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Folk Art Market Endures Amid Shifting US Immigration Policy

Organizers of the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe say shifting U.S. policies on security and immigration have not hampered participation by artists from 53 countries, from Cuba to Jordan.

 

In its 14th year, the annual bazaar is expanding its mission to highlight innovation and high-fashion within folk art traditions, from flower-petal dyed scarves from India to Amazonian basketry with mesmerizing patterns and symmetry.

 

A crowd of 20,000 is expected at the three-day sale that starts Friday. They will shop among wares from nearly 200 artists and artisans, many from remote areas in developing countries.

Here is a look at this year’s event:

 

Trading Places

 

Market organizers say that more than nine out of 10 invited artists have been able to secure temporary business visas and attend.

 

That access is on a par with previous years, despite a partial reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of six mainly Muslim countries and refugees from coming into the U.S.

 

Work from one of those six banned countries will be on display: blown glass in a century-old style created by Syrian artists who decided last fall to sell goods at the market without attending because of their country’s civil war.

 

Female artists from a cooperative in South Sudan known for its beaded jewelry and clothing also chose to stay home amid unrest and famine there. The Roots Project, founded by South Sudanese human rights activist Anyieth D’Awol, is sending artwork with an outside representative to Santa Fe.

 

Four other countries are making their market debut with an Argentine leatherworker, a Bedouin-style rug weaver from Jordan, a jeweler from Tajikistan and beadwork by women from northern Tanzania.

 

Organizers of the market say it has evolved into a tool for visiting artists to better their lives and their communities, and for Americans to learn more about diverse artistic traditions.

 

Cuba Connections

 

The Trump administration’s partial reversal of the Obama-era detente with Havana has had little bearing on the market’s strong ties to Cuba.

 

Among five visiting Cuba artists is Leandro Gomez Quintero — who creates out of painted cardboard startlingly realistic miniatures of vintage American-made Jeeps and safari-style vehicles that roam the eastern end of the island nation. The 40-year-old history teacher hopes to earn enough on his first trip abroad to repair his hurricane-ravaged home and studio in the town of Baracoa.

 

The house band from the famed Havana restaurant La Bodeguita del Medio will play in an artist procession through downtown Santa Fe on Wednesday evening.

 

Peggy Gaustad, a board member of International Folk Art Alliance that produces the market, says the Cuban exchanges during the market began in 2010 under exceptions to the U.S. trade embargo and have endured partly because every visiting Cuban artist has returned home afterward.

 

She notes the U.S. Embassy in Havana is publicizing the visits by Cuban artists on its Facebook page.

 

Innovation and Tradition

 

A new exhibit area at the market this year is devoted to innovation, with a juried selection of 30 contemporary artists whose work brings a fresh perspective to time-honored folk art traditions.

 

Those booths will be selling high-end fashion accessories dyed with flower offerings recycled from Hindu temples in Mumbai, India; hand-beaded jewelry from a women’s cooperative in Tanzania; rugs in Guatemala made out of cast off T-shirts from the United States; and indigo- and mud-dyed textiles from Mali in Africa.

 

Returning artist Manisha Mishra of India says the new category freed her to transfer ornate paintings of mythological scenes to much larger canvases and three-dimensional busts of humans and animals.

 

Keith Recker led a selection committee for the “Innovation Inspiration” exhibit area and says it combines cultural preservation “with an expanded conversation about personal expression, about art that acknowledges 21st century life.”

 

Jeff Snell, CEO of the International Folk Art Alliance, became an advocate for the new approach after noticing artists in Uzbekistan were hiding their more adventuresome work from view for fear it would disqualify them from the International Folk Art Market.

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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Facebook Expands Ad Testing on Messenger Globally

Facebook Inc. said Tuesday that it was testing advertising on its Messenger app globally as the world’s largest social media company looks to further monetize its popular chat service.

Ads will be displayed on the home tab of the Messenger app, Facebook said, adding that users clicking on the ads will be taken to either the advertiser’s website or a chat window.

The move follows Facebook’s initial tests in Australia and Thailand in January.

