A photographic journey lasted 10 years. An extraordinary example of life in the theatres of war in the Middle East. A light: the dignity of man.
The Tethys fineart photography gallery in Florence presents “In the Light of Darkness. A Photographer’s Journey After 9/11” by Kate Brooks, Saturday, April 14 at 18 in via Maggio 58/r, in cooperation with Middle East Now 2012 Film Festival and Otto Luogo dell’arte.

This is the first solo exhibition in Italy of American photojournalist Kate Brooks (1977), a tireless voice of the areas afflicted by the violence of war (open until May 1).

“In the Light of Darkness“, a book and today an exhibition, began 10 years ago, shortly after the attacks of 11th September 2001, when Kate decided to move from Moscow to Pakistan to document the impact of the imminent U.S. intervention in places with a strong majority of Taliban.
In 2003 she has been in Iraq, documenting the American occupation of the territories and the fall of Saddam Hussein.

From that moment on she has passed through Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, until the day of the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and the war in Libya.

The Tethys Gallery dedicates its space to the photographic story of Kate in an exhibition curated by Guido Cozzi and Silke Kurth, tended to emphasize the semantic depth and extraordinary narrative skill of photography to portray people, their stories and the places involved.

This risky project, which crosses almost all regions of the Middle East affected by armed conflicts, is not only an incredible historical source, but also reveals, through Kate’s intense and gentle gaze, the invisible side to the media, the one concerning life of “regular people“. She photographed the neighbourhoods, investigated the looks and habits of people who had to adjust their minds to a single consciousness, that of living in places suddenly become theatres of war and interzones of political and financial interests of the world.

An exciting work, then, that gives life to those who had to give up a life, when they did not lose it, that narrates the tragedy of displacement and broken affections, that explores the darkness of those who try to survive and must pay attention to every gesture, such as walking to the market, and where any break, like a football game among the rubble, can open the brink that separates life from death.

A condition of constant impermanence, made ​​even more tragic by the almost total loss of perspective.

But it is at this point that Kate Brooks intervenes with her photographs to document the downside of destruction: yet there is life!

In this dimension she is able to narrate the beating energy and the power of the human spirit, which, although wounded, helpless, unarmed victim, continues to move forward. Forward where? It does not matter! Simply by living its everyday life, perhaps the only truth left, becoming aware that there is still something, a last stronghold not yet conquered: dignity.