‘Giving voice to the voiceless’

At The Gallery With
Terrence Chitukudza
The National Art Gallery, in conjunction with the United States Embassy, is running a photography exhibition by world-acclaimed photo-journalist Ed Kashi of the United States of America.
Kashi’s pieces on exhibition at the National Art Gallery are a stubborn reflection of grim events pervading the world. Thus he pictures those events wrought by war, conflicts, torture, violence and domestic disputes.
Some of Kashi’s photographs show people in West Africa, the Middle East and those engaged in civil war.
Of interest are some of his photographs that show the effects of domestic violence.
In one of the pieces he shows a Pakistani woman in pain from acid burns. She is a victim of a vicious husband who, in anger, threw acid on her face following a domestic altercation.
Kashi is more concerned with the human condition and uses photography to capture real-life situations and events.
Kashi’s philosophy is that artwork should tell stories about human problems and at the same time propose solutions that can make life more bearable.
“I take on issues that stir my passions about the state of humanity and our world, and I deeply believe in the power of still images to change people’s minds.
“I am driven by this fact that the work of photojournalists and documentary photographers can have a positive impact on the world.”
In Kashi’s work one gets to know of the whirling life events and experiences of humanity in different parts of the world especially those that usually go unchecked and unnoticed.
His work has the power to pull the world together and converge in a small space for easy access and inquiry because his photos are drawn from the world over.
And talks about that passion that compels him to engage in this art.
“I am pushed by an greater degree of curiosity about the world, a desire to tell stories of people whose experiences go untold,” he said.
However, Kashi’s positing of life’s grim situations does not mean that his work centres entirely on the unpleasant and unhappy situations .
He said he captures diverse experiences and his main focus is to present the world as it is without prejudice through photography.
In Kashi’s photos one gets to understand art as a tool that accompanies all life events, it ululates with them, in the happier times and it also joins them in their in grief and it protests against the unpleasant situations.
Kashi’s works are powerful expressions of people from underprivileged and peripheral parts of society.
Thus he captures a variant of people in different postures, the crying women, tortured war victims and some of them hanging precariously on the edges of boundary bridges attempting to escape from the claws of war.
And the title of the exhibition is a fitting one – “Giving Voice to the Voiceless” – revealing the kind of visceral commitment Kashi has for the neglected people in different parts of the world. Kashi is a widely travelled artist, a man in a life journey of discovery. He has a way of joining the people in their experiences travelling with them in their long so-journs in search of peace and love.
Kashi’s work has been celebrated the world over and David Griffin has described Kashi as “one of the best of a new breed of photojournalistic artists”.
In 2010, Kashi won the Unicef Photo of the Year, a Prix Pictet Commission and honours from Pictures of the Year International, World Press Foundation, Communication Arts and American Photography.
Kashi’s exhibition was co-sponsored by the National Art Gallery and the United States Embassy.
Kashi said he would donate the photographs on exhibition to the National Art Gallery.
The exhibition closes in March.