I See You Now

'Oboriste' is my favorite street.  Whenever I go out, whether shopping, to tutor a student, use the metro, or just walking, I always go that way. Turning up from our favorite Italian restaurant,  I pass the French embassy and walk on to Doctor's Garden. I enjoy the wide pavements, trees and old-world buildings along the way. I notice the cafes and shopfront displays. I notice the people and the colors.
Yesterday I fell in step with a woman herding a group of children. When she started speaking English I found myself listening in. She was taking her class to the "Hirsto" exhibit, and they better hurry! I was curious as to where this exhibit would be. Was it an art show? in our neighborhood? could I come too? Of course I didn't follow the children, that would have been creepy. But I was challenged to see what Art was available nearby.
So I headed back out, back up Oboriste Street, to take a look at some photographs I had walked past earlier.

I paused briefly at some black and white prints of Paris hanging outside the French Embassy. I didn't take any pictures because there were guards watching. Not much further up the street, hanging on the fence outside the Music School, was a collection of color photographs entitle "Marginal Man". The photographs were powerful in themselves, but then I noticed that each one had a story.

They told about individuals and groups of people that are not part of the mainstream society, they are outcasts, and isolated, victims of their circumstances. I read all the stories and then took pictures so that I could recall them later. Part of the exhibit was in Bulgarian only. When I got home, I looked up the exhibit on line and found the translation of the main message:

                    They are different.

We look at them with superiority, contempt, disdain. We even prefer not to see them. Because they strike us with shame, pity or guilt.  Among them are unemployed, or homeless people.  People without diplomas and titles,  people without education, without health, without relatives.  People without protection.  We leave them in the gray area of no-man's land, in the backyard of Europe, America, Asia and Africa.  We treat them as if they are invisible - conveniently inconspicuous in the smug reel of our times.    They aren't outlaws - the law is out of them.    See the marginal people.

Then I realized the irony.  I had walked past those pictures many times and took no notice. 

   Enjoy the rest of the photo selection on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AtJahnke/posts/1621027174824204?notif_t=like