Abandoned Yugoslavian Monuments by Jan Kempenaers October 11, 2011
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Jan Kempenaers, War , add a comment
- Photo Jan Kempenaers
- Photo Jan Kempenaers
- Photo Jan Kempenaers
These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković…), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings changed as history changed.
From 2006 to 2009, Jan Kempenaers toured around the ex-Yugoslavia region (now Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.) with the help of a 1975 map of memorials, creating a series of melancholy yet striking images. His photos raise a question: can these former monuments continue to exist as pure sculptures? On one hand, their physical dilapidated condition and institutional neglect reflect a more general social historical fracturing. One recalls Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias and the political ambitions of man with some cynicism.
- Photo Jan Kempenaers
WAR PHOTOGRAPHERS- A Special Insight June 18, 2011
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Ami Vitale, Gaza, Panos Pictures, Photojournalism, War , add a comment
- Photo Ami Vitale Panos Pictures
FROM A SPECIAL REPORT from THE GUARDIAN JUNE 2011
Features the work and reactions of Adam Ferguson, Alvaro Ybarra Zavala, Lynsey Adario, Joao Silva, Tom Stoddart, Greg Marinovich, Gary Knight, Shaul Shwartz, Eric Bouvet, Mads Nissen, Adam Dean, John D McHugh, Marco di Lauro, John Stanmeyer, Ashley Gilbertson, Ron Haviv, Julie Jacobson and Ami Vitale.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/18/war-photographers-special-report
Ami Vitale records her experience:
I was photographing a funeral, and having spent most of the day with the women, I went to see the body being taken in. A man in the procession started screaming, “CIA agent” and pointing at me. I was surrounded by hundreds of angry men, screaming in my face, grabbing me. I was terrified, and thought, “This is it. I am going to die.” Suddenly I understood a mob. There’s no thinking, just passion.
A woman I’d spent the day with managed to pull me away. When I got home, I sat and cried and cried – she had saved my life. I stayed on in Palestine, but was much more cautious after that; have been ever since. That moment changed my perspective. No picture is worth it.
ANZAC DAY COMMEMORATION April 27, 2010
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Australian photographers, War , 2comments
- Kings Park War Memorial Perth Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Kings Park War Memorial Perth Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Kings Park War Memorial Perth Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Kings Park War Memorial Perth Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Perth Anzac Street Parade Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Perth Anzac Street Parade Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Perth Anzac Street Parade Photo Bohdan Warchomij
- Perth Anzac Street Parade Photo Bohdan Warchomij
Collaterel Murder April 11, 2010
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : War, WikiLeaks , add a comment5th April 2010 10:44 EST
Reuters have found themselves in the news this week.
The dangers of front line reporting are obvious enough. A Reuters television cameraman was shot dead on Saturday during a violent clash between Thai troops and anti-government protesters in Bangkok that killed 12 people. Hiro Muramoto, a 43-year-old Japanese national, was shot in the chest and arrived at Klang Hospital without a pulse, hospital Director Dr Pichaya Nakwatchara said. Muramoto, who had worked for Reuters in Tokyo for more than 15 years, was married with two children. “I am dreadfully saddened to have lost our colleague Hiro Muramoto in the Bangkok clashes,” said Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. “Journalism can be a terribly dangerous profession as those who try to tell the world the story thrust themselves in the centre of the action. “
More dangerous and disturbing is an incident in Iraq involving a helicopter gunship. A Reuters photographer and his driver who was gunned down in 2007 by an Apache Helicopter are the subjects of a military video released this week by the advocacy group WikiLeaks.org
The term collaterel damage is damage that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome and is a term that is under scrutiny after the photographer’s equipment was mistaken for weaponry and a group of people on the street were targeted. In fact the term has been modified to ‘collaterel murder’ as 12 people were killed while the crew bantered and jeered the dead during the incident.
“Wikileaks has had more scoops in three years than the Washington Post has had in 30,” tweets the internet guru Clay Shirky. The US magazine Mother Jones has an profile of the secret-busting site:
WikiLeaks’ commitment to what might be called extreme transparency also means that it won’t turn away documents that have questionable news value or are just plain dishy. It’s posted Sarah Palin’s hacked emails and Wesley Snipes’ tax returns, as well as fraternity initiation manuals and a trove of secret Scientology manuals. According to WikiLeaks’ credo, to refuse a leak is tantamount to helping the bad guys. “We never censor,” founder Julian Assange declares.