The social media giant already allows businesses to have conversations with Messenger’s 1.2 billion monthly users and send them sponsored content.

Facebook, which gets about 85 percent of its ad revenue from mobile, has been trying to make money from the Messenger app to supplement its main revenue stream, which is expected to cool off this year.

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Michigan Imposes Prison Term for Female Genital Mutilation

Doctors and parents involved in female genital mutilation will face up to 15 years in prison under new Michigan laws.

Female circumcision or cutting is already a federal crime punishable by five years in prison. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation on Tuesday that creates a state crime with harsher penalties.

The legislation was proposed after six people from an India-based Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra were charged in a genital mutilation case involving six girls at a suburban Detroit clinic. Two of the girls are from Minnesota, and four are from Michigan.

Michigan is the 26th state to officially ban the practice, which is common in some parts of the world.

The new laws also require increased public education and lengthen the statutes of limitations to file charges and lawsuits.

The laws take effect in October. 

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Researchers Design Intervention to Stop Abuse of Mothers During Childbirth

Reports over the past decade have drawn global attention to shocking abuses some women have been subjected to during childbirth in developed and developing countries.

The maltreatment has ranged from lack of privacy and neglect to forced sterilization, sexual and physical assault, and refusal to release a mother or child from a birth facility without payment. The problems are especially acute in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 66 percent of all maternal deaths per year worldwide, according to a February report from UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund.

A four-year study by researchers in the United States and Tanzania looked at ways to reduce abuse of mothers-to-be. Keys included gathering community stakeholders and health care workers to define standards of care and identifying barriers to change.

Previous efforts to reduce mortality of women giving birth focused on getting them into health care facilities to deliver their children. Despite dramatic increases in facility-based childbirth, however, decreases in mortality remained modest. Even when facilities are equipped to save a mother’s life, reports of abuse can keep women from seeking medical treatment during birth.

Site is no guarantee

“It doesn’t matter where you give birth — just because it’s a building doesn’t mean you survive,” Lynn Freedman of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health told VOA.

With colleagues from Columbia, the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and Harvard University, Freedman designed one of the first attempts to show how abuse could be reduced. The researchers followed facilities in the Tanga Region of Tanzania for their study and randomly selected one to receive the intervention. They called their project Staha, which means “respect” in Swahili.

They first gathered stakeholders in the community and asked them to develop a set of standards for what appropriate care during childbirth should be. The residents were able to provide a unique local perspective. In this case, stakeholders felt it was important to foster a mutual respect between patients and health providers.  

Freedman agreed, saying, “Patients can blame the health workers, who are more an expression of systemic problems and not the sole cause of them.”

Quality improvement

Researchers then distributed the standards in the facility and convened a quality-improvement team made up of its employees. The team determined drivers of abuse and implemented changes to correct them. Changes included continuous patient surveys, increased oversight by management and educators, and tea for the staff to show appreciation on difficult days.

A year after they finished working with the facility, the researchers went back to see whether there had been changes in reported abuse and if progress had been sustained.  They found that there was a 66 percent decrease in levels of reported abuse. The sharpest decreases were seen in reports of neglect and physical assault.

But Freedman warned against immediately recommending that others implement these changes. Getting the community involved is most important, she said.

It’s not, ” ‘Here’s the best practice.  Do this,’ ” she said. It’s vital “that people themselves analyze the situation and develop the intervention.”

While attention has been growing, Freedman hopes for more. This is an issue that “everyone who actually lives with and works in the system knows is there, but has been so not the priority of policymakers and donors — almost like a silent emergency.”

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Wounded Afghan Soldiers Set for Invictus Games Debut

In a sprawling military base on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul, Mohammad Esa, who lost both legs to a roadside bomb, is getting ready to compete in the Invictus Games in Canada later this year.

Seven Afghan soldiers have been selected to compete against peers from 17 different countries in the Games, an international paralympic-style event for military personnel wounded in action.

Thirteen nations taking part were in the NATO-led coalition that has supported the Kabul government since the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001.

Locked in an intractable battle with Taliban and Islamic State insurgents, Afghan security forces have struggled to handle high casualties, including at least 13,000 soldiers and police wounded last year.

