88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
November 25, 2015
by Giancarlo T. Roma
For anyone who knows conflict photographer André Liohn, he's among the first people that comes to mind when asked the question, "Who would you want on your side in a bar fight?" Liohn is not tall, but it's clear upon meeting him that he possesses a strength, physically and otherwise, that only comes with living through true hardship. He also exclusively wears black, rides a Harley, and has a tattoo on his right forearm that reads "REFUGEE" in block letters.
Liohn, 41, has spent the majority of the last decade photographing in war zones in Somalia, Syria, and Libya, where his coverage of the Libyan Civil War earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2011. But his new exhibition, Revogo at Caixa Cultural in São Paulo marks a pivotal point in his career. Last year, Liohn returned home and decided to turn the camera on his native Brazil for the first time in his career, haunted by the similarities his homeland bore to the war zones from which he'd come. Revogois his first solo exhibition, and also his first show of non-conflict photography. But if you didn't know any better, looking at the photographs you'd think Brazil was on the brink of an uprising. Each photograph is loaded with the kind of tension that puts you on high alert—sparks fly from the barrel of a handgun in the hands of a young boy, police lurk ominously outside a bombed-out bus, a woman begins to remove her jeans on an empty street, a motorcycle helmet lies empty in the street next to a pool of blood. Most pictures have a reddish hue to them, as if lit by a stoplight.
Last month, I spent a week with Liohn in Brazil and I was struck by his intensity and his sensitivity. During the workshop he taught the week following his opening, he kicked a man out of the class for photographing two people having sex, yelling at him until he was out the door. But if you watched Liohn closely in social settings, you would often find him writing notes in a small black notebook with the penmanship of a calligrapher. He was also, for the entirety of my time with him, deeply distraught over his recently dissolved relationship.
Sometimes, Liohn just seemed mythological. One day, while chatting at a friend's apartment, I asked him about a military helmet he'd suddenly taken out of his bag. At first, he said he'd forgotten where he'd gotten it. But after I pressed him, genuinely curious, he remembered: "Oh, this was Gaddafi's," he explained dispassionately. "I was the first journalist in his house and it was just sitting on a table. So I took it." He now uses it whenever he's in a war zone.
VICE: Why did you start photographing?
André Liohn :When I was six years old, my parents were getting married at the church. I remember that I wanted to go around the church but no one would allow me, so they gave me a small camera and they said, "OK cool, stay quiet," but then with the camera I understood I could go anywhere in the church and people would accept me. Without the camera, they wouldn't accept me running around. But with the camera I could. But from that day, until I was 31, I never touched a camera again, basically. But the idea of photography was always in my mind from that day—this idea that I could photograph.
How did you come to leave Brazil?
I left Brazil when I was 19 to work in Norway. I was on drugs, doing a lot of shyt in Brazil, and everything that I tried to do went wrong. Nothing of what I tried to do actually went well, because of my economic conditions, my intellectual conditions, my emotional conditions, the society, everything around me. Nothing was made to help me get out of the troubles I was in. Nothing.
So you felt like you needed to leave the country in order to do that?
First I left my city where I come from for São Paulo. In the beginning I was living with friends, and then I was living in the square here, Praça da República, for a little bit.
Like outside?
Yeah. I was sleeping outside for a few months. And I said, "I have to do something." So I met this Swiss guy and we became friends and started exchanging emails. I told him if I stayed in Brazil everything was going to go wrong for me. So he said, "OK, come to Switzerland and stay with me." So I went, and through one of his friends, I got a job working illegally as a lumberjack, cutting timber.
And why were you taking pictures of them?
For myself. I told them, "I'm here with them, I'm friends with them." And they asked if they could see the pictures. I said no, because at the time I wasn't thinking of becoming a photographer. I was just trying to be with them. I didn't think that I was making "photography." But then the guys who used drugs said to show them the pictures because they need to know how they actually live. So I showed them the pictures and they loved them and they said we've never seen something like that before here in Norway.
And you had no training at all?
No, no.
So how did you go from that to war photography?
I had a friend in Norway who was from Somalia and we met when I arrived in Trondheim. He was a refugee from Somalia, my age. The experience that he had as a child was very similar to my experience as a child in Brazil—the violence. He didn't have the drug part, but came from a very damaging society. So I started asking myself, why is he a refugee and I am a migrant? What is the difference between him being a refugee and me being a migrant if we have basically the same background? In 2006, he said, "I'm going back to Somalia," because he was invited to become the director of a radio program. He had studied journalism in Norway and I said, "Wow, fukk, I'm coming with you." He told me it wasn't going to happen because Somalia is incredibly dangerous but I told him I could handle it being from Brazil. I was pretty ignorant.
Was it worse?
It was far worse. When we arrived in Mogadishu, I was very, very, very scared. I wasn't prepared for that, because it was war. Proper war, you know? I was basically one of the first white people that came to Mogadishu since 1995. And it was amazing, man. So I stayed only a few days, as it started getting really dangerous with kidnappings starting to happen. There was a Swedish cameraman that had been shot in the neck. It was a civil war. Do you know Black Hawk Down? That happened in Mogadishu. I told myself I had to leave, so I left. My friend, his name is Abdi, was Abdi. He stayed there and a few years later he was shot down and killed.
Why was he killed?
Because he was a journalist working for the radio and they were killing every journalist. I mean, all of the people, basically, that I met at the time at this radio, they are dead today. All of them.
