DAY TRIPPERS (2009)

“Day Trippers” looked at tourism as a form of exploitation.

I copied images, mostly of war and disaster, onto cardboard and MDF. I cut out the faces in the pictures and presented it in a style of a seaside entertainment. People could poke their heads through the hole and take a snapshot with a starving child or wounded soldier.

“Day Trippers” is an inquiry into ideas of poverty and tragedy as a form of entertainment.  I used tourism as an example, and in particular slum tourism (businesses that provide guided tours around slums and poor areas cities, murder sites, etc.) instead of the usual cathedrals and museum visits. 

Slum tourism began in Brazil sixteen years ago and it is a fast growing industry.  The most popular are the slums of Rio de Janeiro, India and Johannesburg, the garbage dumps of Mexico and the beggars of India. The element of risk of being insulted or robbed enhances the thrill of adventure.  It is a version of safari where the trophy is a picture with a local beggar.  “Day Trippers” provided an environment where the spectator as a real human was free to pop in or out of the picture while the cardboard world (not real) was static and stuck, paused and preserved for our consumption.

Of course there are other issues that the show is addressing: e.g. market value of suffering or position of an artist not as a teacher or preacher (position adapted by most artists) but that of a businessman, opportunist, abuser and exploiter.