In 2010, I traveled to South Sudan to help local journalists produce independent media 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, that I would never get over what I would see there, and that I didn’t have to go there to know what it was like.
What I found was something different.
I’ll never forget the feeling as the plane descended onto South Sudan’s capital, Juba. Scribbling in my notebook, I wanted desperately to capture 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 morning, “If everyone is too scared to find out, how will we ever know?”
How much of what we see in the news about African and Middle Eastern countries only depicts conflict, poverty or disease, topped off with a dusty photo of angry protesters or armed rebels on the move? Just how much is overshadowed by coverage of corruption and gun-toting warriors?
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. They were taken 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.
I hope these photographs will add some depth to the image that comes to our minds when we think of a country entangled in conflict. If stories of struggle instill us only with fear, then we cripple our understanding of rich, diverse cultures and people. Though captured at a moment of relative peace, many of the communities shown in these photos have since fallen back into conflict. I hope that these photographs show another part of the story – the faces, landscapes, music and colors that survive beneath war.
