Christina Kleineidam and Hans Peter Jost

Cotton worldwide

Cotton is grown on every continent, in a broad range of environmental conditions and under widely disparate conditions of production. It is an important raw material for a highly varied and profitable value creation chain, and it is traded on commodities markets throughout the world. Cotton was already traveling around the world from producer to consumer in colonial times; all that has changed today is the routes it follows. Thus in one common scenario, cotton fibers from Texas are sent to China to be processed, then wend their way to the fashion runways of Paris, and finally travel as old clothes to Africa, where they are worn as secondhand fashion.

Hans Peter Jost has created a photographic portrait of cotton on his trips to India, China, Brazil, America, Uzbekistan, Mali, and Tanzania, documenting the lives and working conditions of cotton farmers and the cultivation, harvesting, processing, and marketing of cotton.

Cotton is grown on every continent, in a broad range of environmental conditions and under widely disparate conditions of production. It is an important raw material for a highly varied and profitable value creation chain, and it is traded on commodities markets throughout the world. Cotton was already traveling around the world from producer to consumer in colonial times; all that has changed today is the routes it follows. Thus in one common scenario, cotton fibers from Texas are sent to China to be processed, then wend their way to the fashion runways of Paris, and finally travel as old clothes to Africa, where they are worn as secondhand fashion.

Hans Peter Jost has created a photographic portrait of cotton on his trips to India, China, Brazil, America, Uzbekistan, Mali, and Tanzania, documenting the lives and working conditions of cotton farmers and the cultivation, harvesting, processing, and marketing of cotton.

Author(s): Christina Kleineidam, Hans Peter Jost

Foreword by Pietra Rivoli

With photographs by Hans Peter Jost

With contributions by Christina Kleineidam

Design: Integral Lars Müller

19 x 26 cm, 7 ½ x 10 ¼ in

320 pages, 214 illustrations

hardback

2010, 978-3-03778-201-9, English
CHF 52.00

Hans Peter Jost

Hans Peter Jost (*1953 in Zürich) is a Swiss photographer. After an apprenticeship as a machinist, Jost lived in Greece, where he experienced with street photography. From 1976 onwards, through contacts with Roland Gretler and Uri Urech, he increasingly specialised on photographing workers. For several years, Jost lived in Italy, where he worked as a farmer and photographer. He has worked as a photographer for numerous media, including Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ, WOZ, Tages-Anzeiger and L'Illustrazione Italiana.

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