Scene

About this book

For eight years and across several continents, Alex Majoli has been photographing events and non-events. Political demonstrations, humanitarian emergencies, and quiet moments of everyday life. What holds all these images together is a sense of theatre. A sense that we are all actors, all playing the parts that history and circumstance demand of us. Majoli's photographs result from his own performance. Entering a situation, he and his assistants slowly go about setting up a camera and lights. This activity is a kind of spectacle in itself, observed by those who will eventually be photographed. Majoli begins to shoot, offering no direction to the people before his camera. This might happen over twenty minutes. It might be an hour or so.