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Alexander Joe
AFP
With these photographs by Alexander Joe, we are invited to embark upon a 15-year journey covering close to one-third of the African continent, from Djibouti to Cape Town. As a man fascinated by the beauty of women, Alexander first thought he would like to be a fashion photographer, but soon entered the world of photojournalism when he covered the Rhodesian conflict, owing to a keen interest in the cause of the country’s black community. When violence erupted in the black ghettos, the Rhodesian press called on him, all the White photographers having thrown in the towel.
Preview
Alexander Joe is a tireless witness of the wars, famines and radical changes that occur in that part of the world. As a stringer for a wire service, his main concern is to get his pictures out – fast. He is forced to lug around his own processing and transmission equipment, which frequently weighs over 100 kg, and is often frustrated at not being able to stay on location for any length of time. In some cases, he feels tormented by guilt, such as when he had to leave a sleeping child in his shelter underneath a train carriage in a Mozambican camp. Says Joe: "Afterwards, I often wondered whether the child ever survived the exodus".
His pictures often reflect his feelings and love for the African continent and those who struggle against the ills that plague it and the absurdity of humans tearing each other apart. For Joe, the genocide in Rwanda was both a source of horror and a threat. His white colleagues, for whom all Blacks look alike, warned him against the risk of becoming a target for Hutus or Tutsis. His coverage of the mass killings in the Kibeho refugee camp is a sobering reminder of the horror: according to UN sources, 5,000 Rwandan refugees were shot or trampled to death.
The recurrent famine in Africa is another part of Alexander Joe's work. In Ethiopia, he saw the gaze of children on the point of dying; in Somalia in 1992, he shot scenes where survivors and victims rubbed shoulders and where starvation claimed the lives of dozens of children every day.
It is all summed up in the heartrending picture of a starved Madagascan child.
Alexander Joe
