Exhibition installation at Impressions Gallery, Bradford 2010 © Colin Davison and Impressions Gallery
Razor Wire © Sama Alshaibi
No.1 Critics Choice - Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times
'A layered and conceptually ambitious exhibition' - New Statesman
'An important statement in response to our times' - Source
'A layered and conceptually ambitious exhibition' - New Statesman
'An important statement in response to our times' - Source
Traditionally, war photography has enshrined dramatic moments of combat captured by heroic male photojournalists. 'Bringing the War Home', curated for Impressions Gallery, Bradford, offers new approaches and techniques. These include the viewpoints of women, non-combatants, and Iraqis and Afghans; amateur and non-official imagery such as soldiers’ graffiti and personal digital photos; and work reflecting the far-reaching effects of war away from the battle zone.
Untitled (US Soldiers), 2008 © Farhad Ahrarnia, courtesy Rose Issa Projects
The exhibition featured work by Peter van Agtmael, Sama Alshaibi,
Farhad Ahrarnia, Lisa Barnard, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Edmund Clark, Kay May,
Asef Ali Mohammad, and Christopher Sims.
'Bringing the War Home' was exhibited at Impressions Gallery, Bradford (2010), Winchester Art Gallery (2013), and UG Galleries, University of Hertfordshire (2014 - 2015).
Anne from the series Blue Star Moms © Lisa Barnard
The Repatriation II, June 16 2008 (detail) from the series The Day Nobody Died 2008 © Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
Exhibition installation at Impressions Gallery, Bradford 2010 © Colin Davison and Impressions Gallery
Praise for 'Bringing the War Home'
'Thoughtfully produced, and carefully curated, [...] photography can still offer a critical response to powerful social forces' - David Campbell, Source Magazine
'This exhibition is the most moving exhibition I have ever been to. I’m from an army background and have so far tried to run away from anything to do with war. This exhibition has somehow enabled me to move on from my personal experiences with war.' - exhibition visitor
'This exhibition demonstrates that [...] the power of the photographic image still holds.' - Media, War & Conflict Journal
'What a fantastic show! Deeply compelling, every artist presenting a new angle – no dogma but still painfully poignant – factual but also exposing new facts with resonance and empathy… A very slow and thoughtful experience' - exhibition visitor
Mosque with Golden Dome, Fort Irwin, California, 2006 © Christopher Sims
Accompanying book, 48 pages, design by LOUP
The Hawthorn Tree by Kay May installed at UH Galleries 2014 © Pippa Oldfield and Impressions Gallery
About the exhibition
Peter van Agtmael (USA) records the darkly comic graffiti made by and for US soldiers in the toilets of an army airstrip in Kuwait, one of the transit points for Iraq. Sama Alshaibi (Iraq / Palestine) uses her own body to enact the wounds and scarring suffered by citizens of her homeland. Farhad Ahrarnia (UK / Iran) digitally manipulates and hand embroiders photographs of young American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lisa Barnard (UK) portrays ‘Blue Star Moms’, mothers with sons or daughters serving in the US military, and their ‘care packages’ – donations of mundane consumer products sent to troops. Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin (South Africa and UK respectively), embedded with British troops in Afghanistan, reject the camera in favour of exposing photographic paper to the sun, creating abstract images that deny representation. Edmund Clark (UK) reveals the censored correspondence sent to former Guantanamo detainee and UK resident Omar Deghayes, which includes incongruous postcards featuring the Yorkshire Dales.
Kay May (UK) combines photographs of a family home, personal diary entries, Foreign Office communiqués and amateur digital images sent by her son in Afghanistan, to convey her experience as a mother of a Royal Marine. Asef Ali Mohammad (Afghanistan) photographs and interviews Kabul residents from all walks of life, offering complex and contradictory responses to American occupation. Christopher Sims (USA) depicts the surreal world of elaborate fake Iraqi and Afghan villages built by the US military in America’s Deep South to serve as training grounds for soldiers prior to deployment.
Letters to Omar, 2009-2010, © Edmund Clark
Habiba, Newscaster © Asef Ali Mohammad
2nd tour hope I don't die © Peter van Agtmael/courtesy Magnum Photos
Credits
An Impressions Gallery Touring Exhibition curated by Pippa Oldfield. With thanks to the artists and team at Impressions Gallery.