Today’s Guatemalan Guest Speakers, Domingo Alvarez Ajanel and Pedro Bernal Raymundo, brought the reality of war and its aftermath to our classroom. Domingo’s earliest memory, at age six, was of soldiers attacking his village, seeing people being shot and killed, and running away as shots were fired around him. At 15, Pedro was shot in the leg by soldiers. These men have spent the majority of their lives in a war zone and even now are haunted by their memories.
Jennifer Karady, artist, photographer, and journalist, captures memories of war in photographs. Her current exhibition, In Country: Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, is at the University of Denver’s Victoria H. Myhren Gallery in the Shwayder Art Building. Through photographs and interviews, she recreates aspects of the soldiers' war memories and places them within the context of the lives they lead at home. Creatively ingenious, stunningly photographed and filled with metaphor, she captures the essence of a memory and brings it to life in present day context. Juxtaposing past/present, soldier/civilian, and danger/safety, her works often include the soldier’s family and tell of the difficulties soldiers face when readjusting to civilian life.
Karady, like Domingo and Pedro, shows how the violence of war stays with the survivor long after the last bullet has been fired.
The exhibit will run now through May 1, 2011. I would highly recommend making the time to see the photographs for a surreal tour of duty.
No comments:
Post a Comment