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 © Andrew McConnell/Panos Pictures |
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Andrew McConnell ghosts of
the sahara April 12, 2011 – June 7, 2011 Slideshow and opening talk with Andrew
McConnell The Half King Gallery is pleased to present Andrew McConnell’s luminous photographs of Sahrawi Bedouins—now into their 35th year of exile from their North African territory of Western Sahara. McConnell’s images took first prize in the 2011 World Press Photo Awards. “I wanted to give a sense that this is one long night for the Sahrawi—lasting 35 years,” he says. “My showing very little of the land emphasizes that the Sahrawi are landless. By lighting them simply and in darkness, I am trying to say, ‘Look! These people are here!’" On opening night Jamie Wellford, Newsweek’s International Photo Editor, will introduce McConnell and his work by moderating a slideshow of the series. “Andrew creates illuminating and contemplative portraits in which each of his Sahrawi subjects quietly addresses the fate and condition of cultural and political isolation. With night as a backdrop, Andrew takes us into a world where few have ever been,” Wellford attests. Illegally controlled by Morocco, Western Sahara is the last open file at the United Nation’s Decolonization Committee. Originally, Sahrawis were Bedouins who migrated with their livestock, following the rains. They speak Hassaniya, an Arabic dialect, as well as Arabic and Spanish. When Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975, most Sahrawis fled to refugee camps in Algeria, where today they number 170,000. Those who stayed resist Morocco’s tactics of repression which include imprisoning dissenters and militarizing Western Sahara with, among other things, a heavily mined, 2,400 km. sand wall—the longest man made wall in the world. To see the full set of
Andrew's images on exhibit at The Half King, click here:
andrew mcconnell's BIO: Andrew McConnell was born in Ireland in 1977 and began his career as a press photographer covering the closing stages of the conflict in his homeland and the transition to peace. He later worked in Asia, and in 2007 moved to Africa to document the issues and stories from that continent that are widely overlooked by the international media. “Ghosts of the Sahara” at The Half King will be the first showing of McConnell’s Sahrawi work.
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The Half King photography series is curated by James Price and Anna Van Lenten |
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Previous exhibitions at The Half King
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