Phil Borges

Our great wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity is disappearing at an alarming rate. On average, every two weeks another grandparent dies carrying the language and culture of his or her ancestors to the grave. For the most part this shocking assault on humanity’s rich cultural legacy goes on silently.

I have devoted most of my photographic work in advocacy of the people where this extinction rate is the highest—the remaining indigenous people of our planet. Today, our omnipresent media reaches many of them, providing a one-way look at us. Although the view is distorted, it has the ability to dazzle and seduce. Indigenous children turn their backs on their values, traditions and languages as they are drawn to the ephemeral brilliance of progress.

Ironically the very dominance of our media isolates us by overwhelming the voices of the other cultures in our global community. As an effect, our international literacy has deteriorated. In a recent survey of 18-26 year-olds in nine industrialized countries, Americans ranked next to last in global geographic literacy. Although we are the most powerful military and media presence on earth, we are becoming the least aware.

Here are a few of the children I have met over the years--many awestruck by the images they have seen that portray us, wondering who we really are and what it would be like to live like us.

The question that BRIDGES asks, and attempts to address is: what would happen if we gave these children a voice and connected them to our children on a platform that allowed an equal exchange? A platform where they learned with and from each other and not just about each other. A platform where they truly listened to and honored each other’s views. And what if that platform allowed them to share and discuss the daunting issues that face us all: environmental degradation, physical and spiritual poverty, and the intolerance that results from not understanding and not being understood.