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This exhibition details how famine has been historically pictured in the print media, from the nineteenth century to the present day. Its aim is to raise questions about compassion fatigue, iconic and stereotypical images, and the political effect of such photographs. The exhibition takes its opening provocation from the now famous Michael Buerk/Mohammed Amin television report from Koram in Ethiopia in 1984, which was praised by an American broadcast executive because “it was as if each clip was an award-winning still photo.” This will be lead into a discussion of the way in which ‘Madonna’ like images of starving mothers and children have dominated the pictorial coverage of famine. It will trace the emergence of those images historically – considering the close relationship between anthropology and photography, and the way photography has been a technology of colonialism – to pose the questions of political effects and alternatives. In particular, the exhibition will ask why many images of famine other than mother/child ones remained unused, and how they could constitute an alternative pictorial rendering of famine. The exhibition also investigates aspects of the Live Aid legacy including: • Money: The project itself raised in excess of $100 million but more interestingly led to a sustained growth in income for overseas development organisations. Save the Children, for example, grew from an annual income of £9 million to over £90 million during the 1980’s. What role do the iconic images of famine play in sustaining this industry? • Misrepresentation: Last year VSO published a research report that demonstrated the majority of UK consumers still retained a “one-dimensional view of developing countries…primarily driven by images of drought and famine”. Further research undertaken by Peter Adamson showed that School Children in the UK believe that 50-70% of African children are malnourished, when in fact the figure is less than 2%. VSO clearly points the finger at Live Aid, but is this attribution of responsibility reasonable? • Picture Policies: Although aid charities benefited financially from Live Aid many educationalists within them felt their work had been put back twenty years by the impact of the event. In response to this concern aid agencies established formal picture policies that banned the use of “negative” imagery. Twenty years on there is evidence that these policies are being rethought. How effective have such policies been? In conclusion the exhibition will seek to move debate of these issues beyond the unhelpful distinction of positive versus negative imagery, and confront the morally complex political question: what if the stereotypical images of starving children remain the images most capable of being used and mobilising a response? See website www.imaging-famine.org |
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