Best Of
Peter Dejong
The Associated Press
When the team of Visa pour l’Image talked me into having an exhibit and asked me in the fall of last year to give them “lots of pictures”, I went through the laborious process of locating, editing and scanning 17 years of work for The Associated Press. It took weeks to painstakingly compile a first batch of 450 pictures from computer hard drives in Amsterdam and film archives in New York, a collection of fragments, part of day-to-day news coverage for the largest news agency in the world.
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Bits and pieces, snippets, impressions and, more than anything, memories resurfaced; it was like opening a vault and going through the luggage we carry and tuck away, and sometimes hide in little boxes inside..... For 17 years now I have seen the pain of violence and war, seen what happens when all existing frameworks break down in society, seen what people can do to one another. I would have every reason to be a cynic, but I'm not. I refuse to give in and find strength in people's ability to remain human, be compassionate, strong, and stand tall no matter how bad it gets.