Esa, 24, said that despite his disability, he had never lost hope and was very excited to represent his country on the world stage.

“I was so shattered when I lost my legs but now I am happy that I am back to life and want to achieve something through sport,” Esa said from an army gym in Kabul where he was going through exercises for wheelchair volleyball and powerlifting, the two events he will be competing in.

“I am training for Canada and want to make my country proud and come back with an achievement,” said Esa.

The Invictus Games were created three years ago by Britain’s Prince Harry, who served two deployments in Afghanistan as an officer in the British army.

The name — “Invictus” means unconquered in Latin — symbolizes the way that sport can help wounded soldiers overcome trauma suffered in combat.

Esa lost his legs to a roadside bomb during a security patrol in northern Baghlan province two years ago, one of tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police to have been wounded since the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001. Many thousands of others have been killed.

The Games have been held twice before, in London in 2014 and in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. More than 550 competitors will take part in the competition in Toronto, from Sept 23-30.

Sports, with specially adapted rules, include archery, athletics, indoor rowing, wheelchair basketball, tennis and rugby, and powerlifting.

The seven-member team is the largest Afghanistan has sent to the Invictus Games.

All of Esa’s teammates have suffered severe injuries that have changed their lives, but they say the focus needed to compete in the Games has provided a goal to channel their energies.

“I haven’t lost hope, despite losing a leg and this sport gives me a lot of motivation,” said Salahuddin Zahiri, another Afghan army soldier who will be competing in Canada.

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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Tech Companies Wage War on Disease-carrying Mosquitoes

American technology companies are bringing automation and robotics to the age-old task of battling mosquitoes in a bid to halt the spread of Zika and other mosquito-borne maladies worldwide.

Firms including Microsoft and California life sciences company Verily are forming partnerships with public health officials in several U.S. states to test new high-tech tools.

In Texas, Microsoft is testing a smart trap to isolate and capture Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known Zika carriers, for study by entomologists to give them a jump on predicting outbreaks.

Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences division based in Mountain View, California, is speeding the process for creating sterile male mosquitoes to mate with females in the wild, offering a form of birth control for the species.

While it may take years for these advances to become widely available, public health experts say new players bring fresh thinking to vector control, which still relies heavily on traditional defenses such as larvicides and insecticides.

“It’s exciting when technology companies come on board,” said Anandasankar Ray, an associate professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside. “Their approach to a biological challenge is to engineer a solution.”

Smart traps

The Zika epidemic that emerged in Brazil in 2015 and left thousands of babies suffering from birth defects has added urgency to the effort.

While cases there have slowed markedly, mosquitoes capable of carrying the virus  — Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus — are spreading in the Americas, including large swaths of the southern United States.

The vast majority of the 5,365 Zika cases reported in the United States so far are from travelers who contracted the virus elsewhere. Still, two states — Texas and Florida — have recorded cases transmitted by local mosquitoes, making them prime testing grounds for new technology.

In Texas, 10 mosquito traps made by Microsoft are operating in Harris County, which includes the city of Houston.

Roughly the size of large birdhouses, the devices use robotics, infrared sensors, machine learning and cloud computing to help health officials keep tabs on potential disease carriers.

Texas recorded six cases of local mosquito transmission of Zika in November and December of last year. Experts believe the actual number is likely higher because most infected people do not develop symptoms.

Pregnant women are at high risk because they can pass the virus to their fetuses, resulting in a variety of birth defects.

Those include microcephaly, a condition in which infants are born with undersized skulls and brains. The World Health Organization declared Zika a global health emergency in February 2016.

Most conventional mosquito traps capture all comers — moths, flies, other mosquito varieties — leaving a pile of specimens for entomologists to sort through. The Microsoft machines differentiate insects by measuring a feature unique to each species: the shadows cast by their beating wings. When a trap detects an Aedes aegypti in one of its 64 chambers, the door slams shut.

The machine “makes a decision about whether to trap it,” said Ethan Jackson, a Microsoft engineer who is developing the device.

