Stringers

The exhibition ‘Stringers’ will be opened in the Creative District on 9 July at 8 p.m., organised by the Center for Holocaust Research and Education as an integral part of the Fortress of Peace programme arch. The exhibition will last until 9 August.

Through the lenses of independent war photo reporters, we become witnesses of their tragic destinies and war horrors. On the path of that memory, photography becomes an immediate reporter, a medium that consistently conveys life and real emotion. The world was surprised when it first saw the black-and-white horrors of the Crimean War and realised what the war truly means. Unfortunately, even in the current moment, we often witness unfortunate conflicts and human suffering in all parts of the world, but the question arises – how do we experience them? The modern age has erased the sense of reality due to the multitude of information that floods us every day, so all manners of social upheaval quickly fade in the face of new ones. But, in addition to that, we view the photographs as a faithful and cruel depiction of suffering, and their authors as heroes of their time.

“The Stringers” exhibition is speaking on the formation of the contemporary hired scribes of history and witnesses of the signatures of its authors – the freelancers. From Second World War until our day, the hired media workers are at the center of every conflict and social turmoil. Their look on war, genocides, and revolutions is the one of the unprotected – without a side in the conflict, nation, contract or religion, embassy, or insurance. It is the basis of the humanist tradition in photography, documentary film, print, and electronic news, but also propaganda, politics, and the culture of remembrance. Regardless of their individual positions, the point of view of the media proletariat has been the mirror in which we do not only see the will for destruction and repression of the social conflict but also our own tolerance for the precarity of lives of those producing the news we consume. Diverse as much as the people they can’t do without, the stringers have, for the most part, sought, to find the ways to tell the story and maybe, even survive it, while trying to preserve at least some independence and integrity, regardless of their position of the economic subaltern. The exhibition is tracking multiple positions – from prisoners of war and camp inmates, through minors, the embedded journalists, (in)dependent operators in the media spaces of different periods, up to the coming of age of the authors which, through the position of freelancers, are finding the space to return the gaze even to a repressive society.  

Photo: Faye Schulmann and Mohlem Barakat