We recently came across a collection of photographs, discovered in Gulu, Uganda, by Italian photographer Martina Bacigalupo. New York Times columnist Maya Lau, describes the discovery:
Visiting the town of Gulu in northern Uganda, the Italian photographer Martina Bacigalupo happened upon discarded portraits with the subjects’ faces removed. They led her to the Gulu Real Art Studio, where Obal Denis sold ID photos by cutting rectangles out of larger prints. Bacigalupo gathered Denis’s scraps and interviewed his customers. Many had been affected by the war in northern Uganda, which lasted some two decades. Taken for driver’s licenses, new job and loan applications, the photos were the means for Ugandans to start new chapters in their lives. The “leftovers,” as Bacigalupo calls the images — showing at the Walther Collection Project Space in New York next month — evoke in her mind both the “agony of an entire community” and its resilience.
Looking through these photos with the faces cut out, I began to imagine that Joseph Kony is incapable of seeing faces. If he was capable – if he truly looked into the eyes of his victims – I don’t think he would be capable of mutilating, raping, and killing. Kony, despite his sight, has been blinded by evil and 27 years of unimaginable violence.
Then I began to think about how we all recognize others. It’s easy to dismiss a statistic or a picture, but when you come across a collection of pictures with the faces cut out, you’re forced to look closer and imagine who that person is – their story, their family, everything.
As you look through this gallery, I challenge you to think about each person, not as just another picture, but as a person and a story.
See the photo gallery in full on the New York Times website.
(Photo credits: Obal Denis, Gulu Real Art Studio)
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