In loving memory...

Jen, you'll be thoroughly missed...

Exhibition Opening in Tbilisi

Tonight was the opening of my exhibition of my series on Georgian IDPs at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Tbilisi. I am very pleased with the opening night… We had quite a good turnout of people coming to the exhibition and public debate (even Georgian TV was there and did a short interview with me, along with two other film crews – it felt a bit strange and unfamiliar to give interviews about my work), the Georgian deputy minister for IDP affairs, Julia Kharashvili, was present and sparked a lively debate, and there might be a (much larger) follow on exhibition coming out of this… but I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch…

The debate focused – heated at times - on the main issues that IDPs face and which I have blogged on before: unresolved territorial issues, financial assistance issues/issues of compensation and the safety of those returning to their native regions… plenty of “meat” for a follow on project…

Back in Georgia

I am back in Georgia now… For one thing for my exhibition opening that will take place tomorrow at the Heinrich Boell Foundation here in Tbilisi… The exhibition opening tomorrow night of my series on Georgian IDPs (internally displaced people) will be coupled with a public debate on the situation of the IDPs in Georgia almost one year after the war with Russia… Especially the fate of the IDPs from Abkhazia and South Ossetia is still very much an open issue – or a foregone one - depending on your point of view given the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent by Russia…

I am hoping for a good turnout tomorrow… at least the Georgian minister for IDPs is expected to attend… so should be a good event to listen and learn…

For another thing, I am also back to do some research on a follow on project I would like to undertake in August with the working title “one year after the war”… I would like to explore the situation in Georgia, one year after the five day conflict with Russia last year… I am still sketching out the details of what I would like to focus on…

To that extent I visited one of the IDP camps in Tbilisi today which still houses quite a few of the Abkhazian IDPs from almost one year ago… on a first glance, it looked as if nothing had changed during the last 11 months… I invited the people there to the exhibition/debate tomorrow and residents were helpful to put up the press release in the main hall… I hope that some of those affected will attend to be able to voice their views…

"My" Pavillion

Schizophrenic Cherries and Other Tales

The Lido at QaYa

Haiku für Irina

Sonnenleerer Blick
in gestriger klarer Nacht –
völlig abgeliebt.

Exhibition in Tbilisi, Georgia

The South Caucasus Regional Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation is happy to announce a public debate on “The Fate of Georgia’s IDPs: Grief, Challenges, Hopes?” at the vernissage of


Mr. Uwe Schober’s Photo-Exhibition:
The Russian-Georgian Conflict
A Humanitarian Perspective

at the Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation on Wednesday 1 July 2009 at 18:00. The United Nations estimate that the Russian-Georgian War in August 2008 created a significant number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Georgia. Many of these saw their houses burnt, looted or taken by others that stayed behind. Given the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent by Russia, the return of many of the Georgian IDPs to their native regions and villages is put into question.

There will be a public debate “The Fate of Georgia’s IDPs: Grief, Challenges, Hopes?” beginning at 18:30. Speakers will include Ms. Medea Turashvili (International Crisis Group), Mr. Mark Mullen (Transparency International), Ms. Julia Kharashvili (Head of the Department for External Affairs at the Ministry of IDP Issues of the Georgian Government), Mr. Besik Tserediani (Consultant, Ministry of IDP Issues of the Georgian Government).

We are looking forward to welcoming you at our office at 38, Zovreti Street, 0160 Tbilisi. A small buffet will be served.

Dr. Iris Kempe
Director

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V. 38, Zovreti Str., 0160 Tbilisi T 99532.38 04 67/68 F 99532.91 28 97 I www.boell.ge E info@boell.ge

The Dead Sea Chronicles

Images From the Holy Land

ISRAEL. Nazareth. June 2009. A shop close to the Church of the Annunciation, one of the Catholic Church’s holiest sites.


ISRAEL. Tabgha, Mount of Beatitudes. June 2009. View of the Sea of Galilee (Lake of Kinneret).


ISRAEL. Tabgha, Mount of Beatitudes. June 2009. Inside the washroom of the Church of the Beatitudes.


ISRAEL. Tabgha, Mount of Beatitudes. June 2009. Inside the Church of the Beatitudes.


ISRAEL. Tabgha, Mount of Beatitudes. June 2009. Site of Jesus’ Sermon of the Mount (Bergpredigt).


ISRAEL. Tabgha. June 2009. Outside the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes.


ISRAEL. Tabgha. June 2009. Inside the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes.


ISRAEL. Capernaum. June 2009. Inside the church of Capernaum, the home base of Jesus during the period of his Galilean ministry.

The Über-Religious

The Über-Religious

The other day I went to Jerusalem, inter alia to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City, which according to Christian churches/belief is considered to be the site where Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross (i.e. Golgotha). The visit was a vivid example of practised bigotry. In theory this site is shared equally by three Christian churches (which after all are based on pretty much the same principles of belief): the Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Catholic. Visitors are being led in small groups to the inner sanctum of a small tomb where relics of Jesus are supposed to be held. At irregular intervals these visits are interrupted by either an Armenian, Catholic or Greek Orthodox priest who chases the visitors away, enters the sanctum and leaves a few puffs of incense. This scene is usually followed immediately by the appearance of another priest of the Christian denomination other than the one that has already left his mark, to chase the visitors away in order to storm the inner sanctum and leave a few puffs of incense from his incense [Weihrauchbehaelter]. This only lasts for about a few minutes before the third priest arrives and – you’ve guessed it – chases the visitors away, enters the inner sanctum and leaves his incense there. I could not be helped to be reminded of three dogs that jealously run around the same neighbourhood to make sure that their urine mark is the one that sticks out… And later I read in the guide book that the three Christian churches cannot agree on who is managing the site so that a Muslim family holds the keys to the church and opens the church in the morning and locks it up at night…. It is easy to see how religious conflicts between the major religious denominations come into being and persist for centuries when even three Christian churches cannot agree on the basic principle of sharing and act in a very childish way – and if I may add - not in the sense of what the Christian belief is about… It seems to me that Jerusalem (only Jerusalem?) is full of people who consider “their” religion the one and only religion, and the only one offering a path to God and to a decent way of life.

