VII photographers exhibit 'Starved for Attention' at Fotografiska, Stockholm

Starved for Attention - on show as part of Stockholm Photography Week at Fotografiska Museum (until 29 May) - is a collaborative documentary project between the photographers of the renowned photojournalist agency VII and one of the leading humanitarian organisations, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). As part of the project, VII Photographers, Marcus Bleasdale, Jessica Dimmock, Ron Haviv, Antonin Kratochvil, Franco Pagetti, Stephanie Sinclair and John Stanmeyer travelled to some of the world's 'malnutrition hotspots' - from Djibouti and Burkina Faso to India and the USA.

Using stills photography and documentary short films Starved for Attention aims to capture a new visual identity for malnutrition and to shed light on the underlying causes of the global malnutrition crisis, which affects nearly 195 million children across the world.  The VII photographers highlight successful treatment and prevention programs in countries like Mexico and the United States, emphasising the great potential for combating early childhood malnutrition.

'Documenting malnutrition has been one of the toughest challenges our agency has faced,' says VII photographer Ron Haviv. 'There is a sense that this story has already been told through the body of work produced by photojournalists who covered famines of the 20th Century. Yet we believe that we have found a completely new visual language to tell this story - one that has the potential for great impact.'

Unlike the photographs taken by Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans for the FSA (Farm Security Administration) throughout the 1930s Great Depression, the photographers of VII dispel the clichéd images of the starving, malnourished child.

This Autumn, the exhibition will tour the north east of the USA in the weeks before World Food Day (16 October) and will be accompanied by a mobile therapeutic feeding centre to show the public how malnutrition is treated in the field.

Sally Ashley-Cound