Flashback
Christian Simonpiétri
I have “seen” these pictures. But for Perpignan, I had to “look” at them, look at them again. Look death in the eyes!
For years I was reluctant to show, publish or exhibit these images – until hard-headed Jean-François Leroy asked me to come to Visa pour l’Image – because going back in time thirty years was bound to be a painful journey which I had never had the courage of confronting up until then. I had been intent on erasing everything related to war from my memory.
But maybe true courage is about going back down memory lane.
Preview
Courage is not about being on the front lines. In front of everyone else. Courage is being brave enough to be afraid. If fear were a colour, it would be red, like blood. Bright red, or brown, black, rust-coloured, like carrion. Hair-raising fear, gut-wrenching fear. Fear that makes you throw up, or shit your pants. Fear that amputates, lacerates, maims. Fear of being disfigured, of having your limbs or your balls blasted off. Fear of the dark, flares, night fires, riots, curfews. Fear as in uprisings, barricades, going underground, going insane. Fear as in coup d'état, dictatorship, censorship, resistance. Fear as in torture, bondage, interrogations, confessions, hostages, blindfold, humiliation, duct tape over your mouth.
The only thing left to do is to take pictures, to capture the event, frame the horror, overexpose a genocide, an execution, the distress of our entire humankind. Expose, denounce. Take pictures, most of all, to rebel against generalized indifference. Take pictures with one's head and one's heart as they are being torn to shreds. Take pictures to put an end to the nightmares.
It's as hopeless as straightening up all the hunchbacks of the world!! You might as well ask a photographer to close his eyes! Only one thing is sure: a picture never killed anybody.
"When life hangs by a thread, that thread is really expensive" – Daniel Pennac.
Christian Simonpiétri
