Human Rights and Human Wrongs - Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto

At the beginning of February, I visited Toronto for a week for a family wedding. Some research prior to this trip showed that the Ryerson Image Centre was close to our hotel. The Image Centre is a public gallery and museum within the campus of Ryerson University. The gallery shares its building with the School of Image Arts. Indeed, in the entrance to the gallery there was a glass partition through which some students could be seen working on tables with mounted photographs, presumably for exhibition.
There were three exhibitions open on the day of my visit, all of which linked to the issue of civil rights. The main exhibition was entitled "Human Rights and Human Wrongs" curated by Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph ABP, London. This featured prints from the Ryerson's Black Star Collection that related to various wars, massacres, riots and police brutality as well as photos of some prominent people on both sides of the struggle for human rights, such as Martin Luther King, US president Johnson, UN Secretary Generals etc. The question posed by the curator is whether photographs help or hinder humanitarian causes. My feeling after looking at the over 300 prints in the exhibition was that man's inhumanity to man recurs with sickening frequency. The photographs seem necessary as a reminder of this reality of the world we live in. The display seemed to comprise original prints from the agency, almost all about A5 size (presumably its US equivalent - see below). Some had editorial marks in red ink and hand written captions.
One of the smaller exhibitions contained recent photographs of Somalia by Dominic Nahr, who revisited Mogadishu, the Somali capital a year after the Islamist rebels were expelled. These images were "conventional" photojournalism, a series of about 8 images. The second contained three works by Alfredo Jaar, which used photography to make a general point about perceptions of Africa as seen from the West. One was a display of Time magazine covers dealing with African related subjects. It was notable how few there were and how they dealt more often with concerns about African wildlife than concerns about its people. Another of his works was a film about Rwandan genocide contrasting the filmed statements of some of the victims with statements by President Bill Clinton "we wish to inform you that we didn't know".
Subsequent research has shown that the Black Star Collection was a gift to the Image Centre of 250,000 photojournalist photographs taken for Black Star photo agency over a period of 80 years. Black Star is a New York agency founded in 1935 that was a major supplier to Life magazine, founded in 1936. Over 800 photographers supplied the agency with photos, and there seemed to be no indication that they specialzed in the work of black photographers. The agency's name does not therefore appear to reflect an ethnic exclusivity.
The exhibition was curated by Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph ABP, London. According to Wikipedia, Autograph ABP is a London based photo-agency formerly known as the "Association of Black Photographers". It is a non-profit organisation focussing on issues of cultural identity and human rights. I watched a video of Mark Sealy's curator's lecture connected with the exhibition. I understood from this that he believes non-white photographers need to be encouraged to present their cultural views in order to overcome the stereotypes and "violence" in visual terms usually presented in the western dominated media. He recognizes that differences in culture are often overlooked due to the domination of media channels by western agencies. Having lived in a country, Indonesia, whose cultures are rarely appreciated overseas or at home, I would concur fully with these opinions. On the other hand, his encouragement seemed rather too unreserved and uncritical. In my experience, each culture and society has its own prejudices and negative aspects. I would expect that black Africa has issues of cultural exploitation and civil rights abuses that are worthy of closer scrutiny and recording by photographers, indigeonous or not.
Conclusions
In Europe and North America, recognition of civil rights is given a lot of media attention. On the other hand, appreciation of civil responsibilities seems to be left to the "government" and a few individuals with a social conscience. In a developing country like Indonesia, in contrast, the "government" cannot be relied upon for anything other than a rudimentary safety net. Almost everybody in society is fully aware of, and acts upon civil responsibilities to family, neighbours and friends. The role of photography will naturally differ depending on the needs of society. In England, photography may be useful so that people visualize and recognize problems, with the aim of provoking a response from government or social organizations. In other societies, its role is likely to be different e.g. sharing photos of neighborhood or family gatherings. I would imagine that many African countries are more like Indonesia than they are to Europe.