Learning of the Futility of Documentation
Most journalists seem to dig up the most distressing facts they can find and convey this message to the public. Countless times jounalists have told me they were transmitting the "message of the people." I empathized with this viewpoint, so whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would try to sharpen my senses and determine the best way to delve into the people and relate what they were trying to say.
But eventurally, I had to ask myself whether it was sufficient simply to convey a message. I had recognized to a certain extent the difficulties of fully documenting the truth. But I began to question how much therse records actually helped improve the condition of the people documented in my photos.
My life on the rservation thrust these problems painfully before me. I had used my camera as a documentary tool. While my photos were obviously useful when the Indians appealed to the provincial government to improve their living conditions, they didn't seem to have any concrete relation to their daily lives.
One day during my stay on the reservatioin, a village elder came to my residence, the room in the church where the village priest changed into his cleric's robes, and asked if I could cure the numbness in his hand. For some reason he seemed certain that I could relieve his pain since I was Japanese.
I didn't know what to say. I could only hang my head in shame and tell him I couldn't help him. The Indians on the reservation were all exposed to mercury poisoning from the Wabigoon River which ran nearby the severation. The mercury came from effluent from the Dryden Pulp Factory upstream and poisoned the river fish, which formed an important source of nutrition in the Indians' diet. The effects of mercury poisoning were not unlike those found in the Minamata victimes in Japan.
Most journalists seem to dig up the most distressing facts they can find and convey this message to the public. Countless times jounalists have told me they were transmitting the "message of the people." I empathized with this viewpoint, so whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would try to sharpen my senses and determine the best way to delve into the people and relate what they were trying to say.
But eventurally, I had to ask myself whether it was sufficient simply to convey a message. I had recognized to a certain extent the difficulties of fully documenting the truth. But I began to question how much therse records actually helped improve the condition of the people documented in my photos.
My life on the rservation thrust these problems painfully before me. I had used my camera as a documentary tool. While my photos were obviously useful when the Indians appealed to the provincial government to improve their living conditions, they didn't seem to have any concrete relation to their daily lives.
One day during my stay on the reservatioin, a village elder came to my residence, the room in the church where the village priest changed into his cleric's robes, and asked if I could cure the numbness in his hand. For some reason he seemed certain that I could relieve his pain since I was Japanese.
I didn't know what to say. I could only hang my head in shame and tell him I couldn't help him. The Indians on the reservation were all exposed to mercury poisoning from the Wabigoon River which ran nearby the severation. The mercury came from effluent from the Dryden Pulp Factory upstream and poisoned the river fish, which formed an important source of nutrition in the Indians' diet. The effects of mercury poisoning were not unlike those found in the Minamata victimes in Japan.