The blogosphere has had a lot to say about the Collateral Murder video which is on You Tube in two versions, with some ex-military bloggers being highly critical, including former US soldier Anthony Martinez, who claims to have logged thousands of hours watching similar live video feeds during his tours in Iraq. He criticises Wikileaks for selectively highlighting aspects of the footage and ignoring other aspects showing armed men:
Between 3:13 and 3:30 it is quite clear to me, as both a former infantry sergeant and a photographer, that the two men central to the gun-camera’s frame are carrying photographic equipment. This much is noted by WikiLeaks, and misidentified by the crew of Crazyhorse 18. At 3:39, the men central to the frame are armed, the one on the far left with some AK variant, and the one in the center with an RPG. The RPG is crystal clear even in the downsized, very low-resolution, video between 3:40 and 3:45 when the man carrying it turns counter-clockwise and then back to the direction of the Apache. This all goes by without any mention whatsoever from WikiLeaks, and that is unacceptable.
Regardless, for many viewers the shock lies in the chatter between the helicopter pilots. A Black Hawk pilot-turned-blogger, who uses the handle Starbuck, is critical of the words used by the crew during the action, for firing on those attending to the wounded, and for this:
Upon hearing that one of the victims is a young girl, the pilots laugh, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle”. Wrong
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own “Rules of Engagement”.
WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
http://www.collateralmurder.com
Frames from the military video ranging from 7 to 56 (not sequential)
Year of the Book March 31, 2010
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Australian photographers, Degree South, Documentary, Foto Freo, Photography Festivals, Photojournalism, Publishing, War , add a comment
- Michael Coyne Degree South Collective Book Launch
- James Brickwood, Dean Sewell OCULI and David Dare Parker Degree South
- Dean Sewell Photo Oculi Museum Perth
2010 has been a great year for the photograph in book form at Foto Freo. Max Pam’s Atlas Chronicles launched prior to the festival opening and then in rapid succession Brad Rimmer launched Silence at the Fremantle Prison, Oculi, the respected Australian East Coast photo collective launched its massive first tome, and Degree South launched WAR, an impressively seminal work at Central Gallery in Perth. Gianni Frinzi from T & G Publishing is to be commended for his huge contribution to Australian photography.
Degree South formed in 2006 at Foto Freo as a cooperative that has an established archive that cover’s Australia’s involvement in the world’s conflicts since Vietnam in the 60′s. Individually Tim Page, David Dare Parker, Ben Bohane, Stephen Dupont, Jack Picone, Michael Coyne, Ashley Gilbertson, and Sean Flynn have strong reputations that have been hammered out in the world’s conflicts. Collectively those reputations are significantly enhanced. The book is a collector’s item and their show is not to be missed.
War is only Half the Story:The Aftermath Project December 27, 2009
Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Aftermath, Documentary, Education, Photojournalism, Publishing, War , add a commentThe Aftermath Project Volume 2 is out:
- Published September 2009: “War is Only Half the Story, Vol Two” features the work of 2008 grant winner Kathryn Cook (“Memory Denied: Turkey and the Armenian Genocide”) as well as special first finalist Natela Grigalashvili and finalists Tinka Dietz, Christine Fenzl and Pep Bonet.
I first met Sara Terry at Visa Pour l’Image in Perpignan, France in 2006 where she was promoting The Aftermath Project to photojournalists whose cachet was the war machine in action. She set up the Aftermath Project out of the exasperation she felt after the Bosnian crisis as that country tried to move beyond the “shadow of war”. Her aim was to start a new media dialogue about war which could lead to conflict prevention instead of conflict resolution.
I applied for the Aftermath Project Grant hoping to cover the resettlement issues of the Crimean Tartars who had been expelled from their homelands in Ukraine by Josef Stalin for “collaboration” post World War Two. Needless to say I didn’t get to the final selection process but on Christmas Eve I was delighted to buy War is only Half the Story Volume 1 from The Aftermath Project/ Aperture. The book had made it to the shelves of my favourite book store Planet Books in Mt Lawley, Perth, West Australia. The first two grant winners were Jim Goldberg, an authentic innovator in the documentary field for his work The New Europeans, and Wolf Boewig, a photographer who had covered the Sierra Leone conflict.
The other photographers represented in this book are Andrew Stanbridge (post war reconstruction in Laos), Asim Rafiqui (Haiti’s ongoing political violence), and Paula Luttringer ( a survey of sites in Argentina where the abduction of women and their children was part of the process of violence).
- War Is Only Half The Story: The Aftermath Project, Volume 1
