Blip

About this episode

The aim of « Rebel Voices » is to see Hip Hop as a narrative thread linking stories of struggle and resistance to the neoliberal system that generates economic and social apartheid. My intention is to work in two dimensions: from a local point of view (neighbourhoods) and from a global perspective, reflecting how the market economy is repeatedly a cause of violence, marginality and inequality everywhere. Tending a bridge that allows us to understand some of the different struggles with common roots that use Hip Hop as a kind of loudspeaker and form of expression, this work is meant to see how creativity is used to negotiate the borders imposed by the current geopolitical re-organization of the world. To do this, I propose to work in different cities in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. The re-organization that is taking place today involves constant transformations that affect cities as well as individual lives, creating almost invisible internal borders that can be seen in urban planning and the economy, as well as more obviously in wars or conflict zones. An essential part of this project is to make those borders visible, portraying them and producing images of the consequences of these transformations and the multiple forms of resistance that oppose them. This work aims to take on the centre-periphery dichotomy, the reasons behind it and its consequences. Music has always been part of the identity of towns and culture. This continues to be the case in the 21st century, but now it is as part of the global culture, which fuses and is reinvented as sounds and local customs are mixed, in a constantly enriching dynamic. The decision to use Hip Hop is because I consider it a music that has, since its origins in marginality, been defined by the struggle against invisibility, and the constant search for identity. « Rebel Voices » doesn’t aim to delve deep into the origins of Hip Hop, but rather to use this subculture to gain a deeper understanding of seemingly different countries on different continents, which have a shared origin. In this project I try to decipher the meaning of "globalization" by seeking the origin of conflicts and of resistances. In order to speak about conflicts, violence or inequality, I believe that it is important to show their origins and the social struggles that existed before the current problematic one, rejecting sensationalism but without closing our eyes in the face of what is happening. For this reason, it is interesting to see how globalisation has managed to spread Hip Hop from the most powerful country (the US) to the rest of the world.But its no less interesting to see how, when the established formulas of the globalizing process of power are changed, from a counter-power, the result isn't homogenisation but rather reappropriation and transformation, which generate another form of globalisation, that of resistance. The documentary will be made using 35mm color slides and it will evolve through contact with peripheral neighbourhoods with young Hip Hop virtuosos, monitoring the everyday life that they live and tell through their music. The idea is to see how civil society suffers during conflicts, but also how in some cases they take part in different antagonistic processes. Their lyrics will be my inspiration to conceive a visual landscape of the social reality and politics of the different places. In this way, the voices of these unusual protagonists surrounded by extremely complex conflicts will help to find a different way of expressing themes relating to marginality, which has so often come under the lens of photojournalism.The places chosen for « Rebel Voices » are situated in the periphery of large cities. An essential part of this documentary is to use photography to make visible the internal borders that divides cities. Where a city's process of gentrification manifests itself as social, economic and racial.

• Release Date

  Apr 1, 2008

• Runtime

  20:31