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Felicia Webb is a documentary photographer engaged in humanistic projects on various social issues. For three years she worked with people suffering from eating disorders, followed by another three years exploring the causes and medical consequences of the rise in global obesity. She has covered issues all over the world including Azerbaijan, China, Sudan, Argentina, Mexico, Kosovo, India, Honduras, Nicaragua, The Gambia, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the USA. Her stories have been published in the Sunday Times Magazine, Telegraph Magazine, Independent Magazine, New York Times Magazine, TIME, Newsweek and Le Monde 2, among many others. She has worked for several NGOs and charities including Christian Aid, Save the Children, Oxfam, The Medical Research Council, Shelter, Sargent Cancer Care for Children and Sight Savers International.

Felicia has a BA in English Literature and worked as a journalist in Latin America for several years, before taking a Postgraduate Diploma in Photojournalism at the London College of Printing in 1998. She is a visiting lecturer on the MA Photojournalism course at the London College of Communication.

Awards include:
Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship 2005
NPPA/Nikon Documentary Sabbatical Grant 2004
World Press Photo, 3rd Prize Contemporary Issues 2004
UNICEF Photo of the Year, 2nd place 2003
Finalist Canon Female Photojournalist of the Year 2003
Finalist Fifty Crows Award 2003 & 2002
Visa D’Or Magazine 2002
Hasselblad Foundation Grant 2002
Nikon Photo Essay Award 2002
Humanity Photo Award, 1st prize daily life stories, China, 2002
Finalist Eugene Smith Award 2002
World Press Masterclass 2001
POY, Magazine Issue Reporting Story Award 2000
La Nación Award for International Photojournalism, Argentina, 2000
Ian Parry Award runner-up 1998

Solo Exhibitions
Arbetets Museum, Norrköping, Sweden, January – April 2007, “Nil By Mouth” & “Generation XL”
Kulturhuset, Stockholm, February – May 2006, “Generation XL”
Kulturhus, Stavanger, Norway, January – April 2004, “Nil By Mouth”
Kulturhuset, Stockholm, March – May 2003, “Nil By Mouth”

Group exhibitions at Visa Pour L’Image, Perpignan, France; Proud Gallery, London; Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam; Tom Blau Gallery, London; and Brandts Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark.

Last Tango In Buenos Aires captions:

01 Tango Ð one of the few dances in the world intended to express pain rather than joy

02 The Figueroas struggle to feed their children after losing their jobs. ÒWe used to have dreams and maybe achieve them. Now we suffer hunger in silence.Ó

03 The peso was devalued and at a stroke salaries were slashed, jobs lost, companies went bankrupt and the price of basic goods rocketed

04 Middle class Argentineans protest in the centre of Buenos Aires, their life savings frozen by the banks

05 70 years ago Argentina was a global powerhouse thanks largely to beef exports

06 Dar’o Santill‡n, 21, was killed by police as he protested against unemployment

07 Doctors complained of having to interrupt treatment because the money for medicine had run out

08 Argentina were favourites to win the 2002 World Cup. The expectations of an entire nation were pinned on victory to resurrect battered pride but hopes were dashed as they bowed out in the first round

09 ÒItÕs incredible to us how people on the streets here eat rotten left-overs from bins when we produce so much food, likewise we canÕt believe how we could lose on the football pitch when we have such talented players.Ó Clar’n newspaper.

10 With their savings frozen by the banks, people who once shopped in Miami could no longer afford to pay their electricity bills

11 Hogar San Mart’n, one of four government-funded old peopleÕs homes in Buenos Aires

12 Buenos Aires

13 In the days of Carlos Menem, TV shows offered $1 million in prize money. During the crisis, contestants competed in a live television show called ÒRecursos HumanosÓ (Human Resources). The prize was a job

14 Celebrating mass at La Cava, the largest shanty town in Buenos Aires

15 Hundreds of thousands took to the streets demanding food, jobs, and new economic policies

16 Buenos Aires

17 Daiana Monz—n, 9, waits for her father, one of many cartoneros who roamed the capital collecting paper and cardboard to make a meagre living

18 The Confiter’a Ideal, where beleaguered Argentineans turn to tango for respite and therapy

 

Oil On Troubled Waters Captions:

01 The Salyan Military Band plays on Freedom Square in Baku to commemorate AzerbaijanÕs independence from the Soviet Union

