Remembering

Although not aligning with the July and August events which marked the 10-year anniversary of the conclusion of Liberia's civil war, the Los Angeles Times remembered the events on its Framework photography blog featuring a series of 18 images from the 2003-2005 period, some taken by Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros. Several feature recognizable spots in Central Monrovia, notably the Masonic Temple and the National Housing Bank tower, as seen above. The posting does coincide with an exhibit, Remembering Liberia, put on by the Chris Hondros Fund at Photoville in New York for the past few weeks.

Photos of Freetown's Historical Architecture

Earlier in May there was a very lovely series of photographs taken by Finbarr O'Reilly for Reuters and organized as a slideshow on the Guardian website. I'm reposted my favorites along with the (somewhat inaccurate) captions, although the whole series is really special. And I don't mean to be snarky about the labels, this is an esoteric topic and hard facts on the origins of West Africa's antiquated buildings are generally very few.

The stilted British Hill Station is particularly stunning, and I can't think of anything like it in Liberia. I haven't spent much time in Sierra Leone and I was surprised that such careworn but intact examples still existed in central Freetown.

Incidentally, many of these examples are featured in the more comprehensive cataloging that Tim Hetherington undertook in November of 2004-- a topic on which we exchanged emails several years ago, the only time I communicated with him prior to his sudden death. 

 Board houses like this one on Pademba Road, dating back about a century, 

are thought to replicate the style of American east coast architecture of about 1776

 About 100 years old, this colonial-style Congo Town board house has a provisions shop

 The main road in Congo Town is signposted on a board house 

that seems to have been extended over the years

 Painted weatherboarding covers the facade of a board house on King Street. 

The traditional dwellings are known as 'bode ose' in the Krio creole

 This two-storey board house is in Murray Town. 

The architecture recalls the West Indies as well as 18th America

Wooden stilts raise a former British colonial administration building in Hill Station. 

About 100 years ago the British authorities relocated their settlement 

from the stifling coastal flats to higher, cooler, ground

 

  Latice-work protects the stairway of a former British colonial administration building

 in the Hill Station neighbourhood

Tim Hetherington's Diary (2010)

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Journalists and photographers, as well as the Liberiophile community are still reeling from the loss of both Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington. In case you missed it, Tim Hetherington's 2010 Diary, above, is more than worth the 19 minutes. In fact, its an astonishing, emotional journey that is like nothing I have seen before.

Heart-stopping clips, from Tim's work in Liberia years ago, show the rebels' hellish, earth-scorching caravan advancing towards Monrovia throughout the sequence. As much an auditory artwork as a cinematographic collage, scenes completely envelope the viewer in the horrors of contemporary war, but abruptly transform into the mundane sound-byte summaries of the same events of international news headlines, heard in taxis navigating the streets of London or on a glowing screen in a Heathrow Express carriage, thousands of miles away from the carnage.

The rain blurs the windshield view of a dilapidated, war-scarred bush settlement, rushing by in the chaos of battle, slipping imperceptibly to become the drops running down the screen of a black cab making its way through an immaculate, bone-white Marylebone, a juxtaposition that is an incredible feat of technical precision. A firefight in the mountains of Afghanistan is later echoed, visually and acoustically, in the fireworks over the rooftops of Brooklyn.

A dreary, banal hotel room view of an immensely overbuilt Hong Kong is suddenly the sun-blinded, view of the burnt-black Darfurian ground in the silhouette of an immolated human. Randall Street becomes a Bangkok Expressway, which becomes a dirt road in Chad, crossed by cattle. The chaos of wanton, violent rebels scaring off desperate looters raiding a Freeport warehouse, loops into a dream-like scene of a young British girl running through a field in a delicate light of English autumn.

"Stunning" is an unfortunately overused word in our age of hyperbole, and is no longer reserved for experiences and artworks which so arrest the audience as to have a physical component to the reaction they induce--but this is what this startling film does, again and again, and reminds us further of the huge loss of such a talent storyteller.

Full Stop

One of the more enjoyable challenges of blogging is to develop a narrative arc, expressing themes that transcend through the site over time. Instead of a bunch of random observations and "musings," I think its a larger achievement, and a more enjoyable reader experience, to have some continuity, some symmetry of content, a recurring of topics, veins of interests running through the blog, to give it a relevance, make it compelling and enjoyable.

I've tried to do this, while at the same time covering a wide range of issues related not only to Liberia, and the greater West African region, and which reflect not only my personal interests in architecture, art, history and culture, but also the more complex professional issues of trade, investment, development, and socially-responsible business.

This is a constant challenge, sometimes enjoyable and other times daunting and confusing. Its made more difficult in the wider context of the blogosphere. While I do not think of other blogs as competition, there is also no point in repeating what others have said, or replicating what can be found elsewhere.

In the hyperspeed of contemporary media, its also a challenge to say something original about a contemporary topic or news item before the rest of the world does. But even with all the other blogs and media writing, responding, observing, and analyzing, I take a stab at a fresh perspective anyway, and I hope those posts are both worthy of readers' time and compatible with the rest of this blog's content.

