Pieter Hugo: Permanent Error - Tapa dura

Pieter Hugo's images are breathtakingly poignant. --Amateur Photographer

Permanent Error paints a dark picture of the conditions imposed on this slum community, and the flip side of our rapid technological progress --British Journal of Photography, June 2011

Permanent Error is a stunning achievement; South African photographer Pieter Hugo exposes in shocking detail consumerism's shameful and toxic wastelnad, but at the same time brings out the dignity and beauty of the people condemned to spend their days on it. --New Internationalist May 2011

This thought-provoking book adds to the canon that illustrates the gap between the wasteful, consumerist western world and the poor of the third world who are forced to eke a living picking through our rubbish. --What Digital Camera? September 2011

The book is a monument to our obsession with consumption and obsolescence, and the normally unseen consequences. Hugo found great recognition for his recent book The Hyena and Other Men and has continued to make arresting work since. --The Photographer January 2012

This thought-provoking book adds to the canon that illustrates the gap between the wasteful, consumerist western world and the poor of the third world who are forced to eke a living picking through our rubbish. --What Digital Camera? September 2011

Four artists have been shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize. Pieter Hugo is nominated for his publication Permanent Error, published by Prestel. Permanent Error centres on a vast dumping ground for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana's capital city. --Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2012, March 2012

This thought-provoking book adds to the canon that illustrates the gap between the wasteful, consumerist western world and the poor of the third world who are forced to eke a living picking through our rubbish. --What Digital Camera? September 2011

In his previous well-received volumes of photographs, Hugo offers unflinching yet striking portraits of humans, animals, societies, and landscapes that shock and disturb, but also demand our attention. In Permanent Error, he documents a garbage dump in Ghana that has become the repository for discarded computers from around the world. These haunting images document the true cost of a misguided policy-the shipping of millions of tons of obsolete computers to developing countries. The computers are burned to extract valuable metals, effectively turning the site into a toxic wasteland that contaminates air, soil, and groundwater for miles around. These amazing portraits tell a story of a marginal community overwhelmed by poverty, but where human strength and resilience shine through the inhuman conditions Hugo lays bare.