Invisible Children Exhibit

I went to New York Saturday to see the Parc Foundation's Invisible Children exhibit, From Darkness to Sight. With all of the reading I've been doing about representations of Africa, I expected to see images that showed impoverished victims looking vulnerable and sad. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. There are plenty of challenges for Northern Uganda considering the conflict that the region has faced for nearly 25 years, yet somehow this exhibit managed to capture both the horror and the humanity of the situation.

Whereas marketing for humanitarian causes often targets potential donors or participants by means of guilt, this exhibit seemed a bit more humble. There are two films showing in the first room (as well as the projection of night commuters in the front entrance). Both tell the stories of people in Northern Uganda and their experiences with night commuting and living in Internally Displaced Persons Camps. Though the night commuting has stopped and there has been relative peace for the last 3 years, there are still huge numbers of people living in IDP camps. I appreciated the the exhibit included images of the living situations of people in the camps while reminding viewers that this is not how people normally live in Northern Uganda without objectifying people as mascots of poverty.

This dynamic also carried through the photographs in the exhibit which showed a range of emotions and settings. One photo, of two children trying to sleep on the floor of what may be a church, gave insight into the amount of fear the night commuters carried with them every day. In contrast though, a photo taken outside of a hut encompasses many of the stereotypes typical in photographic representations of Africa. Two children are almost entirely naked. The older child, perhaps 5 years old, is running into the hut but is simultaneously looking back at the camera with a huge mischievous smile on his face. The other, perhaps less than a year old, is naked and crawling to a plastic bucket on the dusty ground outside the hut. Somehow, this photo resonates with the viewer without making the children victims.

The second room, brightly lit with up beat music playing and a wall of brightly colored prints, is the hopeful side of things--the present and the future. It showcased Invisible Children's Schools for Schools program and designer Marie Havens' bag company MEND.

There aren't a huge number of reviews of the exhibit but check out the Huffington post review here.


Thanks for reading!


Julia


*Credit to Steph Walker (http://www.designispeople.com/2009/11/photos-invisible-from-darkness-to-sight.html) for the photo.