Zhari-Panjwai: Dispatches from Afghanistan New Work by Louie Palu

To complement Craig Barber’s work, award-winning Canadian photographer Louie Palu was invited by the Dalhousie Art Gallery to exhibit a suite of his photographic work produced in Afghanistan that profiles the activities of NATO-led Canadian military forces. Whereas Barber’s photographic project seeks redemption and reconciliation with a formative episode in American history, Palu’s images are a steely-eyed view of current Canadian engagements. No longer standing between opposing factions in a peacekeeping capacity, armed Canadian soldiers are now participating in a military mission that includes patrolling Afghan villages, securing territory and conducting outreach to the local populations, but also engaging in battle skirmishes while training soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) to fight the Taliban and insurgent forces. Within this context, Palu gathers subject matter from the midst of battle but also from beyond the frame of the gun sight. Indeed, he models his gaze after Frederick Varley, a Canadian war artist in the European battle theatre of World War I who later became a founding member of the Group of Seven. Like Varley, Palu seeks to communicate the all-encompassing destructive effects of war on people -- both civilian and military – and their cultures and environments. As a backdrop, the Afghan landscape remains eternal -- aged architecture still stands in spite of decades of strife. In this milieu, animals mill about as part of banal daily life and a modest economy or, in some cases, the subject of sacrificial rites. Although the debate about Canada’s combat role in Afghanistan rages on in political forums and media circulations, many photojournalistic images have short life spans in the public consciousness. Palu’s photography, however, transcends the mere gathering of documentary information. It is through the framing of charged subject matter, combined with a keen eye to formal, visual construction, that a psychological and emotional edge emerges in his work. Palu carefully selected this suite of work with the intent of searing images into viewers’ mind frames. These images are not intended for dismissal or dissipation by the turning of a page, the switching of a channel or the clicking of a mouse: these are the visual stories that must be told and remembered. These exhibitions were organized in conjunction with the international symposium titled The Politics of Forgetting: Stories to Pass On that took place from the 22-24 May at the University of King's College and Dalhousie University.