A War Photographer Returns Home | VICE | United States
continued with photos in link
@Malta
by Giancarlo T. Roma
For anyone who knows conflict photographer André Liohn, he's among the first people that comes to mind when asked the question, "Who would you want on your side in a bar fight?" Liohn is not tall, but it's clear upon meeting him that he possesses a strength, physically and otherwise, that only comes with living through true hardship. He also exclusively wears black, rides a Harley, and has a tattoo on his right forearm that reads "REFUGEE" in block letters.
Liohn, 41, has spent the majority of the last decade photographing in war zones in Somalia, Syria, and Libya, where his coverage of the Libyan Civil War earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2011. But his new exhibition, Revogo at Caixa Cultural in São Paulo marks a pivotal point in his career. Last year, Liohn returned home and decided to turn the camera on his native Brazil for the first time in his career, haunted by the similarities his homeland bore to the war zones from which he'd come. Revogois his first solo exhibition, and also his first show of non-conflict photography. But if you didn't know any better, looking at the photographs you'd think Brazil was on the brink of an uprising. Each photograph is loaded with the kind of tension that puts you on high alert—sparks fly from the barrel of a handgun in the hands of a young boy, police lurk ominously outside a bombed-out bus, a woman begins to remove her jeans on an empty street, a motorcycle helmet lies empty in the street next to a pool of blood. Most pictures have a reddish hue to them, as if lit by a stoplight.
Last month, I spent a week with Liohn in Brazil and I was struck by his intensity and his sensitivity. During the workshop he taught the week following his opening, he kicked a man out of the class for photographing two people having sex, yelling at him until he was out the door. But if you watched Liohn closely in social settings, you would often find him writing notes in a small black notebook with the penmanship of a calligrapher. He was also, for the entirety of my time with him, deeply distraught over his recently dissolved relationship.
Sometimes, Liohn just seemed mythological. One day, while chatting at a friend's apartment, I asked him about a military helmet he'd suddenly taken out of his bag. At first, he said he'd forgotten where he'd gotten it. But after I pressed him, genuinely curious, he remembered: "Oh, this was Gaddafi's," he explained dispassionately. "I was the first journalist in his house and it was just sitting on a table. So I took it." He now uses it whenever he's in a war zone.
VICE: Why did you start photographing?
André Liohn :When I was six years old, my parents were getting married at the church. I remember that I wanted to go around the church but no one would allow me, so they gave me a small camera and they said, "OK cool, stay quiet," but then with the camera I understood I could go anywhere in the church and people would accept me. Without the camera, they wouldn't accept me running around. But with the camera I could. But from that day, until I was 31, I never touched a camera again, basically. But the idea of photography was always in my mind from that day—this idea that I could photograph.
How did you come to leave Brazil?
I left Brazil when I was 19 to work in Norway. I was on drugs, doing a lot of shyt in Brazil, and everything that I tried to do went wrong. Nothing of what I tried to do actually went well, because of my economic conditions, my intellectual conditions, my emotional conditions, the society, everything around me. Nothing was made to help me get out of the troubles I was in. Nothing.
So you felt like you needed to leave the country in order to do that?
First I left my city where I come from for São Paulo. In the beginning I was living with friends, and then I was living in the square here, Praça da República, for a little bit.
Like outside?
Yeah. I was sleeping outside for a few months. And I said, "I have to do something." So I met this Swiss guy and we became friends and started exchanging emails. I told him if I stayed in Brazil everything was going to go wrong for me. So he said, "OK, come to Switzerland and stay with me." So I went, and through one of his friends, I got a job working illegally as a lumberjack, cutting timber.
And why were you taking pictures of them?
For myself. I told them, "I'm here with them, I'm friends with them." And they asked if they could see the pictures. I said no, because at the time I wasn't thinking of becoming a photographer. I was just trying to be with them. I didn't think that I was making "photography." But then the guys who used drugs said to show them the pictures because they need to know how they actually live. So I showed them the pictures and they loved them and they said we've never seen something like that before here in Norway.
And you had no training at all?
No, no.
So how did you go from that to war photography?
I had a friend in Norway who was from Somalia and we met when I arrived in Trondheim. He was a refugee from Somalia, my age. The experience that he had as a child was very similar to my experience as a child in Brazil—the violence. He didn't have the drug part, but came from a very damaging society. So I started asking myself, why is he a refugee and I am a migrant? What is the difference between him being a refugee and me being a migrant if we have basically the same background? In 2006, he said, "I'm going back to Somalia," because he was invited to become the director of a radio program. He had studied journalism in Norway and I said, "Wow, fukk, I'm coming with you." He told me it wasn't going to happen because Somalia is incredibly dangerous but I told him I could handle it being from Brazil. I was pretty ignorant.
Was it worse?
It was far worse. When we arrived in Mogadishu, I was very, very, very scared. I wasn't prepared for that, because it was war. Proper war, you know? I was basically one of the first white people that came to Mogadishu since 1995. And it was amazing, man. So I stayed only a few days, as it started getting really dangerous with kidnappings starting to happen. There was a Swedish cameraman that had been shot in the neck. It was a civil war. Do you know Black Hawk Down? That happened in Mogadishu. I told myself I had to leave, so I left. My friend, his name is Abdi, was Abdi. He stayed there and a few years later he was shot down and killed.
Why was he killed?
Because he was a journalist working for the radio and they were killing every journalist. I mean, all of the people, basically, that I met at the time at this radio, they are dead today. All of them.
A War Photographer Returns Home | VICE | United States
continued with photos in link
@Malta
