| | | | | | | | | Mogadishu, 2012 © Dominic Nahr | | | | | | Blind Spots | | | | 20 May – 8 October, 2017 | | | | Opening reception: Friday, 19 May, 6 pm | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mali, 2016 © Dominic Nahr | | | | | | Dominic Nahr’s photographs are highly estimated in international newsrooms. They unfold their full force, however, in exhibitions. Released from the utility value of reporting on current affairs, their pictorial idiom and deliberate composition shift impressively to the fore. Then the hard facts of international hot spots are just the external scaffold from which to immerse oneself deeply in the life worlds of the people portrayed. Nahr’s images communicate mind-sets and moods which cannot be captured in words or statistics. They take us to four African nations that are constantly threatened by decline: South Sudan, Somalia, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The exhibition "Blind Spots" also raises the question of the status of photography in the media system and in the depiction of misery and terror: What can, what must a photograph show? What fora does it need so as to draw our attention?
At the age of 33, Dominic Nahr has already been reporting for ten years from the world’s conflict zones. He was in Gaza and Somalia, in Fukushima and Congo. His photographs are published in magazines like Time, National Geographic and Stern, for which he documented the Arab Spring and the birth of the state of South Sudan. He has received numerous awards, was Swiss Photographer of the Year in 2015 and is the holder of a World Press Photo Award for General News.
Nahr was born in Heiden, Appenzell, in 1983 and grew up in Hong Kong. He discovered his calling at the age of 22, having followed violent mass protests with his camera for days when working for a Hong Kong newspaper. Attracted by the intensity of the events and their historical significance, he became their eye witness and chronicler, photographing in places where human rights are trampled on. In 2009, he moved to Nairobi, Kenya, and from then on concentrated on the African continent. Unlike journalists who only parachute into places for a short time, he has great insight into local conditions, but knows of the limits to do justice to the complexity and the contradictory nature of Africa. | | | | | | | | | | South Sudan, 2015 © Dominic Nahr | | | | | | As the threshold for articles on Africa is very high in most newsrooms, often only catastrophes, wars and crises make headlines. Seemingly repetitive negative headlines bear the danger of stereotypes and fatigue of the audience. Additionally, the credibility of images is eroding: the distinction between objective and manipulated reality is trickier than ever before. Images are powerful weapons in propaganda wars, journalistic due diligence loses its validity in the social media, fact checking takes time. When interpreting reality, opinion leaders seem to run an everlasting election campaign. The end of the Cold War and the media crisis in the early 21st century have resulted in a considerable neglect of topics, and cuts of staff, resulting in a loss of competence and diversity in reporting, especially when it comes to Africa. The media system has blind spots, repression mechanisms and dependencies. Consequently, the economic outlook for photojournalists is also getting more precarious.
South Sudan, Somalia, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo: four African states that fail to comply with their populations’ need for security and basic supplies. Many of their problems were caused by external factors rooting in the history of colonialism. As unstable constructs, they continue to be exposed to the profit interests of outside forces. Since its independence in 2011, South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, has been immersed in a war for resources, above all oil. Supporters of President Salva Kiir and those of his former deputy and now opponent Riek Machar are waging a war with devastating consequences for the civil population. For the first time in six years, the UNO in February 2017 declared a famine in parts of the country. In the civil war in Somalia, militias of the radical Islamic al-Shabaab are fighting the peace troops of the African Union as well as the Somali state. The government only controls a few areas outside the capital city of Mogadishu. In Mali there is a paralysing stalemate situation as a result of a conflict between Islamist rebels in the north and the government, in which western states – especially France and Germany – have been involved since 2013. In the Democratic Republic of Congo a violent conflict is raging which goes back to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and is further fuelled by highly sought resources such as rare earth elements and other raw materials. | | | | | | | | | | South Sudan, 2012 © Dominic Nahr | | | | | | Dominic Nahr conveys visual and emotional experiences that challenge the viewers to take a stand on his images: turn away and not look, or look and bear them. Nahr’s photographs rarely show direct violence and are often beautiful; hence it is knowledge of the context which makes us aware that the image has captured an act of violence. The exhibition acknowledges this photographic achievement as both committed and aesthetic, documentary and interpretative. The skilled composition and the emphasis on gesture, landscapes and scenario testify to an aesthetic interest and a classical iconography. By suggesting the invisible and questioning the visible, the images attain persuasiveness and intensity.
Nahr’s photographs thrive on his sensibility for moods, orders and colours. His portraits show people whose dignity often outshines their inner despair. However they also trigger ambivalent feelings and embroil the exhibition visitors and curators in a dilemma: Just how beautiful may a terrifying image be? Can we be sure of not falling victim to a kind of gloomy fascination? Do the photographs fail to have an impact when repeating a well-known negative image of Africa? Does the consumption of their aesthetic aspect neutralise their overall effect? And how can we bear the enchantment of what is depicted when we hear that the reality is of an almost unsurpassable bleakness? By means of a prologue the exhibition puts these questions up for discussion and encourages us to think about the depiction and perception of Africa. Moreover a video installation shows Dominic Nahr at work and talking about his profession. Photography is thus situated in the field of tension between subjective authorship and the logic of media utilization. | | | | | | | | | | Somalia, 2011 © Dominic Nahr | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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