Exploring new forms of humanitarian communication at LIDF

I went to an interesting talk on photography yesterday at the London International Documentary Festival. Interesting because it refused to get bogged down by the iterative debate on whether photojournalism is dead–and if and how to save it–and also because it featured a number of pieces of work that were might be considered more ‘art’ than ‘photojournalism’, an approach Alfredo Cramerotti has termed ‘aesthetic journalism‘. I feel I have been so focused on photography and photographers lately that I have been missing out on the layers where photography is really just a base for alternative storytelling.

The session focused on how multi-layered storytelling is being used creatively to share human rights stories in ways that are responsible to the subject as well as pedagogic in their approach. “Developing the Photographic: New approaches to humanitarian visual communication” was presented by Emma Boyd (Coordinator at Autograph), Jessica Crombie (Picture Editor at WaterAid) and Abbie Trayler-Smith (Photographer for Panos).

Emma Boyd presented work by Alfredo Jaar, Omer Fast and Marcelo Brodsky as critical artistic engagements with human rights issues. Although meant for an art gallery, Emma shares them as examples of thought provoking pieces that are meant to educate and engage the audience to contemplate. Alfredo Jaar, for example, explored the Rwandan Genocide through an installation consisting of millions of photographic slides of a victim’s eyes, representing the number of people that were murdered. The work of Omer Fast I particularly find interesting. I saw “The Casting” at the Barbican in 2009 and it has been on my mind lately as I have been thinking of ways to incorporate video (watch a short video of it); exploring issues of memory and trauma, it blends two narratives into one using still video scenes. Emma’s key point is that these type of artistic approaches can be extremely powerful, however, galleries need to find ways to engage the public outside of the gallery through communications campaigns, public talks, partnerships with schools, etc.; otherwise it is simply “preaching to the converted”.

Jessica Crombie focused on the work of Ursula Biemann, a very interesting video artist whose work focuses on migration, mobility, technology and gender and whose approach she herself has termed “visual intelligence.” Jessica showed clips from “The Sahara Cronicle” which explores the migration of people in Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe; one clip was taken from a remote sensing camera in a plane combing the Saharan desert for illegal migrants crossing. Ursula approached WaterAid to collaborate on a project about water and Jessica said that what interested her about Ursula’s approach is the way she gathers evidence and reports it as a document, providing the knowledge and letting the audience make something out of it, rather than making a statement about what she believes. Interesting coming from an editor of an NGO that is dependent on fundraising, but she notes that this approach isn’t necessarily about funding but about creating change.

Lastly, Abbie Trayler-Smith showed her work on refused asylum seekers in the UK “Still Human Still Here.” She noted that the decision to do a short film was necessary as she felt she couldn’t convey how the subjects felt through the photos; people needed to hear these voices. Multimedia, layered storytelling and publishing it widely on the internet are key, as well as sharing it in ways that media will be willing to pick up…

There wasn’t much time for discussion but Paul Lowe, Course Director at London College of Communication, brought up an interesting point on whether we should be concerned about preaching to the unconverted, who are least likely to be inspired into action, or finding ways instead to encourage the converted to take that step further and do something. I think its a valid point and the question really becomes then whether this concerned art actually reaches audiences that “matter.” Except for Abbie’s work, the others were all very intelligent artistic interventions meant for galleries. While Emma noted that this approach was already “preaching to the converted”, I would have to argue that gallery audiences are hardly the converted when it comes to human rights, they may be converted to the idea of political art but not necessarily to being political. It is important to make space for this type of work as they are extremely intelligent, sensitive and educational, sometimes far more than some work by photojournalists, but if they are to contribute to social change and knowledge they need to include concrete communications that go beyond the gallery. It should be interesting to see how WaterAid and Ursula Biemann can collaborate to create something that can work both ways.

Worth a listen is Alfredo Cramerotti’s talk on Aesthetic Journalism at Autograph a few weeks ago:

- London, UK, 18 degrees (!) overcast afternoon, listening to good music on BBC’s Radio 6

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