The Sweet and Sour Story of Sugar

Globalisation is an elusive concept in many ways, difficult to capture in a visual medium. Six prominent photographers set out to do just that, chosing sugar as a starting point for a photo festival on worldwide market forces and what they bring about. The exhibition entitled ‘The Sweet and Sour Story of Sugar’ is going on a world tour this year.

Fotografie Noorderlicht, a Dutch foundation which offers a platform to documentary photographers, commissioned a series on the forces of the global economy. It sent six of them in search of the sugar trail in four different countries – Brazil, Suriname, Indonesia and the Netherlands. One story, seen through different perspectives.

Four centuries ago, the Netherlands was the distribution hub of the international sugar industry. Brazil, Indonesia and Suriname sent its sugar to the Netherlands for further global trading. Things have changed since then: the sugar sector is facing collapse in the Netherlands, while production continues to increase in Brazil. All is quiet on the plantations in Suriname and Indonesia.

Tomasz Tomaszewski (Poland), Alejandro Chaskielberg (Argentina), Ed Kashi (US), Francesco Zizola (Italy), James Whitlow Delana (US/Japan) and Carl de Keyzer (Belgium) photographed sugar cane plantations and sugar beet farms at cultivation and harvest stages, as well as various offshoot developments. Together, these images form the story of sugar, the colourful story behind the packet on the supermarket shelf.
 
(jn/imm)