Date: 2011
Creator of the image: Paul James
Date of the image creation: 2011
Medium of the image: Photograph
Person depicted: Child in Mutuwal informal settlement
Context: A girl and her mother sit with friends and family in the Mutuwal slum settlement, in the port district of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The girl sits reading on a rug on rough rubbish-ground, surrounded by learning materials. She smiles at a passing stranger who lifts his camera to show her mother — who also smiles and nods her head. The photograph first appeared publicly at an exhibition in Melbourne, Australia, sponsored by Global Reconciliation called ‘Ancient Cultures, New Futures: A photographic exhibition for Sri Lankan Reconciliation’. The exhibition notes record the rationale: ‘In composing this meditation of sadness and hope, the photographs in this exhibition strive authentically and uncompromisingly to disrupt, undermine and circumvent the kinds of images that have hitherto so forcefully controlled the discourses of the conflict. Going to the spaces between the conventional symbols, they search out small human moments, looking for ideas, for momentary connections that can be stirred into life and transformed into sites for the rebuilding of meaning.’
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