Finding the face behind the statistics

Finding the face behind the statistics

German photographer's exhibition delves into the misery of addiction

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Finding the face behind the statistics
Photos: Benjamin Haselberger

Stories about drug use and addiction in Southeast Asia are a common sight in the media. But while we get the lowdown on raids, crackdowns and statistics, there are rarely human faces behind the figures.

Bangkok-based German photographer Benjamin Haselberger's exhibition "Into The Dark", taking place this weekend at Cho Why gallery on Charoen Krung, does just that.

Haselberger spent one year travelling across the region to witness and capture faces ravaged by what he calls "Southeast Asia's ice epidemic".

His trips to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines brought him to dingy slums, abandoned warehouses, garbage dumps and sleazy hotel rooms.

From Haselberger's research, some users he encountered rely on ice for intensified sexual pleasure, others to suppress hunger or recharge their batteries after long working hours.

The photojournalist talks to Life about his work, a sombre yet soulful peek into the lives of unnamed individuals, a long-ignored margin.

How did you begin working on this project?

I was in Cambodia and everyone was telling me about ice. At the time, I didn't even know exactly what ice was. Before ice, there was ya ba, or ya ma as they call it in Khmer.

Ya ba is methamphetamine and ice is crystal methamphetamine. It's a lot purer, more addictive and it keeps you high for a longer time. That's why so many people take it. I heard about it first from the tuk tuk drivers then I heard about it in the bars, then from the sex workers -- all in Phnom Penh. I thought, 'If it's such a big deal, why not take photographs of it?'.

So I asked two sex workers if I could photograph them while they smoked ice and they agreed. Of course, I had to pay them the same amount as a customer for their time but they didn't act as if it was staged.

Your work encompasses many facets of ice addiction in the region. It's an extremely vast topic. How did you manage to bring all these elements together?

My ambition was to shoot a reportage on the crystal methamphetamine epidemic in Southeast Asia in one go, but I realised very quickly that I would have to divide it into smaller chapters.

I travelled to five countries, from Laos to the Philippines, and photographed several, distinct groups of people. It's hard to give it a unity.

There are 55 photographs -- 45 reportage photographs and 10 portraits. What keeps the exhibition together, in my opinion, are the portraits. Each portrait is like a small story that's part of the bigger picture. One story brings the viewer to the next.

The biggest challenge was to gain access to places and people. To be honest, at the very end, it's all about the fixers -- whether you have good fixers.

Your photographs mostly portray people from the working classes. Was that a choice or are there no users from the middle-class or social elites?

There are some, but the truth is that I didn't get to them. I met one male user in Bangkok, a media type, but he wouldn't let me photograph his face. I also went to a discotheque in central Bangkok where you could order ice from the waiters and they would give it to you in the parking lot. There was a VIP room where models took ice to stay slim and maintain their pale skin.

I would have loved to photograph these people as well, but that was impossible. They wouldn't let you into their circle.

For sweatshop workers or sex workers, it's different. They don't have the fear of the public. Especially in Thailand, nobody cares -- which is very different from the Philippines where there is a real climate of fear at the moment.

Your project is very timely, with the 'war on drugs' currently taking place in the Philippines.

It was pure coincidence. I was already working on this story when the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte introduced his drug war policy. I flew there mid-2016. Thankfully, I already had a very good fixer on the ground. We ended up staying at a police station at night, waiting for the next incident.

It was always the same -- killings, executions of alleged drug users and dealers who had been denounced by their peers.

What was the most striking moment you have experienced while shooting this project?

There was one pregnant woman in Cambodia. She was crying. I couldn't understand the whole conversation in Khmer but I was told she had nowhere to go, no shelter, nothing. She was seven months pregnant.

Then in the same house, there was an older woman. She was about to lose her leg, due to complications from diabetes, and no one would treat her.

I don't know if it's a consequence of her ice addiction, but anyway, she was homeless and couldn't walk anymore.

These abandoned houses in Phnom Penh were the worst places I saw. The most horrible scenes I witnessed were in Phnom Penh.

These people, they are not just 'drugs users' or 'drugs dealers'. They are individuals, and they have their own stories.

Perhaps that, as a photographer, I focus a lot on the misery of life because it makes for better photographs. But I still think it has to be told.


"Into The Dark: The Human Cost Of Southeast Asia's Ice Epidemic" will be on show at Cho Why Gallery (Soi Nana 17, Pom Prap Sattru Phai, Bangkok), Jan 13-15. The photographic prints will then be shown at Meta House in Phnom Penh from Feb 7 to March 7.

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