In 2010, I traveled to South Sudan to work with local journalists in a country where civil war is expected and where speech is far from free. Almost everyone tried to talk me out of it. They told me it was too dangerous and that I would never recover from what I would see there. What I found was something different.
I’ll never forget the feeling as my plane first descended onto South Sudan’s capital, Juba. Scribbling in my notebook, I wanted desperately to describe the moment – the miles of untouched green landscape abruptly broken by a dusty city of thatched and metal rooftops. Instead, my notes were little more than a slew of nervous profanities demanding to know what the hell I’d gotten myself into. The only coherent phrase came from earlier that day, “If everyone is too scared to find out, how will we ever know?”
The photographs in this exhibition are snapshots from a journey through some of the most remote communities in South Sudan, taken throughout the year leading up to its independence. They were taken during a long walk to the market on Leer’s cracked earth, during a dance party in Kurmuk, or while biking under a Nuba Mountain sunset. They were taken on a trip through Malualkon market, where a woman selling okra delighted in her photograph, then asked how I would use it to help her.
It seems as though so much of what we see in the news about African and Middle Eastern countries only depicts conflict, poverty or disease – likely topped off with a dusty photo of angry protesters or armed rebels on the move. But there’s so much more to it. There are rich, diverse cultures and people. I hope that these photographs show another part of the story – the faces, landscapes, music and colors that survive beneath war.
