Photography can become a weapon of repression
Offering Silence To The Oppressed Or How Photography Can Become A Weapon Of Repression
By Derek Powazek
(source:The Spinning Head Blog)
An exhibition called ‘Beware The Cost Of War’ recently opened in London.
Reading about it in the New York Times ‘Lens’ blog left me deeply disappointed and concerned.
Let me explain.
(Aside: Yoav Galai, the curator, is someone I have called a friend for some time now and I hope that he will forgive me for this very critical review of what is something he clearly put a lot of work in to. It is not personal, but merely a reflection on this propensity in our world to fear speaking, to raise a voice, to add details and specifics where generalizations only confuse, perpetuate injustices and acquit the guilty. I am sorry Yoav. I must say my piece.)
In their book Another Way of Telling photographer Jean Mohr and writer/intellectual John Berger present an experiment where a series of Mohr’s photographs, each with their captions removed, are shown to a number of ordinary strangers and each is asked to explain what they see in the photograph. As Jean Mohr himself explains:
Was it a game, a test, an experiment? All three, and something else too; a photographer’s quest, the desire to know how the40he makes are seen, read, interpreted, perhaps rejected by others. In fact in face of any photo the spectator projects something of her or himself. The image is like a springboard. (page 42)