02 Oil workers in Balakhani, where the Nobel brothers made their fortune

03 Lunchtime vodka on Balakhani oilfields

04 Polluted Soviet-era oilfields

05 Drinking chai on Balakhani oilfields

06 Azeri girls wait to present President Heydar Aliyev with flowers in 1998

07 Azeris who were internally displaced after the war with Armenia still live in disused train carriages a decade after the ceasefire. Imishli, near the Iranian border

08 State funeral of ex-President Heydar Aliyev December 1st 2003

09 Mourners at the funeral of ex-President Heydar Aliyev. A million people paid their respects (out of a total population of 7 million)

10 Mourner at the funeral of ex-President Heydar Aliyev

11 Opposition party political rally in Baku

12 Opposition party political rally in Baku

13 Ali Nasirov, 82, a WWII veteran, and his wife Tubu, at home in Baku

14 The Musa Naghiyev Clinical Hospital of First Aid Ð one of largest and oldest state hospitals. Azerbaijan inherited a well-developed medical system from the Soviet Union but lack of investment and low salaries are taking their toll

15 Patient after cataract surgery performed by a Western NGO

16 Unemployed young men work as salt diggers to earn a few dollars a day

17 A football match for street children

18 Vusala Gafarova, 20, getting ready for her wedding. Her father is an oil worker on the Soviet-era Balakhani oilfield and her fiancˇe is an oil engineer

19 Vusala Gafarova, 20, on her wedding day

20 Wedding guests take a traditional stroll in Freedom Square, Baku

21 Street children wash cars in central Baku to earn a few dollars

22 Ferry ride on the Caspian Sea

23 Construction of a state-of-the-art PDQ (Production, Drilling, Quarters) to house 200 oil workers on an international offshore drilling platform

24 One of BakuÕs two oil refineries, built by the Soviets in 1953

25 Members of the fire brigade for the state oil rigs off Pirallahi Island wait in their ship on the Caspian Sea

26 Wedding guests

 

Fashion Captions:

01 Julien Macdonald

02 Paul Smith

03 Paul Smith

04 John Rocha

05 Marjan Djodjov Pejoski

06 Gharani Strok

07 Ronit Zilkha

08 Central St Martins MA show

09 J Maskrey

10 Julien Macdonald

11 J Maskrey

12 J Maskrey

13 Gharani Strok

14 J Maskrey

15 Marjan Djodjov Pejoski

16 Marjan Djodjov Pejoski

 

Under The Volcano Captions:

01 Popocatˇpetl volcano, Mexico

02 Francisca Campos and her daughters collect the liquid of the maguey cactus from which they make pulque

03 Natalia Altamirano, 89, from La Magdalena Yancuitlalpan, one of the most vulnerable villages

04 Gregorio Altamirano, an 89-year-old farmer, and his grandson Rodolpho, clear their cornfield on the volcanic slopes

05 Efren Altamirano and his nephew return home after a long day working on their cornfield on the volcanoÕs slopes

06 Mayra at home in the village of Santiago Xalitzintla

07 Popocatˇpetl volcano, Mexico

08 La Candelaria, a Catholic festival

09 Pilgrims at the volcanoÕs birthday ceremony at the sacred spot El Ombligo return home through fields of ash

 

Nil By Mouth captions:

01 ÒEvery part of my character is bound up with my anorexia, IÕd just be a vacant husk without it.Ó Natalie

02 ÒThe voice constantly whirrs round in my head: ÔIÕm too fat, too big, taking up too much space.ÕÓ Natalie

03 ÒI didnÕt learn the word anorexia until I was 7 and hauled off to a psychiatrist, but from the age of 5 I knew Mum was upset and didnÕt eat, and I know I was upset and felt better when I didnÕt eat.Ó Natalie

04 ÒDeprived of feelings of self-value by life circumstances, I turn to the number on the scales as a measurement of my self-worth.Ó Natalie

05 ÒI use my body to express outwardly what I feel inside. My body is the canvas, my anorexia the artist. The work of art, a walking skeleton that reflects the emptiness, the endlessness, that I feel inside.Ó Natalie

06 -

07 ÒI was on a naso-gastric tube for a year, but I was constantly in tears moaning about how fat I was, so eventually I just pulled it out.Ó Natalie

08 ÒAnorexia is a way of externalising my emotional pain, just like cutting my arm with a scalpel is.Ó Natalie

09 ÒI can distinguish in my rational, cognitive mind that because I have to buy a childÕs clothes I must be thin, but emotionally I still look in the mirror and see a fat blob.Ó Natalie

10 Natalie after an operation to remove her breast implants because of a fear they were leaking. Her body didnÕt develop breasts due to her childhood anorexia

11 NatalieÕs medication, including painkillers, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, antibiotics, steroids and digestive aids.

