From Verbal to Visual to Thought
Words can transform the visual and what our concept of the visual is. The exhibition, “Between Language and Geography” is a stunning representation of how words and images can come together to reveal a story. Artists such as Jerome Liebling, Catherine Wagner, and Candace Scharsu filled the walls with powerful images that depicted themes from political geography to historical geography. Photographers capturing images of streets, villages, and people brought out the true force of a photograph with powerful messages that not only captured an image but also a truth that was hidden away.
Street photography has had a long history of capturing not only the different aspects of the common people but also social issues around the time. Jerome Liebling was a prominent photography in the twentieth century who found his niche documenting the social issues in New York City through black and white photography. One of his more explicit photographs exemplified life in the slums. This photograph, called “Young Girl” taken in 1952 tackles the issue of poverty in the United States that stands to threaten the future generation. The young girl leaning on a Coca Cola advertisement board brings out an ironic tone that could not have been achieved without the words, “Coca Cola”, in the background. Billboards and mass media, signs of industry and progress, are instead dirty and old symbolizing stagnation within society.
Catherine Wagner is another black and white photographer who dabbles with aesthetically pleasing images, rich in detail. Wagner captures consistencies in society such as the common classroom exhibited in her photograph, “Moss Landing Elementary School, Seventh and Eighth Grade Science Room”. The words “I Don’t Know” was all too fitting for the image of an old-fashioned classroom with cracked floors and dingy desks. Not only did it seem like the classroom was outdated but learning itself had long been gone. This image is a fine example of how words strongly influence our perception of images. Instead of the typical understanding of what a classroom was, the viewers were swayed by the words of the photograph to think of something completely different.
Images in correlation with words also carry a strong political message at times. Candace Scharsu explores political geography in her photography. One highly moving photograph called “Female Child Soldier’s Chest Branded by RUF Rebel” exposes injustice young females in Sierra Leona, Africa face each day of their lives. These female soldiers serve as sex slaves for Revolutionary United Front commanders. Their lives, as depicted by Schursu, is nothing but misery and a huge scar on their life. The RUF commanders are all to proud to claim their sex slaves, but the ugliness of this practice is clearly portrayed in this photograph in those three bold letters, “RUF”.
Photographers such as Scharsu, Wagner, and Liebling expose truth in their images through few words. Viewers could now create their own interpretation of society that were not staged or embellished. From words, to images, to thought, viewers grasped a reality of surroundings, times, and people that they had never before. After attending this gallery, the evidence of human injustice and dormant learning became all too clear for me.
