São Paulo – On May 28th, in the city of São Paulo, will be open to the public the exhibition Health Care in Danger: Libya and Somalia in the eye of André Liohn , with more than 70 images taken by the Brazilian photographer in these two countries from 2010 to 2013. Organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the exhibition points to the need of adopting safety measures aimed at the health professionals and patients in areas of armed conflicts.
Liohn says that the images of the exhibition were taken during the period in which he worked for magazines such as Der Spiegel, from Germany, and Time, from the United States. In Libya, he went through the cities of Misurata, Benghazi and the capital Tripoli, among others. In Somalia, his work focused on the city of Mogadishu and in the North of the country.
“At Medina Hospital, I became friends with the director. He housed me and I stayed there. It was a very difficult moment. I was hiding the majority of the time. When someone would come in, I would snap the pictures and went back to my hiding place”, he reveals, about the work done in a Somali hospital.
To preserve his life, Liohn would hide in a room near the place where patients went through the triage. According to him, since the hospital would treat fighters from both sides of the country’s civil war, there was a constant risk of a hospital invasion.
Born in Botucatu, São Paulo inland, Liohn was a commercial manager in a company in Norway before becoming a photojournalist. His first job with images was done with drug users and dealers in the European country. The photoshoot enjoyed a lot of success in the country and started a new career in the Brazilian’s life.
Somalia was the first country in which Liohn faced a war. Among the images taken in the African country and that can be seen in the exhibition in São Paulo, Liohn singles out the one that shows a mother holding his son, with the child showing measles marks in the leg.
“In a war that lasts 30 years, as is the case in Somalia, it’s not only gunshots that kill. Measles is an illness with an easy and cheap prevention, but they still die over there because of it. The armed groups don’t allow doctors and nurses to reach the communities for vaccination.
In Libya, the most striking image for the photographer is one showing rebels entering a destroyed house after a battle. “They were dressed as civilians, but carried power weapons. It was a rupture moment of society with its structures”, he said.
“The photos are, for me, real stories, real life. The majority of them show the violent interruption of a person’s future. The picture is a medium to communicate the interruption of this future”, says Liohn.
“A lot of people look to Brazil’s problems and feel impotent. I hope for people to see [in the pictures] a possibility of change through dialogue and deep reflection. The pictures are there to be used as a reference source of dialogues because those are lives that really existed”, he points out. Besides Somalia and Libya, Liohn also worked in other Arab countries, such as Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain.
The exhibition, which can be seen from May 29th to July 5th, is part of the international campaign Health Care in Danger, launched in 2011 by the ICRC. The campaign sets as its goal the world mobilization to reinforce the determination of states, institutions and public opinion about the need to protect access to health care, guaranteeing impartial and efficient provision of medical services in emergencies and armed conflict situations.
Some of the images to be displayed in São Paulo already were in exhibition in Switzerland, United States and Italy, besides Brasília. The opening, on May 28th, is for guests only.
Besides the exhibition, there will be parallel activities about the issue, including the debate The humanitarian consequences of the lack of respect and protection for health care services, on June 24th, and the round-table The Challenges of the journalistic cover in armed conflicts and emergencies, on June 25th. The two events take place at 4:30 PM, in the same place.
On May 30th, at 3:30 PM, André Liohn will take a tour along with the public, to explain the stories behind every image in the exhibition.
Service
Exhibition “Health Care in Danger: Libya and Somalia in the eye of André Liohn”
Exhibition inauguration: May 28th (for guests only)
Opening hours: from May 29th to July 5th, Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 AM to 7 PM
Place: Biblioteca Villa-Lobos – Av. Queiroz Filho,1.205 – Alto de Pinheiros, São Paulo-SP.
Free admission
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
