Church Gate Station
Bombay, India 1995
Today I had the opportunity to see the work of photographer Sebastiao Salgado. There is an amazing exhibit called EXODUS that is being shown at The Leonardo in downtown Salt Lake City. Salgado is a world-renowned photojournalist who takes part in the tradition of "concerned photography". EXODUS is a visual chronicle of the global movement of populations at the turn of the millennium. Beginning in 1993 and continuing for the next six years, Salgado worked among migrants, refugees, and exiles across 40 countries in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia. Documenting their places of origin, the circumstances of their flight, and their uncertain destinations and destinies.
I exhort you to check out his website and take a look with your own eyes, the incredible images that Sebastiao Salgado has captured. I really appreciate his work especially as I have been considering more thoughtfully what it means to satisfy the needs of the oppressed. As a photojournalist, Salgado does a particularly good job of capturing individual images which can tell stories within themselves. Salgado does not see himself as “an artist.” Speaking to the
New Yorker magazine, he said, “I’m not an artist.... I work in history, I’m a storyteller.”
Although many of these photos are about 10 years old, they give a face to the people who are presently suffering in places like Darfur in Sudan...or all the displaced peoples of the recent earthquake in Pakistan. Millions are without homes and children are without parents to care for them. It really brings things into perspective--what I consider difficulty and trial in my current state of life, is nothing in comparison to those who are suffering (as depicted by the photos) and who are without a place to call home.
Rwandan refugee camp of Benako, Tanzania 1995
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