Ajax loader

2009 EDITION

July 7th - September 13th

Christine Fenzl - June in Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya 2006.

Christine Fenzl

STRIKING CHANCE - STREETFOOTBALL

In 2005 and 2006, I followed four non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which understand football as a medium to attract children from the streets and offer support and motivation. They use the power of sport to transform the lives of some of the most socially deprived youngsters. Furthermore, they help to create a perspective for the future. Football is a way of hope and allows for the personal development of young people and their communities. I realised that football is not only a sport. It is a form of communication— of interaction—a language of its own and a release of feelings. It is a powerful game, a game played all over the world—not to mention the strong impact of football on the economy. To many people, it means all that, and for many others it has an even stronger significance. Many problems have to be faced simultaneously in a high-crime area like Mathare Slum, Nairobi. Most of the children grow up in the streets and are caught up in poverty, drugs and violence. The AIDS scourge has increased over the years and has claimed the lives of many people. Daily life is about survival. There is no architecture, no structure, there are no choices. The destructiveness of the conflicts is so overwhelming that I am in awe of the power of these young people to withstand that force. I am impressed by the teenagers and kids who give this struggle a face. I admire the strength that the young people have and I am fascinated by the different ways football can stir the power to keep on going. In the exhibition I show portraits of juveniles who experience social and urban extremes in different countries, kids who are confronted with the conflicts of divided societies. My aim is to give these kids a platform to show the dimension they live in.


The four NGOs are Streetleague, London, England (football for the integration of formerly homeless people and drug addicts), July 2005; Street Football for Peace and Tolerance, Skopje, Macedonia (football for communication and integration after the war in former Yugoslavia), September 2005; Craques Du Sempre, São Paulo, Brazil (football in the favelas, prevention of drug problems and youth crime), October 2005; Mathare Youth Sports Association, Nairobi, Kenya (football linked with environmental cleanups and AIDS prevention), December 2006. Streetfootballworld supported my work in England, Macedonia and Kenya; the series in São Paulo, Brazil, was supported by a fellowship from the Goethe Institut.



Christine Fenzl, 2009.


www.christinefenzl.net

Prints by the artist.

Framing by Bilderrhamen Janecki, Germany.

Christine Fenzl

Born in 1967 in Munich.

Lives and works in Berlin and New York.


Christine Fenzl studied at the School of Photography in Munich. From 1989 to 1991 she lived in New York and worked as a freelance assistant for several photographers. In 1992 she moved to Berlin, where she became the full-time assistant of Nan Goldin. Since 1994 she has worked as an independent photographer, with solo and group exhibitions in New York and Berlin and publications in magazines like Die Zeit, Libération, the New York Times and Vogue. In addition to her previous awards, in 2004 her work was selected for the third Berlin Biennial of contemporary art.

Christine Fenzl photographs children and teenagers in their own surroundings.

In her series Along the Peace Lines, Belfast, she portrays children growing up with the political conflicts of a divided city. In Gdansk, Poland and Karosta, Latvia, she documented social changes, the influence of the ‘West’ and the lifestyle of a younger generation.