The Houston tests, begun last summer, showed the traps could detect Aedes aegypti and other medically important mosquitoes with 85 percent accuracy, Jackson said.

The machines also record shadows made by other insects as well as environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. The data can be used to build models to predict where and when mosquitoes are active.

Mustapha Debboun, director of Harris County’s mosquito and vector control division, said the traps save time and give researchers more insight into mosquito behavior.

“For science and research, this is a dream come true,” he said.

The traps are prototypes now. But Microsoft’s Jackson said the company eventually hopes to sell them for a few hundred dollars each, roughly the price of conventional traps. The goal is to spur wide adoption, particularly in developing countries, to detect potential epidemics before they start.

“What we hope is [the traps] will allow us to bring more precision to public health,” Jackson said.

Sorting mosquitoes with robots

Other companies, meanwhile, are developing technology to shrink mosquito populations by rendering male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sterile. When these sterile males mate with females in the wild, their eggs don’t hatch.

The strategy offers an alternative to chemical pesticides.

But it requires the release of millions of laboratory-bred mosquitoes into the outdoors. Males don’t bite, which has made this an easier sell to places now hosting tests.

Oxitec, an Oxford, England-based division of Germantown, Maryland-based Intrexon Corp, is creating male mosquitoes genetically modified to be sterile. It has already deployed them in Brazil, and is seeking regulatory approval for tests in Florida and Texas.

MosquitoMate, a startup formed by researchers at the University of Kentucky, is using a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia to render male mosquitoes sterile.

One of the biggest challenges is sorting the sexes.

At MosquitoMate’s labs in Lexington, immature mosquitoes are forced through a sieve-like mechanism that separates the smaller males from the females. These mosquitoes are then hand sorted to weed out any stray females that slip through.

“That’s basically done using eyeballs,” said Stephen Dobson, MosquitoMate’s chief executive.

Enter Verily. The company is automating mosquito sorting with robots to make it faster and more affordable. Company officials declined to be interviewed. But on its website, Verily says it’s combining sensors, algorithms and “novel engineering” to speed the process.

Verily and MosquitoMate have teamed up to test their technology in Fresno, California, where Aedes aegypti arrived in 2013.

Officials worry that residents who contract Zika elsewhere could spread it in Fresno if they’re bitten by local mosquitoes that could pass the virus to others.

“That is very much of a concern because it is the primary vector for diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and obviously Zika,” said Steve Mulligan, manager of the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District in Fresno County.

The study, which still needs state and federal approval, is slated for later this summer.

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IOC to Choose Los Angeles & Paris for Either 2024 or 2028 Summer Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee Tuesday struck a deal to award the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympic Games in the same session, in a move that would effectively guarantee that Paris and Los Angeles will be the winners.

The two cities have been lobbying heavily to host the international sporting event.

The French capital last hosted the games in 1924. Los Angeles did so back in 1984.

In a tweet Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said, “Working hard to get the Olympics for the United States (L.A.). Stay tuned!”

The winning bids will be announced on September 13 in Lima, Peru.

The Olympic movement has had trouble attracting prospective hosts because of the amount of money involved.

 

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Vivien Leigh’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ Script Up for Auction

Vivien Leigh’s copy of the “Gone With the Wind” script is going up for auction alongside dozens of items from the late star’s personal collection.

Sotheby’s is offering paintings, jewelry, clothes, books and more belonging to Leigh at a Sept. 26 auction.

 

Leigh won an Academy Award for playing Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.” The sale includes Leigh’s copy of the original novel, inscribed with a poem from author Margaret Mitchell.

 

Also on offer is the wig Leigh wore to play Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

 

Sotheby’s U.K. chairman Harry Dalmeny said Tuesday that the collection offers a glimpse at the private Leigh, “a fine art collector, patron, even a book worm.”

 

The collection is being sold by the family of Leigh, who died in 1967.

 

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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Whiskey Byproduct Will Power Cars

Every now and then, it pays to revisit abandoned methods for using a waste product of an industrial process. Researchers in Scotland found a profitable way to use byproducts of whiskey production to power cars, without any modifications to the engines. VOA’s George Putic reports.

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