The Røros Museum is now showing a contemporary current photography exhibition with pictures taken by renowned American photographer Larry C. Price.
The exhibition, titled “The dark side of gold” focuses on child labor in the mining industry today. This is the first exhibition in Norway showing photographic work of Larry C. Price. The photographs document human impacts and environmental challenges related to child labor and mining in developing countries.
Child labor
Untold numbers of children toil in small-scale gold mines around the world. They face daily risks of injury and death, as well as long-term health consequences caused by hard labor and exposure to lung-damaging particulates, mercury, and other toxic chemicals. Instead of learning in schools, they work at great risk to their lives for a few dollars or cents a day.
Child labor is against the law in most countries. However, laws are hard to enforce in remote areas where parents send their children into the mines to feed their families.
American photographer Larry C. Price is documenting child labor and its devastating consequences with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to coverage of under-reported topics and international issues. The photographs in this exhibit were taken in the Philippines, the African nation of Burkina Faso, and Indonesia.
The exhibition includes nearly 90 beautiful photographs documenting a brutal reality for many children. In addition, the exhibition shows three video reports from Burkina Faso and the Philippines: “Children in Burkina Faso Get Dirty Work of Digging Up Gold,” “Unearthing toxic conditions for impoverished gold miners” and “Hazardous Work: Diving into the Philippines’ Dangerous Underwater Mine”. All are produced by Larry C. Price and PBS News Hour in partnership with the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. The latter film was rewarded with an Emmy award for outstanding investigative journalism.
About Larry C. Price
Larry C. Price (born 1954) is an American photographer and journalist based in Dayton, Ohio, USA. Price holds a BA in journalism from the University of Texas and has worked for several newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Denver Post. His photos and articles have appeared in international magazines including TIME, Newsweek, National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, Der Stern and LIFE.
Price won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography for his coverage of the 1980 coup d’état in Liberia in West Africa, and a second Pulitzer Prize for his photography in El Salvador and Angola in 1985.
