Photos show human resilience amid unrelenting disaster
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.