This was an exhibition that I really wanted to see, so I was really pleased to be able to attend the OCA Study Visit to the
Conflict.Time.Photography
exhibition at the Tate Modern in London with tutors Sharon Boothroyd,
Russel Squires and Clive White and a lot of other students. I wrote a
lot of notes!
Overall, I found the exhibition
extremely interesting, but a little daunting. For a start, there is a
lot to see, and so the allotted hour and half was not really enough to
be able to get round, make notes, look, digest, reflect. I started off
by looking at everything in detail. After a while, I realised that I
was way behind everyone else, and would not make the talk afterwards if I
didn't speed up. So my notes became more and more untidy, and I became
more and more selective about what I looked at in detail. In the end, I
bought the book to have something reliable to refer to. But, I made
the talk though! :)
I try not to find out too much
about exhibitions before I go. I want to be able to experience the
exhibition without any preconceptions or other people's opinions that
would influence my reaction. If I want to know more, I can look it up
afterwards, once I know how I feel about the photographs. So, I hadn't
read up on too much about this beforehand, but was expecting to find an
exhibition about the impact of war and how that impact changes over
time. I wasn't expecting to see conflict photography or "war porn"; I
was expecting to see traces, scars and footprints. And essentially that
is what the exhibition delivered. For me the exhibition was about time
interacts with conflict, how time changes the impact of war and how
time creates distance and healing.
We were advised at the start to think about the curation of the exhibition
as we walked through. If I'm honest, I found it confusing. The time
sequences were muddled and represented both time since the conflict
incident or impact, but also the time at which images from an immediate
impact were compiled. So in some cases, 15 years represented the time
that creates distance between the event and the photography, in others,
15 years represented how much later from the time the image was shot
that it was included in a compilation. So, at one point, I looked at
some images shot of the remains of car bombs in The Lebanon by Walid Raad, The Atlas Group,
My Neck is Thinner than a Hair: Engines, 2000-2003 (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 74-75),
which had been billed as "9 Years Later, and I wrote in my notes "Why
have they not been cleared up? 9 years is a long time to leave these
lying around....", and then of course, I realised that the images were
taken soon after after the incidents, and that it was the compilation
that had taken place ten years later. And this happened several times
during the exhibition.
Another annoying thing about
the way the exhibition was laid out, was that it jumped in time periods
and bandings. So I wasn't sure where I was going in time, on some
occasions. Also, it felt that the immediate section and the end section
- 85-92 years later, were disproportionately small compared to the bulk
of the exhibition which was around 10-30 years later. I would have
preferred more evenly spaced intervals to make a better comparison to
the passage of time, e.g. immediate, up to ten years, and then by
decade. Then you could measure the changing effects of time on the
human and physical environment of the event. And in fact, if I were the
curator (I know...what do I know...?) - I would have started at the
furthest away point in time, i.e. 100 years later, and worked backwards,
building up in momentum to conclude on a crescendo of Moments Later
with scenes of an almighty blast punctuated by the final image of Don McCullin's
Shell Shocked US Marine, Vietnam, Hué, 1968, (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, p. 9) that leaves you wondering what awful thing he has seen, what is happening behind the eyes.
A
further aspect that didn't work for me, was that some of the images
were incredibly small and hard to see. I found this unsettling and
perhaps unnecessary? If the intention was only to use originals, then
the poster size production of Don McCullin's
Shell Shocked US Marine, Vietnam, Hué,
1968, (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, p. 9) was surely much bigger than
McCullin's intention at the time? It's certainly very grainy so to me
looks like it's been blown up. So unfortunately, the very small images
for me were disappointing and did not get much attention.
What I loved, and this is a photographer I am always captivated by, were two of the images by Luc Delahaye:
US Bombing on Taliban Positions 2001 (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 2-3) and
Ambush, Ramadi 2006 (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp 4-5). I have seen both these images before as with all Delahaye's work I find it astonishing that you feel that you can walk into these large frames; they are completely mesmorising. These for me were the real stars of the show. In
Ambush, Ramadi, the
neutral palette, the faint shapes, and the very faint tracks made by
(presumably) a tank leading the eye from the base of the frame into the
middle of the scene, all make for a beautiful scene, although of course
it's not. Taken seconds after an attack, this is a scene of
destruction, yet it is unnervingly calm and peaceful. Looking at images
like these create ethical dilemmas of whether we should appreciate
their beauty; is it acceptable to make something that is aesthetically
pleasing out of destruction and suffering?
