In her introduction to “Afterwar: Veterans from a World in Conflict,” photographer Lori Grinker writes, “If I have discovered any single truth about war … it is that it is a deeply personal experience. … What is common to all is the aftermath.” As Alicia Anstead, a 2008 Nieman Fellow, who moderated the panel “Artistic Expression: Trauma as Muse,” said of Grinker’s work, “in the veterans’ photography, in particular, but also in other topics that she photographs, I actually see the echo of Goya, I see the intensity of Vermeer, the vibrancy of David Hockney, and the fearlessness of Frida Kahlo. Today, we turn to this artist to illuminate the … relationship between her work and her subject.” Edited excerpts from her talk “Using the human body as the narrative device to portray the horrors of war” follow:
In “Afterwar,” what was important to me was telling the story of women, children and men from various types of conflicts and situations, such as people who had been imprisoned, who’d done things during the war that they would never do in their civilian life, and exploring what makes them cross that line. As a young man from England who served in the Falklands said, “there’s no button they can press to switch your emotions back on.” In “Afterwar,” Iraq War veterans are included in the introduction in the book, which is organized from the most recent conflict to those going back in time—from Sri Lanka to World War I, peeling back the layers of history.
Grinker also described what continues to propel her to do the work she does.
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Grinker’s photo essay, “Iraqis: Making Visible the Scars of Exile,” was in the Summer 2008 Nieman Reports.After working in the field for nearly 15 years documenting stories of war veterans, I found it difficult to take in much more information; I was overwhelmed with so many emotions. However, I’d been in Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and in March 2003 at the start of the American invasion of Iraq, I was embedded on a magazine assignment on the USNS Comfort, the American hospital ship.
When I returned home, I found it difficult to listen to reports from the war; even reading novels with war stories became challenging. I needed a break, so I started photographing landscapes and lighter subject matter. But all the while I was thinking about the Iraqis I’d met on the ship as many wounded Iraqis were brought there for treatment. I wondered what became of them and what would become of the detainees in Guantanamo. This led me to begin my project documenting the lives of Iraqi refugees and of the wounded.
Something keeps bringing me back to war—to the effects of war. I think it’s to try to understand something that in a way remains so foreign to me, but to understand it from a very human and personal level. Because once news coverage diminishes, the war is still going on for these people, and they live with its consequences. How does it affect their lives long term? It’s a story I feel needs to be told.
This is in Asmara, Eritrea. Forty percent of the fighting army here were women. This is the Mariam Ghimbi prison, a former torture center. At one time there were 400 women in this one room. The holes in the walls are from insects. If the women talked to each other their Ethiopian guards would chain their hands together. They suffered many horrible tortures. Saba, pictured here, said of this experience: When I sleep, I feel it. It still fears me. I am in pain when there is a cold breeze. If there is a hard knock on the door, it shocks me because in prison just to hear the sound of the door being opened or shut was terrorizing
In Belfast, I was doing a story on Republicans and Protestants who'd been imprisoned for their terrorist activities. Jennifer McCann had been in prison for 10 and a half years; she is now a community activist who was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for West Belfast as a Sinn Fein member. This photograph reveals how the conflict continued through these murals that can be seen throughout this area. They represent Loyalist and Republican divisions. The idea for this mural was taken from "Schindler's List"
I interviewed this Canadian gentleman, Paul Métivier, a World War I veteran, in 200. He was 101 years old when he shared with me memories of events now decades removed: You can't imagine how awful, how sickening the war was. It doesn't seem fit for human beings. To amuse ourselves when we had time in the bunkers we would kill the rats. We would put the cordite in their tunnels, light it up, and blow them out. The rats would come out all dizzy and we would shoot them with our rifles. The rats were having a good time over there. Look at all the flesh they could eat with all the body parts lying in the mud. There was mud as far as the eye could see. I considered the mud to be my enemy more than the Germans. There were no trees back then, just mud: mud like porridge with too much milk. If a man was shot but still conscious and he fell in the mud, I'm sure he would die. A man could drown in the mud of Vimy
These are child soldiers in LIbera at the Don Bosco School for Boys, which is a Roman Catholic religious order that aids street kids in this country. They are all street kids at a Sunday church service who have just started playing, doing military drills, playing "war" with a hockey stick in hand. Otis, who was 15 years old when I took this picture, said: I was eight years old when the National Patriotic Front of Liberia came to town. I was happy because Charles Taylor took us in a convoy. We were 36 boys. I thought he was taking us somewhere good. I was selected to be in charge. They called me "Commanding Officer Dirty Ways." I killed in bad ways. I'd be killing and laughing at the same time. I didn't like it. I just did it. It was the drugs working. I regret the killing. In the middle of the night, they gave us drugs. When we woke up, we were numb. It made you strong, gave you the urge to do things. War is not a school. You kill and you go. There is no benefit. In school, you go to learn something; you remember it. War is something you do to destroy. They want you to fight so they can destroy the country. They are laughing at us. They're sitting in their cars laughing and destroying the country
I took this photograph in 1995 in Ramallah, the West Bank. The man in the wheelchair, center, is named Arafat. He told me how he was injured and described what has happened since then: I was injured during the Intifada. There was a conflict and I was putting a mask on my fact. The Israeli soldier told me to stop and I did, but even after I stopped, he shot three bullets in my back. Then he took me to the hospital, the same soldier who shot me. I didn't play basketball before. Now we have a team. We play against teams from Jordan, Iraq and Iran—the Sports Union Federation of Handicaps. Some of our guards have even played on the Jewish teams in Ramat Gan and Jaffa. I know the Jewish man who brings the wheelchairs. He brings me to their team. They like my playing and they put me on the team. I still play with them but now the roads are closed
When I took these photographs of female child soldiers, I was not permitted to show faces. This was at a government rehabilitation center in Sri Lanka where these Tamil girls were being taught Sinhalese. Piriya, pictured here, said she had placed a bomb under a bridge, it went off, and her arm got blown up