Jan Cága

One billion people worldwide live in slums. Although their characteristics vary between geographic regions, they are usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Most slums lack clean water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services. Due to rising population, and the rise especially in urban populations, the number of slum dwellers is still rising.

‘Shanty town’, is a photographed mosaic of slum images captured from Google Earth between the years 2000-2011. Selected images from different years were printed, assembled and glued together into the appropriate picture. The result then was photographed by a camera on a tripod from a specific angle, which originated a unique perspective of each image.  

Google Earth is a 3D viewer for satellite imagery and aerial photography, displaying the geographical content around the globe. In Google Earth, due to the historical timeline feature, can be clearly observed, that some slums are still growing over the years. The number of people living in slums will likely grow to 2 billion by 2030.