, which is part of the program of the eighth edition of the Images Vevey Festival taking place in this Swiss city. On this occasion, the Biennale brings together the works of 45 artists from 20 countries. A series of posters, banners and banners scattered in different parts of the spaces occupied by the festival attract the attention of visitors, who are initially surprised at how little they know the young candidate who is the protagonist of an alleged political campaign in the arising is. (Something that in principle should not collide in a political system like the Swiss one, direct democracy, a peculiarity that leads to frequent referendums). Only upon arrival at the city’s tourist office, which has been converted into the candidate’s official office, does the visitor learn the stranger’s true identity.

The display is part of the fiction constructed by Mayrit, a satire on the discursive tools and the populist visual aesthetics of recent years, for which the author uses the performance. So he set out to embody the character of a political candidate who bears his name. Using the usual graphic means of political parties, he launched a fake campaign, drew up a manifesto and staged various stunts under the auspices of a party that was also fake. Coinciding with the launch of Donald Trump’s latest campaign, the photographer launched his campaign on Instagram, publishing daily posts responding to breaking news. A strategy that lasted until the inauguration of the current President of the United States, Joe Biden.

The project was also developed through a publication. Another element of the performance in the form of a campaign magazine. It contains a complete hagiography of the candidate, his life and miracles, accompanied by several images, as well as a subscription sheet explaining how to contribute to his census, his speeches and his most viral tweets. The project is never explained. The language of the text, the exaggerations and the strategy used are so obvious that the presentation needs no further explanation. As it should happen in real life, it’s the extreme excitement that drives the reader to dismantle the farce.

Image belongs to “One of Yours” by Daniel Mayrit.Daniel Mayrit

It is not the first time that the author has set about examining the relationship between power and image. He already did it in You haven’t seen their faces, forming a sort of police notebook made up of the faces of the City of London’s most influential figures. A project that won him the 2015 Paris Photo-Aperture Award for Best First Photobook. “Populism is a very perverse word,” warns the photographer. “I interpret it as a set of communication tools at the service of any ideology, both right and left. Following the theories of the philosopher Ernesto Laclau, they create a semi-fictional political subject they call People. If it opposes the elites, left-wing populism emerges; if it does it to other internal or external enemies such as emigrants, right-wing populism arises.”

Both extremes coincide in the figure of the charismatic leader, in the hyper-leadership that this figure represents, destined to embody all the demands of the people. “A single person who seems almost chosen by divine magic,” the author adds sarcastically. In this way, the images of One of yours reproduce these messianic gestures that the leaders bring closer to the religious. Like the images to which Marine LePen has accustomed us, with open arms and eyes that allow themselves to be embraced by the crowd’s affection. “With right-wing populism, a dominant alpha male figure with a strong incorruptible character tends to predominate. Vladímír Putin is a clear example of this, riding through the steppe on horseback or petting a tiger. It is a masculinization that is independent of whether the candidate is a woman,” warns Mayrit. A tactic that has been extended to leaders and parties that do not fall under the definition of populism. Therefore, in order to carry out the digital montages that articulate the project (which represents 90% of the images, the rest consists of images made by Mayrit himself), the author had to use not only the images from the archive of the Populist Parties. “There are montages on photos where the original protagonists are Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez. Populism’s visual strategy has worked so effectively over the past two decades that it has contaminated the rest of leaders and parties,” the author asserts. “The staging of Pete Souza, the official White House photographer during the Obama administration and before that during Ronald Reagan’s second presidency, is a paradigmatic case. It abuses the emotional component. Emotion triumphs over reason. It’s a photo that speaks to the gut and the heart. It no longer seems important who manages an economy better, but who reaches the passions the most”.

And are we more susceptible to manipulation since there have been social networks? “The truth is that the rise of networks has enabled the rise of populism,” Mayrit says. “It was always based on the elimination of interlocutors. The Messiah communicates directly with his people at the mass rallies, now they do it through the networks too. Not that the networks have made us more vulnerable to manipulation, but that they have collapsed without us knowing how to deal with them. They are not the sine qua non, but they were good breeding ground for the end of the populist discourse.”

‘The rest is history’. Alexander Bakin. Kursala room. University of Cadiz. Cadiz. From September 28th to November 4th.

‘The rest is history’. Alexander Azin. ICVL study. 124 pages. 29 euros.

“One of you”, Daniel Mayrit. Festival pictures Vevey. Vevey. Swiss. Until 09/25

“One of them”. Daniel Mairit. phree 124 pages. 20 Euros.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A woman was arrested on Thursday in South Korea on two counts of murder from New Zealand, where the bodies of two long-dead children were found in abandoned suitcases last month, authorities said.

