:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/RFQBXLJPZNE3RFR4XJKVGWPF2I.jpg "Photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya documents a year of Black Lives Matter riots and protests in his book 1")
In May 2020, George Floyda man of African descent, was killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis (UNITED STATES). After his death, the movement Black Lives Matter He gained greater influence on social media and flooded the streets with protests seeking justice and in support of the eradication of racial discrimination. During this year of protests, the New York photographer Ruvan Wijesoriya he devoted himself to documenting what was happening through his lens. With this material he published the book “New York City Rising: Protests, Rallies, Police Riots, 2020-2021″.
This title presents itself as a faithful photographic documentary produced by Wijesoriya during one of the largest and most significant uprisings in American history. The author devoted himself to photographing the protests and riots that broke out after the death of Floydin the period between May 2020 and May 2021.
Wijesoriya This issue begins with the images of this May 29 when the police riots broke out in Chinese district and the Barclay Center and his journey culminates with the dismal first anniversary of Floyd. Through the images and the complementary texts, the author proposes a near, medium and deep field to observe the amplitude of the movement.
In “The Rise of New York », the author embarks on a sincere and dedicated journey to help illuminate with his photographs the reality of a city that has been his home for two decades, a city that is also seeking to define itself in the midst of a transformation. Some of what moved Wijesoriya making the book was his condition as the son of immigrants from Sri Lanka.
His fight for civil rights was inherited from his parents, who arrived in the United States in 1972, and for a long time victims of racist acts on the part of certain Americans; Now, with this book, the author has tapped into the experiences of his parents and those of others to capture passages such as his first cover of the Black Lives Matter in a massive protest in the Big Apple.
“I think the movement has evolved from street activism to something more culturally focused. It happened at the same time that social media gave the African-American community a voice that journalism never gave them. It has pushed other media to hire more African Americans and put them in positions of power, leading us to a cultural shift fueled also by right-wing and conservative aggression,” Ruvan Wijesooriya said. in an interview at The country.
Wijesoriya It is known for its interactive exhibitions and its photographs dedicated to the world of music, fashion and nightlife. He was commissioned to immortalize movements of cultural evolution, youthful rebellion, appropriation and reuse of public space. The photographer decided to publish The Rise of New York after a magazine will seek to silence his work on the movement.
We must not forget that the movement Black Lives Matterwhose motto is “Black Lives Matter” started in 2013 as part of a Hastag tribute a year after the death of Trayvon Martin In Florida. A young man who died at the hands of Georges Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain in Sanford. In 2019, the sentence was written by Alice Garza in a letter to the black community.
But soon after, the phrase became the emblem of the fight against racism and the memory of what happened with Martin. Who promoted digitization, was Khan Cullors, which has sought to help and make visible cases from around the world. The movement survived with international repercussions, but what derailed it was the assassination of George Floyddied as a result of the pressure exerted on his neck for more than 9 minutes by the knee of Derek Chauvin.
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