12 ÒIÕm trying to deal with a partner whoÕs dying, who turns round and says to me several times a day ÔI want to starve myself.Õ Where does that leave me?Ó Heather, NatalieÕs partner

13 -

14 -

15 ÒWhen things become too much to bear, I starve myself to regain that false, but so compelling, feeling of control. So it has been time after time throughout my life.Ó Natalie

16 ÒMy life is ruled by the scales which scream out at me to jump on them at every opportunity. The high from losing a few pounds doesnÕt last long. ItÕs not enough. It never is. ÔYouÕre still so FAT,Õ hisses the voice in my head.Ó Jo

17 ÒSo many people say ÔyouÕve got such a lovely figure how do you do it?Õ I think Ôif only you knew.Õ ItÕs personal hell. ItÕs a world where every day I iron my bed, I clean, I check my bones, I clean, I look at my thighs, I clean, I read, I check my bones, I cry.Ó Rebecca

18 ÒI used to always eat my dinner at 8.15pm. It had to be Findus Lasagne with Waitrose mixed salad or I couldnÕt eat at all. I would separate the sheets of pasta from the mince and scrape off the cheese topping. I had to eat the green peppers first, then the red, lettuce, onions, cabbage and carrot. It was the highlight of my day.Ó Rebecca

19 ÒAnorexia is a symptom of severe unhappiness, itÕs control in a world where you have none.Ó Rebecca, with her son

20 ÒI have a near insane passion for life, there are so many things I could achieve if only I could get better." Stephen died a few days short of his 30th birthday

21 -

22 ÒI wake up anytime between 9am and 2pm, and decide not to eat that day. I occupy my mind shopping, watching crap TV, reading or just going straight back to bed. Until I feel so hungry that I can resist no longer and I binge. Then I feel disgusting.Ó Janine

23 ÒI throw up after a binge and I do worry about it. Not about the damage to my insides, but about whether IÕve got it all up.Ó Janine

24 -

25 ÒAll I can see is 2 stone of excess body fat whereas what I want to see is pure bone, nothing more. I want to be full of emptiness. I want to disappear.Ó Jo

26 "Anorexia made me dead inside for more than 30 years. I was too ill to have feelings. I couldn't feel the wind, the rain, the sunshine or hear the sea. I couldn't even feel pain." Ellie

27 ÒMy first memories of anorexia are when I was 9 and saw in the mirror of dance class that I was fatter than everyone else." Ellie

28 ÒWhen I was 12 Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember going on a diet and weighing everything out, eating mainly tinned green beans and drinking only boiled water. Mum died on my 16th birthday.Ó Marie

29 ÒA few years ago I got taken into hospital weighing 4 stone. They didn't think IÕd make it and it broke my familyÕs heart. I had liver and kidney failure, my heartbeat was slowing, I could hardly breathe.Ó Marie

30 -

31 ÒI need a lot of reassurance and comfort, and am very insecure. I get bad times and days, struggling with food and calories which are imprinted in my head and which IÕll never forget.Ó Marie

32 -

33 -

34 ÒI find it so difficult trying to maintain my weight. My mind is in turmoil about what I have eaten, what I should be eating, how fat my thighs and bum feel, and how much my stomach is sticking out.Ó Marie

35 ÒI hate this disease yet I can't seem to get rid of it. It is evil, and destroys people and relationships and lives. I have everything and yet nothing.Ó Marie

 

Generation XL captions:

 

01 Jonathan, 14, and his sister Yomara, 9, at an all-you-can-eat buffet, Houston

02 ÒIÕm a single mom now and always try to be there for them. IÕm trying to find somewhere for them to exercise but itÕs so expensive.Ó Martha, their mother

03 Both Jonathan and Yomara have fatty liver disease. ÒI asked the doctors is there anything you can do instead of just telling them what they can and canÕt eat? Jonathan is in a dangerous zone, they already talked to him and it doesnÕt seem to work.Ó Martha

04 Jonathan, 14, has obstructive sleep apnoea. Excess fat around the throat and the weight of his chest make breathing difficult, causing a chronic lack of oxygen which can damage the heart and lungs. He sleeps with a BIPAP mask to force oxygen into his lungs