Authorities did not immediately say whether the 42-year-old suspect was the mother of the dead children. The New Zealand police had previously informed their South Korean counterparts that the mother may be living in South Korea.

South Korean police arrested the woman in the South Korean port city of Ulsan based on a South Korean court order issued after New Zealand requested her provisional arrest as part of an extradition process, according to South Korea’s National Police Agency and Ministry of Justice.

The unidentified woman covered her face with the hood of her coat as officers escorted her from an Ulsan police station and put her into a car bound for the capital, Seoul, where she was scheduled to be questioned by prosecutors.

The New Zealand authorities must submit the formal extradition request to the South Korean Ministry of Justice within 45 days. The ministry will then decide whether to conduct an extradition review at the Seoul High Court to decide whether to send her to New Zealand.

New Zealand police said the South Korean arrest warrant was related to two murder allegations and they have asked South Korean authorities to keep the woman in jail pending extradition.

“The fact that someone was taken into custody overseas in such a short period of time was all due to the support of the Korean authorities and the coordination of our New Zealand Police Interpol staff,” Detective Inspector Tofilau Fa’amanuia Vaaelua said in a statement.

He said the inquiry had been “very challenging” and investigations were continuing both in New Zealand and abroad.

Vaaelua said police would not comment further as the matter is now before the court. Authorities in New Zealand generally remain silent on pending court cases to avoid the possibility of influencing the outcome.

The children’s bodies were discovered last month after a New Zealand family bought abandoned goods, including two suitcases, from an Auckland storage unit in an online auction. Police said the New Zealand family had nothing to do with the deaths.

The children were between 5 and 10 years old, had been dead for several years, and the suitcases had been in storage for at least three or four years, according to police.

South Korean police say the woman was born in South Korea and later moved to New Zealand, where she obtained citizenship. According to immigration records, she returned to South Korea in 2018.

South Korean police say it was suspected she could be the mother of the two victims as their previous address in New Zealand was registered in the storage unit where the suitcases were kept for years.

____

Perry reported from Wellington, New Zealand.

A 42-year-old woman suspected of murdering two children whose remains were found in suitcases in New Zealand has been arrested in South Korea, South Korean police said on Thursday.

The woman, who is believed to be the mother of the two dead children, has been arrested on a murder charge in South Korea at the request of New Zealand, police in both countries said. She will be the subject of extradition proceedings, they added.

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“Police arrested the suspect at an apartment in Ulsan on Thursday after monitoring her whereabouts and CCTV footage,” the Seoul National Police Agency said in a statement. “The suspect is accused by New Zealand Police of murdering two of her children, aged seven and 10 in the Auckland area around 2018,” the statement said, adding, “She arrived in South Korea after the crime and since then I’ve been hiding there.”

Yonhap News Agency said she is a New Zealand citizen who was born in South Korea. The macabre discovery came last month. The suitcases were part of a trailer loaded with items bought by an unsuspecting family at an abandoned property auction in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. According to an Auckland Police officer, Detective Inspector Tofilau Fa’amanuia Vaaelua, there are still a number of inquiries to be made both in New Zealand and abroad in this “very difficult investigation”.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the liberated part of eastern Ukraine. “Our blue and yellow (flag) is flying over the liberated Izyum,” the head of state said on social media on Wednesday. Zelenskyy announced another advance by the Ukrainian army. “We’re only moving in one direction – forward and to victory,” the 44-year-old stressed. Photos show Zelenskyy in Izyum with Ukrainian soldiers.

Izyum, in the Kharkiv region, was only recaptured last week as part of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The important transport hub is considered the gateway to the industrial district of Donbass and had more than 40,000 inhabitants before the war.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych had previously announced an offensive in the eastern province of Luhansk. “Now there is an attack on Lyman and there may be a push for Siversk,” Arestovych said in a video posted to YouTube, referring to the two cities. He is taking on a bitter battle for the city of Svatowo as he believes Russia has supply depots stationed there. “And that is what they fear most – that we will take Lyman and then advance towards Lysychansk and Sievarodonetsk. Then they would be cut off from Svatovo.”

The destroyed village of Verbivka was recaptured from Ukraine.

– © Portal / Gleb Garanich

Denis Puschilin, head of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, explains in a video contribution that Lyman is still in your hands. “The situation has stabilized. The enemy, of course, is trying to advance in small groups, but the allied forces (led by Russia) are completely repelling them.”

4,000 square kilometers

Ukraine now fully controls over 4,000 square kilometers of territory retaken from Russian forces. The country is also stabilizing its grip on another 4,000 square kilometers, Zelenskyy said in his daily video speech on Tuesday.

However, Ukrainian authorities point out that it is important to distinguish between taking territory and ensuring the complete security of that territory. 4,000 square kilometers roughly corresponds to the size of Burgenland. (apa)