Unfortuantely, at the moment, I feel completely overwhelmed by depth and breadth of current events, and feel basically inadequate to contribute any worthwhile comment on them. The momentum of this blog has completely flagged. This has been building up over the last couple of months, with the following underlying contributors:

(1) The Jasmine Revolution uprisings, which have influenced popular protests south of the Sahara. This historic chain of events might at first seem like a great source of inspiration and impetus to write. Frankly, I lack the expertise to contribute anything original or worthwhile here to the mountains of words that have piled up since January on this topic.

If I had anything fresh to say, I'd try to join the other outlet's efforts to point out that it is not just Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria that have experienced uprisings, but also Mauritania, Djibouti, Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, quite apart from the incredible events in the past month in Burkina Faso and Uganda. But I haven't the academic or journalistic expertise to spread this blog into such areas.

(2) The fighting in Cote D'Ivoire. As I tried to articulate in a previous post, the fall of Gbagbo might not have been the worst possible outcome, but it is hugely dispiriting to see egotistcal, big-man autocracy cannibalize a society. The intense fighting, killing, and looting in Abidjan and the genocidal atrocities in the Western frontier make a mockery of a decade of bromides proclaiming that governance is improving everywhere on the African continent and that progress is occurring everywhere. I've been stuck between trying to blog about these events, and feeling completely incapable, while it also seemed inappropriate to write about more mundane topics.

Both are an on-going humanitarian crisis, which continues to inundate at least four Liberian counties; and are an unspeakable tragedy which is no less egregious than the worst atrocities of the Liberian Civil War nearly a decade ago. Also, this conflict has not ended, even though it only held the headlines for about a week.

(3) The death of Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington. As I said to a friend the other day, I can't remember the last time I was so affected by the death of someone that I hardly knew. One of the main things that bothers me is that I have all of these questions about Tim's work, his time in Liberia, where he lived, what he saw, what he did. All I would have had to do was keep emailing him. But was starstruck, or intimidated-- I didn't want to bother him, pestering him with questions. Now I'll never know the answers to those questions about his years living in Monrovia, during the war and thereafter. That's also probably the most selfish way to view the loss of such an incredible person, and one that leaves me out of sorts.

There are bad things happening in the world. Maybe even more so than at other times. A lot of it affects Liberia directly and indirectly. This makes a lot of what I'd like to say, about traveling to, living in, and falling for an exotic, esoteric country seem uninteresting.

Yet I sputter along.

In Memoriam: Tim Hetherington

Image ©Tim Hetherington via MSNBC

I am still in shock at the loss today of Tim Hetherington, a devastation that is better honored elsewhere, especially at Scarlett Lion, where Glenna shares her personal and close professional connections with him, and also at Africa Is A Country, which has a moving, must-see video of Tim talking about his time in Liberia and his time and work there. Here is what I wrote in the comment section below that:

Great video, thank you for posting it. I think it really shows how Tim was not only acclaimed within his profession as a photographer and journalist, but also that he deeply cared for the people whose hardship and suffering he documented and reported. Going beyond his press coverage to assist the TRC was an example of this.
Liberia was my first African country, too, and Tim was extremely gracious when I reached out to him recently to ask him about his time in Liberia and his feelings for the country. Journalism has lost one of its living legends, but the Liberian people have also lost a real friend. I hope that he is remembered for his heart as well as his talent, skill and bravery.

Here is a link to the earlier post I did at the beginning of the year about Tim's work in Liberia, which he was very supportive and helpful. Its always a pleasure to exchange emails with such a great figure, and Tim was very gracious and generous with his attention. He will be missed.

Tim Hetherington's Photography

Wedding Parties at Centennial Pavilion ©Tim Hetherington

I've almost completely avoided mentioning Liberia's war and the imagery surrounding that. Although I think its extremely important for Liberian society to confront and address the painful, recent past, (and worry if that will ever adequately take place), I moreso grow weary of the war being the only way that Liberia is known outside its borders. One of the reasons I started Moved2Monrovia was to build a more positive and celebratory forum for all things Liberia.

Executive Mansion during the electrical fire ©Tim Hetherington

Having said that, a recent blog post in Lens, the photography blog of the New York Times, reminded me of the work of Tim Hetherington, who has been acclaimed for his documentary journalism in Liberia. I first came to know Tim's work for his part in the excellent film Liberia: An Uncivil War, where he and fellow journalist James Brabazon were the only reporters embedded with rebels as Monrovia was sieged. he has also been featured in the New York Times Lens before, among other prominent news platforms. His work in other war zones has been equally celebrated, not least his 2007 World Press Photo award for his shot of a weary American soldier in Afghanistan.

Broad Street & the Old Executive Grounds ©Tim Hetherington

Its interesting that Tim states his relative indifference to the medium of photography over any other format for relaying information to an audience, and I personally find it fascinating and refreshing to encounter a veteran of Liberia's most horrific chapters who can so masterfully rely so much of that strange and terrible period, but nonetheless was able to capture some of the romantic qualities that many unexpectedly find here, but which are so seldom communicated to the outside world, or are so easily overlooked among the more prevalent, more painful strains of that era's human plight.

©Tim Hetherington

Tim's photography evinces the chaos, confusion, and horror of a decade ago, and some this more wrenching work, such as his noted film montage Liberian Graffiti, will remain not only commendable as journalistic accomplishment, but also important parts of the documentary record of Liberian history.

Photographs in the post were included with permission, but all rights otherwise remain © Tim Hetherington