Black-and-white and color photographs hang on the walls, taken by Christian Farnsworth during his time spent in Madagascar as a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid-1990s and during his most recent excursion to West Africa as a crisis volunteer and freelance photographer for organizations such as USAID, the World Food Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Cape photographer tells untold stories
By Whit Richardson
Keepmecurrent.com
June 2, 2005
CAPE ELIZABETH: The walls of the House of Frames in South Portland are covered in images of Africa, portraying a world torn down by violence and hunger; a world of self-inflicted environmental degradation; a world where traditional culture clashes with modern ideas.
Cape Elizabeth photographer Christian Farnsworth said he wants his images to recount tales of this faraway world otherwise never heard.
Black-and-white and color photographs hang on the walls, taken by Farnsworth during his time spent in Madagascar as a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid-1990s and during his most recent excursion to West Africa as a crisis volunteer and freelance photographer for organizations such as USAID, the World Food Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
He returned to Cape Elizabeth about a year ago, and in addition to organizing the hundreds of images he shot during his travels he has been substitute teaching at South Portland and Cape Elizabeth schools. His show at the House of Frames is his Maine premiere, but he has presented his work at several shows in California and Africa in the past.
"I hope to share the emotions, the routine, the predicaments that are truly foreign to most of us here - and to pique your interest in humanity and environment beyond your own borders," Farnsworth writes in an artist's note.
Items brought back from Farnsworth's travels through Africa are arranged on the walls and around the room, as props that bring the world portrayed in the images alive.
Rough-hewn machetes and axes from West Africa hang alongside photographs of refugee camps in Guinea, where people from three neighboring countries in the throes of violent upheaval have flocked in search of a safe haven.
The machete is a tool of a farmer, but in the stories told by Farnsworth they are used for things much darker. One black-and-white image shows a man from Sierra Leone standing in a refugee camp in Guinea. His hand is missing, hacked off by a machete in the hands of someone he knew from his own village, a member of one of the many rebel groups that perpetuate the violence and upheaval in that country.
Farnsworth said his 18 months spent freelancing for the various relief organizations in Guinea morphed his work into a focused look at the human story, whereas his work in Madagascar as an environmental volunteer had been largely focused on photographing landscapes, environmental degradation and the humans' relationship with nature. Farnsworth's work from Madagascar hangs on a separate wall with its own set of props.
Long thin metal spears hang alongside an image of indigenous villagers in Madagascar driving a herd of cattle across their fields to turn the soil and a black-and-white image of a swath of rainforest burned to the ground to make way for manioch and sweet potato crops.
Some of Farnsworth's photographs are documentary style, people and faces; some are landscapes and some are the results of more artistic endeavors. One image imposes a pair of child's eyes between a few remaining trees in a photograph of slash and burn agriculture in the rainforest. The device highlights the interaction between humans and their natural environment.
One of his favorite images is of a young African boy looking into the camera while sitting on his mother's lap. They wait patiently for cornmeal or bulghur wheat in a food distribution line at Kouankan refugee camp in Guinea.
Farnsworth said he is struck by this young boy's face, which displays an ageless quality. He saw this quality in the faces of many people he met while in West Africa, where people had lived through experiences of the brutal violence, rape, hunger and poverty. A young boy's face could appear fresh and curious with wide-open eyes one day and sagacious and worn the next.
As a documentary photographer Farnsworth wants to give a voice to people who would otherwise never be heard, voices that would tell of families murdered and homes destroyed, stories that exist like myth in the safe and comfortable environs of southern Maine. These are stories Farnsworth is determined to tell.
Sometimes Farnsworth faces the same question every documentarian faces at some point - where is the line between exploitation and documentation? If people he photographs ask why he is taking their picture, Farnsworth has a simple answer: "No one knows your stories until I pass them along."
Farnsworth said he might want to return to school for an master of fine arts degree, or teach, or continue photographing and showing his work. One thing he has wanted to do for a long time is return to Madagascar. His plan is to solo trek the entire island, 1,000 miles from north to south, the whole time documenting the people and habitat destruction. "It's sort of a fantasy I've had for a while," he said.
Farnsworth's trekking plans are not just a fun idea. He hopes to use the trek to raise money to begin a scholarship program in honor of a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who was murdered while working at a national park in Madagascar.
He envisions a scholarship at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar that would send students from that country to Europe or the states and bring students from abroad to Madagascar to experience first-hand what is happening in that country.
"Go see how they're burning the rain forest, go see the realities of some of this stuff," Farnsworth said.
Farnsworth's show will run at the House of Frames on Broadway in South Portland until June 25.
