Photos show human resilience amid unrelenting disaster

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

While words may not be adequate to describe the severity of the tsunami that washed away a large part of Aceh, and its impact on the Acehnese; a visual account of the calamity says much more about nature's wrath.

Such was the immediate impression from gazing at pictures taken by local and foreign photographers displayed in a photo exhibition titled Aceh: Then and Now, held in the lobby of Sentra Mulia building in Kuningan, South Jakarta, from Feb. 14 through Feb. 25.

Nine photographers of international acclaim displayed their works depicting how tsunami survivors were coming to terms with the disaster, which was almost biblical in its proportions.

Aware of the fact that visitors are fed up with stories about the utter destruction caused by the tidal wave from TV news footage and articles in newspapers, the organizer of the exhibition displayed restful pictures by Ahmad "Deny" Salman at the front of the lobby.

Upon entering the venue, visitors were greeted by a picture of an adult woman laughing with a girl in a head scarf.

Next to the photograph was a picture of a boy reciting a passage from the Koran in a house of worship.

Deny, photographer-cum-rights activist, whose work has been printed in foreign publications such as Time newsmagazine,The New York Times and The Guardian was undoubtedly hinting at the possibility of faith in the shadow of the apocalypse.

Photographer Ferry Indrawan conveyed the same optimism in his pictures. One of the pictures, aptly titled Smile of the Future, depicted a group of smiling children standing in front of a building spared by the monstrous wave.

Only after being presented with such benign images did visitors witness the trail of destruction left by the tsunami.

In a photograph taken by Canadian photographer Frazer Dryden, a woman in a head scarf was pictured walking by mounting debris in shallow water in an unidentified coastal area.

Next to the picture was a photo of an old man making his way out of the sea of piled debris.

All the photos were shot from an angle that made the subject appear in the center, as if to emphasize that the human spirit would still prevail in the midst of such an ordeal.

Singaporean photographer Ernest Goh, on the other hand, removed such subjectivity from his work by presenting an aerial view of destruction along the Aceh coastline.

The picture highlighted human frailty in the wake of the tsunami: There is little human beings can do to deal with a disaster of this severity.

To give visitors a sense of relief after witnessing the horror, Kompas photographer Arbain Rambey and freelance photographer Fendi Siregar took the viewer back in time, months before the magnitude-9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck Aceh and North Sumatra.

In one of his pictures, Fendi presented a picturesque view of Banda Aceh's principal landmark, the Baiturrahman grand mosque, which stood majestically in the evening sky.

However, only a few pictures showed conditions in Aceh before the tsunami struck, raising the question why the exhibition was titled Aceh: Then and Now, in the first place.