CANDACE SCHARSU PHOTOGRAPHY
CANDACE
SCHARSU
in
The
Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence
Chicago
Press 2010
Or look at Candace Scharsu’s
photographs from the Murray Town Amputee Camp in Freetown, Sierra Leone: a
little village of old and young, male and female. We see a crying baby whose
arm has been hacked off and an obese woman, hand on head, whose two legs have
been severed at the knees. There is a handsome barber named Mohammed Bah,
whose good arm—his working arm—was flayed and amputated just below
the shoulder. But Bah, Scharsu tells us, is an entrepreneurial man: he has
set up a new shop in the camp, and is intent on relearning his trade (he uses
his stump to hold a towel). There is a ten-year-old Ibrahim, who rests his
head on his mangled arms as he looks out at us; rebels poured gasoline on
his hands and set them afire, then raped and killed his mother and slit his
father’s throat. There is Issa Sessay, a seven-year-old who was abducted
by the RUF when he was four. He is photographed in profile, and he is quite
handsome, except for the pustule-like scars on his face and mouth: held down
to a fire when he refused to fight, his cheek and lips melted together. Issa’s
hand was also destroyed—now it is a useless claw—and he doesn’t
want it photographed.
And here, through Scharsu’s lens, is Memuna once more. She wears a pretty
flowered dress with a lace border; her smile, this time, is truly impish,
and she firmly rests her good hand on the sturdy thigh of her father, who
sits just behind her. He is a strong-looking man with high cheekbones and
a slight mustache; he faces the camera straight on, albeit with a rueful look.
His right ear has been chopped off, and his right arm, like hers, is a stump.
(pgs 135-36)…..
At the same time child soldiers are the victims of these same crimes, with young girls in particular used as sex slaves who are subjected to rape, gang rape, sexual mutilation, and coerced childbirth. Candace Scharsu photographed one such girl in Sierra Leone: she refuses to show her face and does not want to give her name, but “RUF” has been branded on her chest, probably with acid from cashew nuts. (then author cont. w/ another photog) ( pg 139)
In the absence of such idealistic
bonds, Western intellectuals in the post-1989 era have often proved indifferent
to mass suffering and mass murder; indeed, our era’s guiding principle
might be, “Only disconnect.” The Mideast, which is to say the
Palestinians, still inspires fervor; so do humanitarian crises like tsunamis
and hurricanes. But who really cares about massacres in Burundi, the disintegration
of Somalia, atrocities in Algeria, perpetual crises in Haiti, or the enslaved
children of Chad? Levy’s book and Scharsu’s photographs are indictments
of the retreats and evasions that characterize our age of dystopia. Both the
philosopher and the photographer seek to awaken the West from its night of
slumber, but with no false promises of what daylight will bring. “No
one wants to see; no one wants to hear,” Levy writes of the world’s
immense swaths of violence and misery. “We have to force them to see
it, then. There has to be a terrorism of the gaze.”
(reference, Bernard-Henri Levy’s War, Evil, and the End of History)
(pg 138)
Concerned Photo Essays: Bushmeat 2014 Sudan: Mundari Wrestlers 2012 Independence South Sudan 2011 Lord Kony in Eastern Congo 2008
Lord Kony in Northern Uganda Blood Diamond War Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
Cholera Epidemic in Guinea 2007 Haiti Karamojong Warriors Leprosy in Zambia Malaria Midwives in Africa 2008
Pygmies of Central Africa Republic of Congo Tibet, Vietnam, India The Tuaregs of Niger
Africa's Beauty: Black & White Color About: Exhibits Self Portrait Press Contact
Contact / Purchase Inquiries: cscharsu [at] gmail [dot] com
All Images © 2021 Candace Scharsu All Rights Reserved