The Places We Live in an photography exposition by Jonas Bendiksen shown at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, in 2009. The National Building Museum describes the exhibit like this:
In 2008, for the first time in human history, more people lived in cities than in rural areas. One-third of these urban dwellers—more than one billion people—resided in slums. That number is expected to rise substantially: the United Nations forecasts that the number of slum dwellers will double to two billion people within the next 25 years. Poverty is urbanizing at breakneck speed, and there are few overarching plans to address how cities can accommodate this rapid influx of humans.
The Places We Live compels viewers to consider what it means to live in a city in the 21st century. In a multimedia installation, visitors are admitted into the homes of 20 different families in four slums around the world:
Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya
Dharavi in Mumbai, India
The ‘barrios’ of Caracas, Venezuela
The ‘kampongs’ of Jakarta, Indonesia
While the exhibit does include Mumbai, the strength of the exhibit is derived from the compilation of the images from all of these cities. It is incredible to think about what "ghetto" means to us in the United States compared to what it means to the 1 billion people to live in these slums. The website for the exhibition is also very user-friendly, as you can go through the pictures by city or as a whole.
http://www.theplaceswelive.com/
-Erin
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