A self-described “media terrorist”, artist Peter Dean Rickards captured Jamaica in ways no one else had done before. His body of photographic work about the island nation contained scenes of vulgarity, chaos and violence, but also natural beauty, resilience, creativity and humour.
Some of these images are on view at Dubai’s The Third Line in an exhibition titled The Afflicted Yard, which gives a glimpse of the diversity of Rickards’ archive, but also his sharp eye for the bizarre, the chaotic and the exquisite.
Born in Kingston in 1969, Rickards and his family moved to Canada in the mid-1970s to escape the political violence that roiled Jamaica at the time. He was diagnosed with Hodgkinson’s Lymphoma at 16 years old, and then underwent treatment to fight the disease. In the 1990s, he moved back to Jamaica to continue his studies. His years abroad coloured his views of “Yard” – a patois term Jamaicans use to refer to their island nation.
Eventually, he turned to photography as a way to capture the country as he saw it, but also to show a side that was not often depicted in the media. In 1999, he set up the website The Afflicted Yard as a platform to showcase the images he had taken.
“Peter was the champion of the underdog,” says Russell Hergert, a friend of Rickards’ who helps manage his estate after the artist's death from cancer in 2014. Hergert, who has co-curated the exhibition with Sebahat Derdiyok, remembers Rickards' desire to portray Jamaica differently. “He was never happy with the way that images were represented in Jamaica up to that point. A lot of photographers were known as ‘pictureman’, which means just take a photo at a wedding or take your typical Bob Marley shot on the beach and that was Jamaica. And he's very much 'that's not what Jamaica is'.”
Instead, Rickards photographed characters like Ninjaman, a dancehall DJ who is currently serving a life sentence for murder since 2017. In 2003, the artist took one of his most memorable photos – Ninjaman carrying a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. According to Hergert, Rickards tracked down the DJ after hearing that he was on the run from the law. When he found him, recounts Hergert, Ninjman said, “I’m going over to Kingston today and I’m going to turn myself in to the police because I’m the most wanted man right now”, to which Rickards responded to by reaching into pocket and giving him the iconic Monopoly card. “Here you go,” he told him. “You’re going to need this more than me.”
Rickards didn't shy away from Jamaica's violent side, as seen in photographs such as Gun Like Dirt, part of a series the artist created in the gritty neighbourhood of Grants Pen. "Peter had zero fear," recalls Hergert. "He could warm himself to anybody just from his personality … So these guys were happy to show them their side of life, but it was very real. The balance between police and gunmen in Jamaica is not a good one," he says, adding that Jamaica has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. "It's a problem, but it's also a cultural angle that no one had ever explored before, image-wise."
There are also the cinematic shots of the Friday Morning Market series, showing the slaughter of a cow. Originally conceptualised as a music video, the shots allude to gun deaths within the community. "We filmed this in the local slaughterhouse that's out in the country. Eight animals were slaughtered for their meat, for the community. During that same two days, 13 Jamaicans lost their lives to gun violence, so it is about the slaughter that's being done within," explains Hergert.
His pictures also documented the rich creative culture of Jamaica, from dancehall to poetry. In the exhibition, there are scenes from a venue on Constant Spring Road in Kingston for poetry sessions where poets could read their work. Other times, Rickards would take portraits of musicians such as Sizzla Kalonji and Lee Scratch Petty, who appeared in last year's Sole DXB, and odd characters like Percy Lee.
There are also his more documentary-style photos, where he captured everyday people, from a woman selling oranges by the road to a young boy charging through the Kingston streets with tensed expression on his face. To earn his living, he also took shots for modelling agencies, which offer a composed contrast to his other images.
Apart from his photography, Rickards also took on numerous projects, including the launch of internet radio station Kingston Signals, which he started in the early 2000s. Hergert recalls that he operated it out of his basement on a 56K modem and says it was “very first [online] streaming ever to come out of the region.” Musicians would come and play music, but Rickards also used it as a platform to speak his views. The artist also created videos and album cover art for various musicians and published his photographs in newspapers and magazines worldwide.
Despite his talent, Rickards' work was not widely celebrated in his island nation. "He was never acknowledged in Jamaica during his time," says Hergert. Before his death, Rickards was able to see his work exhibited in a gallery setting. In 2007, he was featured at a show in Switzerland. "He was really happy to see different people come and recognise his work, a recognition he never got in Jamaica. It was like he had to leave… A king is never crowned at home. It was unfortunate that people around him couldn't see his perspective on things.
"They either dismissed it as being too street or too hard. They wanted to see beaches and happy tourists,” says Hergert.
It was only in 2017 that the National Gallery of Jamaica showed Rickards’ work for the Jamaica Biennial. “They realised that they had missed one of their key artists, and he was one of the key exhibitions in their gallery, referred to as ‘the most important eye that was never known’ that came out of Jamaica,” he says. Now, he hopes that Rickards’ work – showing the “unsurpassed beauty and the underbelly that could make a rat puke” – will continue to travel the world for all to see.
The Afflicted Yard is on view at The Third Line, Dubai until Wednesday, March 4; www.thethirdline.com
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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The biog
Born: Kuwait in 1986
Family: She is the youngest of seven siblings
Time in the UAE: 10 years
Hobbies: audiobooks and fitness: she works out every day, enjoying kickboxing and basketball
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Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Patrick Chamoiseau
Translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale
OPINIONS ON PALESTINE & ISRAEL
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Midfielders: Marouane Fellaini (Manchester United), Axel Witsel (Tianjin Quanjian), Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City), Eden Hazard (Chelsea), Nacer Chadli (West Bromwich Albion), Leander Dendoncker (Anderlecht), Thorgan Hazard (Borussia Moenchengladbach), Youri Tielemans (Monaco), Mousa Dembele (Tottenham Hotspur).
Forwards: Michy Batshuayi (Chelsea/Dortmund), Yannick Carrasco (Dalian Yifang), Adnan Januzaj (Real Sociedad), Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United), Dries Mertens (Napoli).
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Company profile
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Cricket World Cup League Two
Oman, UAE, Namibia
Al Amerat, Muscat
Results
Oman beat UAE by five wickets
UAE beat Namibia by eight runs
Fixtures
Wednesday January 8 –Oman v Namibia
Thursday January 9 – Oman v UAE
Saturday January 11 – UAE v Namibia
Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
Special Citation
Ida B. Wells