News
Page 4
Street Roots • March 9-15, 2018
From the series, “A Camel fo r the Son, ” this photo o f
Abshiro Aden M ohammed was taken in a Som ali refugee
camp in Kenya in 2000. She was the leader o f the women’s
group. One day she handed Fazal Sheikh a manifesto that
described the inequalities between men and women in her
society.
P H O T O B Y E M IL Y G R E E N
Fazal Sheikh’s “Common G round” exhibit at Portland A rt M useum features more than 170 photographs.
Fazal Sheikh’s documentary-based photography
brings worldwide human rights issues to light. His work
is featured in ‘Common Ground’ at Portland Art Museum
Abdul M anam, pa rt o f the series “The Victor Weeps,” in a
refugee camp in Pakistan in the late 1990s.
BY EMILY GREEN
S E N IO R S T A F F R E P O R T E R
u r >
A lim a Hassan Abdullai and her brother M ahm oud
photographed in 1993fo r the series “A Camel fo r the Son, ”
in a Som ali refugee camp in Kenya.
ommon Ground” fosters an illusive
I
impression of intimacy between the
viewer and the viewed.
The new exhibit at Portland Art Museum
features more than 170 photographs, most of
them portraits depicting victims of
circumstance; people whose lives were
forcefully reshaped through poverty, social
banishment and war. But sitting on the other
side of Fazal Sheikh’s camera, the exploited
are granted a rare moment of power.
Sheikh photographs his subjects only as
they wish to be portrayed, resulting in
captivating portraits that exude a sense of
dignity and calm that are often lacking in
images of disenfranchised people.
For nearly 25 years, Sheikh has documented
the occupants of refugee camps and other
marginalized communities around the world,
serving as a conduit through which they tell
their stories.
“Common Ground” leads visitors through
an elegantly displayed collection from eight
series of photos taken primarily in East Africa,
India and Pakistan between 1989 and 2013.
The names and tales of displacement of those
featured accompany many of the portraits.
The exhibit winds to its conclusion in an
interactive educational room featuring a wide
array of books, along with photos of Burmese
refugees who have resettled in Portland. This
space is a partnership between the museum
and Portland Meet Portland, a nonprofit that
works with newly arrived refugees. Visitors
will have the opportunity to pose written
questions that local refugees will later answer.
The room also displays a map where refugees
indicate areas they feel “safest” versus “least
welcome” in Portland.
“It’s a wonderful way for people to feel a
little more integrated into the exhibition,” said
Julia Dolan, Portland Art Museum
photography curator, during a sneak peek.
Sheikh, 52, was born and raised in
Manhattan but spent summers growing up
with his father’s family in Nairobi, Kenya.
After graduating from Princeton University in
1987, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship
to travel through Europe and along the
Eastern side of Africa to photograph. Shortly
after apartheid ended in South Africa, he
began to wrestle with displacement as he
documented people who had been pushed
outside of Johannesburg. Soon after, he
headed north to Kenya to photograph
refugees. He was bothered when he saw
photojournalists come in and out of camps
See SHEIKH, page 5