05 -

06 Kelsey after her liver biopsy. She was diagnosed with fatty liver disease

07 Sheyenne, 6, with her mother Melanie at home in Houston

08 Sheyenne and her psychotherapist imagine what it means to feel full

09 ÒHere at home we never fry, we do portion control, bla bla, but at school itÕs pizza and chocolate cake. SheÕs a 6 year old overweight child, how can you say to her Ôyou canÕt have thatÕ when the children next to her are all eating it?Ó Melanie

10 ÒIÕve been diabetic for about 3 years and her daddyÕs diabetic. I know what it can do and I donÕt want that for her. I want to see her graduate from college.Ó Melanie, mother of Sheyenne and 4 year old Jayda

11 ÒIÕve always been chubby. Mom had a job so sheÕd end up buying the fastest thing to cook. Sometimes the only thing I want to do is eat a piece of chocolate cake, itÕs the only thing that makes me happy.Ó Patricia, 13, has type 2 diabetes

12 ÒWhen my Mom got diabetes I realised she wasnÕt always going to be there. Her blood sugar is very high and she wants sweet pastries all day. Once she was eating a toffee pudding and I shouted ÒI want to have a Mom, do you want to die early?Ó Patricia, 13, also has type 2 diabetes

13 ÒIf I was more fit I wouldnÕt have had to deal with diabetes but I would have missed out on all that being overweight has taught me - that life is about more than supermodels and bikinis, itÕs about emotion and personalities, itÕs about love.Ó Summer, 17

14 ÒMy diabetes is already worse and I worry about that all the time. IÕm so lazy, when I think that for the rest of my life IÕll have to exercise and eat in a certain way, it just seems so much work.Ó Summer

15 ÒBeing overweight, food is your comfort and you turn to it because youÕre lonely inside. I guess everyone has their crutch and food is mine.Ó Summer

16 John Jr, 14, and his mother Angela before his liver biopsy

17 John Jr recovers after a liver biopsy revealed he has obesity-related fatty liver disease

18 Straight after his liver biopsy, Angela takes John Jr to a fast food restaurant at the hospital to reward him for being brave

19 Shamia, 7, and her family in Philadelphia

20 ÒShamia will beg me to go outside and play, but I work two jobs and need to sleep so I say ÔlaterÕ. ThatÕs my fault. But itÕs not safe for them to be outside alone so what can I do?Ó Stephanie, ShamiaÕs mother

21 Western children watch about 3 hours of TV a day - one and a half months of the year. Cash-strapped schools have compounded the problem by abandoning sport

22 Kelsey after her liver biopsy. She was diagnosed with fatty liver disease

23 Academy of the Sierras, California - the first residential academic school in the world for seriously overweight children. Through an intensive programme of healthy eating, counselling and exercise, students are encouraged to lose weight

24 ÒI donÕt want to be the fattest kid in school anymore. You get isolated by other kids when youÕre younger, then when they finally realise youÕre no different youÕve built up walls and you isolate yourself.Ó Jocelyn, 14

25 ÒIÕve always used food to deal with my emotions. IÕve done Weight Watchers, Atkins, nutritionists - you lose it, gain it back and then some. It sucks. Nothing about this can be changed overnight or even in 6 months. ItÕs a forever changing process.Ó Jaimie, 18, right

26 Ð

27 ÒIÕve been at this school 6 weeks now. IÕve lost 11 kgs which doesnÕt seem a lot but is a huge accomplishment for me. I never had a sense of control when it came to my life in general, now I feel like I have a sense of control which I like.Ó Stephanie, 17, and her mother

Women in America struggle to shrink their bodies to Size 0 - surely the ultimate self-negation. In the Western world, and increasingly elsewhere, thinness is associated with desirability, wealth, success. We live in an eating-disordered culture where compulsive dieting is mainstream. At some time or other everyone weighs their worth on the bathroom scales.

In this sense anorexia and bulimia are the clinical tip of the iceberg that idealises thinness. But eating disorders are far more complex illnesses rooted in intense psychological and emotional distress, where a zealous control over food becomes a means of trying to cope with seemingly insurmountable issues. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric illnesses.

My first contact with anorexia was as a young teenager when three school-friends were hospitalised with an illness that seemed so alien at the time. More recently, through this project, friends and strangers alike opened up about their daughters, girlfriends, mothers, brothers, or about themselves, and I realised that it consumes the lives of so many, often behind closed doors. As a documentary photographer I wanted to try to offer a deeper understanding of this devastating condition and was privileged to meet sufferers of anorexia and bulimia courageous enough to reveal the enormous impact on their lives, and to them I remain indebted.

