February 17, 2009
Notes

Your Turn: Recession Memorial

Laid Off Germans

The other day, we had a discussion here about Anthony Suau’s World Press winning photo, and the merits and ethics of relating the housing meltdown to a war. Today, I’m interested in your reactions to this image. It shows the photos of laid off workers posted outside a German microchip plant. (Caption below.)

A few questions: Is this a memorial? How close a parallel is there between the posting of photos of recession “victims” and the public posting of the missing and dead following 9/11 or Mumbai? How effective is this image in the media sphere? And what (as opposed to who) is and isn’t working for you here?

from : NYT Pictures of the Day, February 17

(image: Norbert Millauer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. caption: Two women looked at portraits of employees of the bankrupt German memory chip maker Qimonda fixed on a fence at the company’s plant in Dresden, in eastern Germany, (The text near the portraits reads “Every workplace has a face.”) Qimonda said a week ago that it will slash production and have to find a buyer by the end of March 2009 or else be forced to shut down)

Post By

Michael Shaw
See other posts by Michael here.

The Big Picture

Follow us on Instagram (@readingthepictures) and Twitter (@readingthepix), and

Topic

A curated collection of pieces related to our most-popular subject matter.

Reactions

Comments Powered by Disqus