Photo exhibit displays 145 years of history
Since its creation in the 19th century, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to help people during humanitarian conflicts and natural disasters. The origins of the Red Cross date back to 1863. In that year a five-member committee established the ICRC in Geneva, Switzerland. Jean Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman, was one member of the committee.
In 1862, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino. In the book, Dunant recollected his experiences on an Italian battlefield in 1859. He witnessed the pain of warfare first-hand and this motivated him to advocate for the establishment of war relief organizations.
For more than a century, the ICRC has amassed about 110,000 pictures into a photo archive collection. Close to 90 of these photographs were featured in an exhibition in Boston. The exhibit, “A Memory of Humanity: From Solferino to Guantanamo – 145 Years of Red Cross Photography,” was on display in the Adams Gallery at Suffolk University Law School. The free exhibit was presented from February 1, 2008 – March 31, 2008.
The photographs were on loan from the ICRC and the Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, Switzerland. Boston was the first stop on a worldwide tour for the exhibit, which also traveled to five other U.S. cities and then to Russia. The American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay was the local sponsor for the exhibit.
The pictures were arranged in chronological order in the gallery. “La Bonata,” which depicts a partly destroyed farm in Italy after the Battle of Solferino, was the first photograph.
The selected photographs in the gallery take the viewer through humanitarian conflicts around the world. Despite the relatively small number of photographs on display, onlookers could see images from places such as Angola, Greece, and Sierra Leone. The images conjure emotions of compassion, resilience, and sadness.
Several of the pictures displayed the victims of warfare. One such image showed a man in an ICRC orthopedic center for land mine casualties in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1995. The man is standing straight and looking at a mirror. His left pant leg is rolled up and the viewer can see that the proud looking man has a prosthetic limb.
One of the photos that appear at the end of the exhibition depicts a young Iraqi girl being held by her father in Bagdad in 2003. The man is asking coalition forces to help his daughter who is suffering from leukemia.
Although a number of pictures portrayed the somber reality of war, the exhibit also recognized the generosity of Red Cross volunteers over the past century and a half.
In 1862, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino. In the book, Dunant recollected his experiences on an Italian battlefield in 1859. He witnessed the pain of warfare first-hand and this motivated him to advocate for the establishment of war relief organizations.
For more than a century, the ICRC has amassed about 110,000 pictures into a photo archive collection. Close to 90 of these photographs were featured in an exhibition in Boston. The exhibit, “A Memory of Humanity: From Solferino to Guantanamo – 145 Years of Red Cross Photography,” was on display in the Adams Gallery at Suffolk University Law School. The free exhibit was presented from February 1, 2008 – March 31, 2008.
The photographs were on loan from the ICRC and the Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, Switzerland. Boston was the first stop on a worldwide tour for the exhibit, which also traveled to five other U.S. cities and then to Russia. The American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay was the local sponsor for the exhibit.
The pictures were arranged in chronological order in the gallery. “La Bonata,” which depicts a partly destroyed farm in Italy after the Battle of Solferino, was the first photograph.
The selected photographs in the gallery take the viewer through humanitarian conflicts around the world. Despite the relatively small number of photographs on display, onlookers could see images from places such as Angola, Greece, and Sierra Leone. The images conjure emotions of compassion, resilience, and sadness.
Several of the pictures displayed the victims of warfare. One such image showed a man in an ICRC orthopedic center for land mine casualties in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1995. The man is standing straight and looking at a mirror. His left pant leg is rolled up and the viewer can see that the proud looking man has a prosthetic limb.
One of the photos that appear at the end of the exhibition depicts a young Iraqi girl being held by her father in Bagdad in 2003. The man is asking coalition forces to help his daughter who is suffering from leukemia.
Although a number of pictures portrayed the somber reality of war, the exhibit also recognized the generosity of Red Cross volunteers over the past century and a half.
The blog explains about the various experiences of an individual while collecting photos for exhibition from the age of history.
ReplyDeleteexhibits displays