Argentina began the 20th century as the sixth richest nation in the world. It was forecast to be a land of the future along with Australia and Canada, but even wealthier with infinite natural resources - the epitome of the New World.

Instead a few years ago the elegant 19th century tree-lined boulevards and well-coiffed cafe society were stung by violence, poverty, and desperation. As Argentina fought its way through an economic, political and social crisis the peso was devalued by 70%, there were 5 presidents in the space of 2 weeks, bloody protests by the middle class, and untold suffering by all sectors of society. Thousands lost their hard-earned savings and saw their aspirations reduced to pipe dreams. Half the population was living below the poverty line, the elderly could no longer afford the roof over their heads, and children went hungry in the beef capital of the world. 

 

Baku is the world’s oldest oil province. Marco Polo wrote about it, Tsar Peter the Great coveted it, as did Lenin and Hitler, and the Nobel brothers made their fortune there. At the beginning of the 20th century Baku was producing half the world’s oil. At the end of the century, after decades of intensive drilling and then neglect during the Soviet era, foreign interest was reharnessed by the wily career politician and then president, Heydar Aliyev. Azerbaijan was hyped as the new Kuwait, attracting $40 billion of international investment, with Washington, London, Moscow, Tehran, and half a dozen capitals in between jostling for their stake.

Azerbaijan is now on the cusp of enormous wealth from the oil bonanza, money it desperately needs. It is still a country in transition, struggling with the journey from the centralised system of the USSR to a market economy, from a totalitarian regime to democracy, from war to peace, from communism to Islam.

Once again oil is proving the catalyst for change, conflict and ambition in the volatile, ethnically disparate Caspian region.

 

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” Mark Twain

A look at London Fashion Week. A surreal demimonde where new trends are decreed, egos preened, strict hierarchies confirm or deny status, and skinny girls become semi-goddesses, pulled, prodded and pinched into perfection. And in that 15 minutes of runway fame, the lights, music, clothes, swagger, sex and awe feed our need for glamour, fantasy and escapism.

Women in America struggle to shrink their bodies to Size 0 - surely the ultimate self-negation. In the Western world, and increasingly elsewhere, thinness is associated with desirability, wealth, success. We live in an eating-disordered culture where compulsive dieting is mainstream. At some time or other everyone weighs their worth on the bathroom scales.

In this sense anorexia and bulimia are the clinical tip of the iceberg that idealises thinness. But eating disorders are far more complex illnesses rooted in intense psychological and emotional distress, where a zealous control over food becomes a means of trying to cope with seemingly insurmountable issues. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness.

My first contact with anorexia was as a young teenager when three school-friends were hospitalised with an illness that seemed so alien at the time. More recently, through this project, friends and strangers alike opened up about their daughters, girlfriends, mothers, brothers, or about themselves, and I realised that it consumes the lives of so many, often behind closed doors. As a documentary photographer I wanted to try to offer a deeper understanding of this devastating condition and was privileged to meet sufferers of anorexia and bulimia courageous enough to reveal the enormous impact on their lives, and to them I remain indebted.

“Fat.” The word alone inflicts pain, a short sharp insult, source of so much despair in a world that worships slenderness. But the shape of our bodies is no longer just a cultural issue. Obesity claims lives and the World Health Organisation has called it “a global epidemic.”

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, along with half the population of countries as diverse as the UK, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Colombia, Finland, Canada, and Morocco. Obesity is complex because it is cruelly stigmatized and yet the medical consequences must be taken seriously. It leads to heart disease, diabetes, cancers and numerous other illnesses. Doctors are seeing unprecedented numbers of overweight children with type 2 diabetes, which until recently was exclusively adult territory.

Over the course of 2 years, I spent time with families in Houston, California and Philadelphia whose views and concerns illuminated many of the threads that form this issue - they are psychological, medical, economic, cultural, political and global.

The Aztecs called it “Smoking Mountain” and the Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico lives up to its name. Scientists, who for some time have regarded it as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, warn that worse is to come.

Yet while they keep watch with state-of-the-art monitoring equipment, the 400,000 subsistence farmers who live on the volcano’s flanks have their own more ancient warning system: shamans, whose traditions date from Aztec times. For the villagers, El Popo or Gregorio, as it is affectionately known, is a spiritual presence, a tangible deity with beneficial functions like providing fertile soil and creating rain, gifts which allow them to grow their all-important corn and continue the natural rhythm of their lives - so little changed since the days of their ancestors.