The Wellington-born artist set out to answer the question: "What happens when you photograph maligned people in a respectful and dignified manner?"
"Because the work is a portrait, not an expose, a work of art, not journalism, I was let in," he told The Huffington Post.
The Mighty Mongrel Mob is New Zealand's largest street gang. Rotman found his subjects through a gang liaison officer in the New Zealand police force. He told Vice that after spending time photographing the gang members he came to see them as "impressive human beings," although he still felt intimidated by them.
"There was always a tacit understanding that they could kill me if I fucked with them," he said.
Rotman calls the pictures "martial portraits." He shot them using the conventions of formal portraiture, and presented them as large high-resolution prints -- in contrast to the more typical mugshots and security camera footage. In the more than eight years Rotman spent documenting the Mongrels' lives, he found that they have strong community ties and are trying to build a better life for the next generation.
Most of the gang members are Maori, which Rotman says reflects the discrimination Maoris faced as a result of New Zealand's history of violent white supremacy. Many Maoris were raised in foster homes on the fringes of society in the former British colony.
The gang was formed in the 1960s by disaffected youth. Its members donned Nazi iconography to antagonize the country's white elite at a time when memories of World War II were still fresh, Rotman said. They are anti-establishment and continue to wear the insignia of white supremacists as an ironic statement.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/10/mighty-mongrel-mob_n_7553580.html?utm_hp_ref=travel&ir=Travel and provided by entertainment-movie-news.com
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