THE POWER OF photojournalism to expose problems and galvanise public opinion promises to become clearer than ever at the second PhotoJourn Festival, opening tomorrow evening in Bangkok’s Santichaiprakarn Park.

Among the issues examined through the camera lens are lacking transparency in Myanmar’s mining industry and the sorry situation of stateless Karen children in the Thai North. Another series of images reveals that people in southern Thailand and Aceh in Indonesia still haven’t fully recovered from the 2004 tsunami.

The inaugural festival was a single-day success last year, when the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre played host. This year it runs a full three days in the park in Banglamphu district, another park nearer the river, and at Thammasat University.

More than 200 photographs will be on display in six exhibition areas, covering themes from the environment and rights to human-interest tales from around Asia.

“We’ve moved closer to the Chao Phraya River because there’s a more unique atmosphere, more akin to Thai culture,” says festival director Suthep Kritsanavarin. “It’s more pleasurable when you can easily walk among the exhibits and workshops.”

Suthep doubles as curator for the main opening exhibition on environmental issues. “Unearthing Myanmar’s Mining Practices” comprises the results of efforts by six photojournalists to document current practices used to extract jade, natural gas, oil, copper, gold and coal.

The Natural Resource Governance Institute last year assigned Suthep, Yu Yu Myint Than and Minzayar Oo of Myanmar, Americans Andre Malerba and Lauren DeCicca and Briton Matt Grace to photograph the state of the industry.

The aim was to publicise the country’s wealth of valuable natural resources and demonstrate the industry’s accountability and transparency amid efforts to gain international accreditation. What the photographers found in the restricted areas to which they were granted access, however, was not all rosy. They chronicled evidence of lost revenue, environmental damage, land seizures and work-related medical problems.

In “Sighs from Ma-De Island”, Yu Yu Myint Than offers pictures of the new Sino-Myanmar gas and oil pipelines ringing the Bay of Bengal. In “The Beginning of the Jade Trail”, Minzayar Oo examines the jade mines in Kachin and the black market on the Chinese border, where many billions of dollars’ worth of stone is traded.

DeCicca went to the Letpadaung Copper Mine near the city of Monywa in western Sagaing region.

“Since 2011, thousands of people have been forcibly evicted from their land to clear way for the mine run by China’s Wanbao Mining Corp,” he writes. “The company, in conjunction with Myanmar police authorities, has steadily engaged in land grabs and assaults on farmers and freelance miners in the area.”

As seen in “Gold Mining, Gun Disease”, Malerba found people east of Mandalay using their bare hands to unearth the precious metal, as well as dangerous techniques involving dynamite, drilling, cyanide and mercury. He learned there have been more than 100 deaths just in the past few years.

Grace ventured to Htankai, one of the numerous oilfields in central Magwe region, for “Onshore Oil: Two Fields”, and discovered that landowners had little or no say in how their property was used. Compensation was paltry, given the lucrative nature of the industry. But in 2013 the land was returned to thepeople for reversion to agriculture.

Suthep travelled to Shan State to get shots of village life in Tigyit near Inle Lake. The result, “Living with the Coal Mine, Myanmar”, documents medical issues arising from the lignite mine there but, as director of the Bangkok festival, Suthep chose to leave his own work out of the exhibition.

The festival offers the “EverydayClimateChange Instagram Feed”, with pictures taken on seven continents by 60,000 followers of the social network.

Each evening there will be slideshows covering various subjects. Suthep has put together Friday’s programme on ecological issues. Saturday night will pay tribute to the Angkor Photo Festival, with its director, Francoise Callier, on hand with selected shots. And Sunday will share the work of PhotoJourn members.

The Journalism Faculty at Thammasat University’s Tha Phra Chan campus plays host to the festival on Saturday, with the focus on social and human-right issues. Of keen interest ahead of the event, the “Stateless Photo Workshop” will include 30 images of Karen children in Um Phang, Tak – taken by the kids themselves. PhotoJourn set the project up with Um Phang Hospital and Mong Guo School.

“We gave the kids a camera to tell their own story, to show us their community, families and lives,” says Suthep. “We gave them a voice, and later everyone met to decide what to do with the pictures. Four of the children have been invited to Bangkok and hopefully they’ll have an effect on policymakers in the government.”

For the like-minded project “The InSIGHT Out!”, a group of professional photojournalists who covered the 2004 tsunami offered young people in the stricken area in southern Thailand and Aceh the chance to document their own feelings about recovery efforts to date.

The resulting 30 photos portray people in Phang Nga in Thailand and Banda Aceh in Indonesia still struggling to cope with the catastrophe. The “InSIGHT Out” opportunity was also extended to Kachin youngsters in Myanmar.

A solemn nod is also given to the deadly conflict gripping two of Thailand’s southernmost Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.

Closing the festival late Sunday afternoon will be an Asia-theme exhibition in Nakapirom Park on the river near Wat Pho.

Italian photojournalist Alessandro Gandolfi takes an honest look at China’s nouveau riche in “China: The Rolls-Royce Generation”. In “Mountain Schools”, Mohammad Golchin observes the highly centralised education system in Iran, his homeland.

PICTURE THIS

– The PhotoJourn Festival opens at 6 tomorrow night runs through Sunday at Santichaiprakarn Park.

-Exhibitions continue until April 2 at Santichaiprakarn Park, Nakapirom Park and at Thammasat University, Tha Phra Chan.

-Find out more at http://www.PhotoJournFestival.com.