Not more than 6 or 7 years old, the girl is standing amid the ruins of her house after a bomb attack that killed her parents. She has a plastic telephone around her neck and, every now and again, she tries to call her parents on it.
The child is just one of many victims of war who were photographed by Anthony Dawton, Jim McFarlane and Giuseppe Aquili, who travelled to Gaza after the Israeli incursion of December 27, 2008.
“It is a dreadful story,” says Dawton, who took the image titled Girl in the Middle of her House. “The picture stands as a witness to what happened and it also has a certain universal application about the collateral damage of the whole thing.”
Next to that image is one by McFarlane, of an entire family taken with their backs to the camera. He says this decision was intended to portray the commonplace anonymity of the people he met.
“When we hear about war, we hear about the numbers of military casualties and we see their funerals on TV, but we never see the victims; they don’t even count them. So I have photographed them in this way because they are faceless.”
Going the extra mile
When the trio got the chance to travel to Gaza, they were so touched by the stories they heard as well as by the unending generosity of spirit, that they wanted to do whatever they could to help the victims.
The photographers had an initial fund-raising exhibition in Kuwait not long after they returned, selling limited editions of their prints, but it was help from a friend and colleague that really gave the project longevity.
“Gaza was a game changer in the way we think within our whole lives; it was an extraordinary experience and the real problem with a lot of work that people like us do is the lack of sustainability. You go in, you make the gesture of taking a picture and then what?
“We implied huge promise for what they gave us in terms of kindness and deep and important conversation, we said we would try to do something and that is what drives us to try to make some money for Save the Children,” explains Dawton.
A helping hand
The internationally renowned Iraqi artist Dia Azzawi, who loaned the photographers his studio in London to print the evocative black-and-white images, took the colour files of the images and produced a series of manipulations based on the originals.
Being such a well-established artist, Azzawi helped to get the trio exposure and they went on to organise a series of exhibitions. Adding his limited-edition prints to the collection, the group embarked on a regional tour, visiting Qatar and Jordan before arriving in Dubai for a two-week stretch in Meem Gallery this month.
Save the Children
As the name suggests, most of the emotion-filled images are of children. Their innocence combined with the surrounding scenes cannot help but strike a chord with the viewers. What also stands out is the universality of the photographs. One by Aquili depicts a state school classroom with girls dressed in prim and proper uniforms leaning over their desks in an almost Dickensian scene. “This could be anywhere,” says Dawton, “and that is the point. Gaza is not about Gaza; it is about what we do to each other in times of war and the effect it has on people.”
With all proceeds from the shows going to Save the Children, the photographers hope that this final exhibition will help them reach their target of US$250,000 (Dh918,200).
• Children of Gaza runs until February 15 at Meem Gallery, Dubai. For more information, visit www.childrenofgaza.org
aseaman@thenational.ae
