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Health & Fitness

With Burka and Camera in Afghanistan

On Saturday afternoon, I was privileged to attend a wonderful event at the Westport Arts Center. Not only was I able to see the photographs in their new exhibition, On the Wire: Veiled Rebellion, but I was able to meet the photojournalist responsible for them, Lynsey Addario and her colleague, photojournalist Spencer Platt. Both are Connecticut natives and both attended Staples High School. Both are exceptional photographers and witnesses to worlds we need to know about. The curator of the exhibition, Helen Klisser During, moderated a discussion and questions from the audience.

The exhibit alone was worth the trip, but it was a pleasure to listen to Ms. Addario and Mr. Platt talk about their experiences and how they had come to be photojournalists working on the front lines. Ms. Addario, who has worked in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Congo and Sierra Leone, among others, talked about how she always felt fear in a part of her mind when she was in the thick of fighting, and about how she managed to put it to one side when necessity demanded it. She described how she and three other photojournalists were captured and imprisoned for 5 days by Libyan forces who beat, punched and groped her repeatedly, while threatening death at regular intervals. In spite of the danger of the work that she does, Ms. Addario explained that she feels compelled to act as a witness to the lives of those living with conflict or oppression. Since having her own child, she has recently started to focus more on maternal health, and showed us striking and powerful photos of women in Sierra Leone struggling to give birth to healthy babies when there are no health facilities available and where death in childbirth is still common, as it is in Afghanistan.

The photos in this exhibition date from 2009, when Ms. Addario was commissioned by National Geographic magazine to produce a photo essay depicting the varied facets of women’s lives in Afghanistan. The photographs were taken in very difficult circumstances, since most Afghan women are forbidden to be photographed without the permission of a male relative. One of the photographs is taken through the netting that covers the eyes in a burka. Yet the photos here drew me in, inviting me to understand what it is to be a woman in Afghanistan today. There are hopeful photos of girls getting an education and women succeeding in the media, there are tragic ones of women suffering due to brutality and ignorance. All are shown in vivid colors which heighten the emotional effect. They are beautiful and important.

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Spencer Platt, a staff photographer for Getty Images, covers stories in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. He will be back at WAC on Tuesday, January 28 at 6pm, for a panel discussion of photojournalism in today’s ever-changing digital world Newsies: Image /Caption. It will be moderated by Gordon Joseloff, himself a former UPI and CBS News award-winning journalist. Mr. Platt’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Paris Match, and Stern; and he was World Press Photo of the Year winner in 2006 for his photo of bombed south Beirut. Other panelists include award-winning photographer Douglas Healey, and Larry Silver, artist and photographer who worked with many of most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century. His work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.

 

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The exhibition runs through February 23, at the Westport Arts Center, 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport CT 06880. Photos above courtesy of Helen Klisser During





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