Side Gallery
Next Exhibition
20 March - 15 May 2010
LONG STORY TOLD BIT BY BIT: LIBERIA RETOLD Tim Hetherington
Tim Hetherington spent eight years living in West Africa, four of which were spent in Liberia. From the time when he was, effectively, embedded with LURD to his documentation of the immediate post-war period and of the trial of former President Charles Taylor as a war criminal, he builds up a complex picture of the rough iconography of the war, the unraveling dynamics of power, the human tragedy, the triumph and destruction. It is a narrative populated with an extraordinary range of characters. Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold is published by Umbrage.
‘I was in Liberia with the journalist James Brabazon to make a film for the BBC in 2003. I found myself as the only photographer living behind rebel lines in the civil war, living with one and a half thousand men of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy. It was completely surreal – it could be terrible in moments, hilarious or boring in others. It wasn’t a case where we could get out. Once we were in, we were in and we didn’t know where this journey was going to take us. There were moments... It got to a point where it went far beyond what I could mentally deal with. I stayed on in the country, living there and following the transformation of the country as it picked itself up after the war.’