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Mankovsky Gallery put the spotlight on the 152 million kids forced into labour
Teaming up with photographer Banfa Jawla and charity Project Playground sharing Gambian boy Katim’s life story.
By OLIVER DAHLE & JOHAN MAGNUSSON
19 May 2021

Launched last November, online-based art gallery Mankovsky now presents 152 Million. It’s a collection of six artworks from Banfa Jawla’s critically acclaimed exhibition Katim, named after the estimated amount of kids that are deprived of their childhood — an amount that equals 1 out of 10.

In 2018, photographer Banfa Jawla met with a boy named Katim in Serekunda, Gambia. Katim lost his parents at a very young age and, for most of the time, has been forced to take care of himself. Just 12 years old, he works at a car repair shop six days a week, nine hours a day. At the time, Jawla was a photography student conducting his final project. He followed and documented Katim in his everyday life for five weeks. An encounter that led to the exhibition Katim.

— I want to tell Katim’s story because I believe it’s important to understand how different a child’s life and upbringing are depending on where in the world you are born. At the same time, I want to contribute any way I can to help children who are forced to work to sustain themselves, to have a chance to just be children, he tells.

Mankovsky Gallery sells the six different works in a limited edition of 175 where all the proceeds will go to Project Playground, an NGO co-founded by H.R.H. Princess Sofia of Sweden working to improve the conditions for children and youths in vulnerability and exclusion.

— To shine a strong light and spread awareness about the estimated 152 million children who are forced to work, we exhibit Banfa’s works together with Project Playground to give these children a chance of a better life, says Jonatan Erlandsson, founder and gallery director.