Eine Kooperation von stadtblind und attac Mehr Information

Bildnachweis: Flyer Fotowettbewerb, Celia Di Pauli, Silke Ötsch 2008

a stadtblind and attac collaboration more information

A call for photos by Silke Ötsch
Tax havens and offshore centres are commonly associated with positive images of remote sunny islands. Providers of offshore services like to talk about tax paradises, sunny islands and freedom, where capital is agile (or, as Germans say, as “flighty as a fawn”.) They like to contrastthis with notions of tax hells and obsolete state bureaucracies. We aim to deconstruct this positive imagery and use our exhibition to show tax havens not as island paradises, but as juridical constructs central to the existing economic system and offering special privileges to wealthy people and corporations. We want to show what tax havens really look like: letterboxes, billboards, tiny banks on the German- Austrian border, for example, or big banks sited next to cow sheds. We want to stress that tax havens are not exceptional and exotic, but core elements in the global financial system, so we will focus on tax havens and offshore financial centres in Europe (by Europe, we are talkin geographically, not politically – so places like Switzerland or Jersey are
included.) We aim to interest a broad public, especially those who are interested in politics but who shun tax as an issue because they find it dry and difficult. We also want to attract people with an interest in culture. Many such people are affected by finance. We also hope local groups
will organize the exhibition in their towns – especially, if possible, in tax offices of the tax authorities. We want to degrade the prevailing image of the tax avoidance and evasion service industries and of cooperating elites, by providing a more accurate image of what they
are about. This way, we hope to add to the pressure on politicians to act seriously against tax havens. Each participant can send up to 5 photos, with 300 dpi resolution. Please add a short description ofeach one. Criteria for selection The jury will then evaluate the submissions with the following criteria in mind: 1. Does it show a component of a tax haven or of the offshore
economy? 2. How relevant is it? Does it provide new information? (For
example, a photo of billboards in the Swiss City of Zug is better than using a montain lake with
a flower in front of it. But if it shows a billboard advertising“Nord Stream AG,” whose supervisory board is headed by the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder – so much the
better.) 3. The quality of the photo.
The Jury The jury is composed of: John Christensen (Director, Tax Justice Network International Secretariat, London), Ronen Palan (expert on Offshore Economy, University of Birmingham), Detlev von Larcher (TJN Germany), Silke Oetsch (working group on financial markets
and taxes of Attac Germany), Celia Di Pauli (planning agency “Stadtblind”),
Philipp Schwarz (planning agency “Stadtblind”).
Prizes
First prize: A Panasonic Lumix DMCFS3 Blue Compact Camera
2nd and 3rd prizes: One of these books (the winners can choose): P Ronen Palan, The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires, Cornell
University Press, 2006 P Ernst Schmiederer und Hans Weiss, Asoziale Marktwirtschaft, Köln, 2004
P The catalogue of the exhibition (to come out in spring/summer 2009)
The first prize is kindly funded by John Christensen.
Deadline
The deadline is December 30, 2008.
Send contributions by email to:
silke.oetsch@attac.de, or If it
exceeds 10 Mb please send it by post
to: Silke Ötsch, Schneeburggasse 43,
A-6020 Innsbruck (Austria)

Here is an initial experiment in extending “The Colors of Berlin” into a sound/video piece. Presented September 15 at the 2007 Conflux Festival.

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Video editing: Jesse Shapins

Design: Celia Di Pauli, Pedro Recarey, Philipp Schwarz and Jesse Shapins

Sound design and recording: Kara Oehler

Photography: Pedro Recarey and Jesse Shapins