I found a few other exhibits also had that tension and argument between beautiful and disturbed, for instance, Simon Norfolk,
Afghanistan: Chronotopia, 2001-2,
(Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 12-15), "Days Later", clearly devastating
impact on the environment and evidence of human disaster, yet presented
in beautiful light. The exhibit title is linked to the idea of space
and time in art and literature ((Baker and Mavlian, 2014, p. 13), however, I also wondered if it was also an irony about colour and utopia and therefore a reference to the ethical dilemma of war imagery.
Another
exhibit I found interesting was the collection of fragmentary details
(the areas that blue, red or yellow dots on contact sheets had hidden) by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin called
People in Trouble Laughing Pushed to the Ground (Baker
and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 76-79). Each individual image presented a
discrete moment, for instance a hand, a finger pointing, a person lying
on the ground, people at a protest, a chair suspended in mid-air; and
the assembly of these together into one body of work creates a jumbled,
yet compelling narrative. Fragments from a long conflict that took
place close to home, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, revealed by
removing the dots. It was an intriguing exercise to look at the
fragments and try to piece together an impression of what actually
happened. What was confusing though, as described above, was that this
collection was billed as being "13 Years Later", although it had been
compiled 13 years after the Good Friday Agreement; the actual
relationship of the fragments to time since conflict is the present, as
the images were shot in 1983 during the conflict. So the concept of 13
years later does not say anything about the impact of time on the
incident. These are not scars, these are critical moments during the
conflict like glimpses seen through port holes. It was also a shame
that some of the images were so high up the wall (to the ceiling) that
you could not see them. What's the point of that?
Other collections/photographers that I found interesting or moving were:
- Matsumoto Eiichi, Shadow of a soldier remaining on the wooden wall of the Nagasaki military headquarters (Minami-Yamate machi, 4.5km from Ground Zero), taken "Weeks Later" (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 16-17) - awful evidence of the human toll from the Nagasaki blast and a clear example of where a trace photograph can be so compelling
- Sophie Ristelbueber, Fait, 1992,
"7 Months Later" (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 36-45) - a deceptively
beautiful, shiny, glossy, even toned, collection of square format scenes
of scars and damaged landscapes with shifting perspectives (aerial and
ground views); lots of "wow factor" in the display method (an entire
room)
- Jo Ratcliffe, Terreno Occupado, 2007, "5 Years
Later", (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 58-63) - scenes of fragile
recovery following the end of the Angolan Civil War, but recovery seems
the wrong word. These are shanty towns set in the most awful living
conditions of damaged environment and waste. The white uniforms give
the idea of aid/medical workers and looking at these images, I felt
relieved on the one hand that people and their livestock have survived
and that rebuilding has started, yet appalled at the conditions
portrayed. The scene of a young girl carrying a child across a rubbish
tip with only flip flops to protect her feet is shocking
- Jim Goldberg and Kamel Khelif, Open See (Democratic Republic of Congo), 2008, "5 Years Later"
(Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 64-67) - it would be remiss not to comment
on this interesting and interactive mixed media display documenting
displaced persons, although I'm not sure I understood the origin of the
scenes - the book describes them as people who have fled to Europe, but
the scenes are clearly in Africa. The display of frames on the floor is
a terrible twist on the idea of family frames, very very sad images
- Stephen Shore, Ukraine,
2012-2013, "67 Years Later" (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 172-179) -
everyday objects of Ukrainian Holocaust survivors and their
surroundings. These images almost appear normal, yet they seem
incredibly antiquated for having been taken a couple of years ago
- Shomei Tomatsu, 11:02 Nagasaki, 1966,
"21 Years Later" (Baker and Mavlian, 2014, pp. 126-133) - I think this
is the most illustrative of all the exhibits of the concept of the
impact of time on war or conflict. You can see in the image of the
watch where time stood still at the moment of the explosion, the
scarring effect on people - they survived but were physically, mentally
and emotionally, changed forever with that impact continuing in time. I
know from a recent visit to Japan, that these scars are still present.
In Hiroshima, a young woman (around 30 years old at a guess) thanked me
for showing an interest in their history.
This is an
exhibition that has to be seen, and there is a lot more to it than I
have written about; these are the features that struck me the most.
References
- Baker, S. and Mavlian, S. (Eds.) (2014) Conflict. Time. Photography. London: Tate Publishing.
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