Coordinates: 51°02′17″N 31°53′10″E

HIGHWAY

“…[Travelling], driving on the road, gazing at the road, is definitely not about going into the distance, or about searching for a dream, or about making a vain effort. It is, in the midst of travelling, nothing but a continuous process of discovering the fragments of the world and splinters of reality… When I am going along the road, snapping the shutter as I read each moment, I become at times a poet, a scientist, a critic, a philosopher, a labourer, or a politician.”

[Daido Moriyama: Highway.]

Infinity and other constraints...

Don't bring...

Don’t bring your own alcohol to this establishment… oh, and while you’re at it, leave your deer at home as well :-)

Short Hope/Long Hope

“I smoke, every day, a brand of cigarettes called “Short Hope” – not “long hope”. It isn’t possible through photography – the act of shooting – to grasp the entirety of the world in one stroke, so day by day, I work with the short hope, and through that I continue to hope to capture the entirety of the world, and to continue to live.”

[Takuma Nakahira: Self-Change in the Act of Shooting.]

Kings of Medicine

[…]
Don't leave me here, to cast through time,
Without a map, or road sign.
Don't leave me here, my guiding light,
'Cause I, I, wouldn't know where to begin.
I asked the Kings of Medicine,
But it seems that they have lost their powers.
Now all I'm left with is the hour.

Don't leave me here,
Don't leave me here, oh no-oh,
I wouldn't know where to begin.

[Placebo: Kings of Medicine]

One Hundredth of a Second (2)/By way of an answer

[Holger and Kerstin said:]

“what's the photographer’s opinion on it?”

This is obviously a multidimensional issue and I can only give you my thoughts on it.

There is foremost the moral dimension. The question is whether the photojournalist could have done anything in this situation to save the life of the young girl - either by stepping in or drawing attention to herself. Most likely the answer is that she could not have done anything to save the life of the girl. If she had made herself known to the perpetrator most likely she would have been killed as well.

The second moral issue or question is whether the photojournalist had the right to take the image of the murdered girl ex post and get it published. I would suggest that she had the right and in her situation almost a moral obligation to take the picture and create a document, evidence of a heinous murder, of an evil act. Only by doing this she can draw the attention of a broader audience to the fact that a war is going on, that civilians suffer and injustice is committed. And maybe as important: with a photographic document of these acts of barbarism no one in his or her right mind can question sixty years later that there have been atrocities in Auschwitz, Srebrenica, or Ruanda to name but a very few.

I also think that there is a practical dimension: I guess the photojournalist simply operated on some kind of autopilot. She did what she set out to do: photograph the war. So I presume that it was almost a reflex to take such an image without much thought about the moral dimension.


Image copyright: Anthony Suau for Time.

There is maybe another dimension in that a photograph like that of the murdered girl would most likely not win any reputable competition (e.g. World Press Photo) anymore. The assessment of what juries of such competitions consider an appropriate and “useful” document has evolved over the past few years. Look for example at last year’s winner, Anthony Suau, at his photo of a police officer checking a foreclosed home. It is far more subtle and multilayered than if Suau had simply shown the eviction of residents of a foreclosed home. It is more about stepping back and showing more than one aspect in an image that is a winning combination – even if that means that the photograph is more difficult to read.

Your thoughts?

One Hundredth of a Second

Just press >>play<<

From Document to Memory

“…photographs I take while on a trip are the commemoration of the fact that I existed in that place or that I happened to see something there – they are not the commemoration of my visit…”

[from Daido Moriyama: From document to memory.]

Die Grünen/Altes Literaturhaus, Frankfurt

The Cockroach Blues

The Cockroach Blues

Capo I

Verse:
Em.............................C
I saw you lying in the bathroom
Em...............................C
You lay on your brown back
Em...........................C
Your little feet were spinning
Em...........................C
Your body made of shellac
Em........................C
I found you quite appealing

Chorus:
G............................D
But you were just a cockroach
.......C
So I flushed you down the toilet…

Decision to Shoot

“…There is no way that a single person can have a truly comprehensive view of the world, but it is possible for him to conceive of an outline of its totality. It is therefore from the gap between his perceptions of cruel reality and his weltanschauung – in other words, from the interplay between the extremes of the real and the ideal, as they are juxtaposed in his shutter – that meaning arises.

It is without question precisely in this juxtaposition that one can find the potential relevance of photography to history, culture, and politics most closely approaching the realm of probability. One may never be able to discover anything as enigmatic as “the truth” in a photograph, but if one were to settle for something close to it, it may be that is consists of neither an absolute affirmation nor an absolute denial of anything, but something between the two…”

[from Daido Moriyama: The decision to shoot.]