Since 2003, the United States' presence in The Middle East has had an immense impact, for better and for worse. After spending two years in Iraq in the midst of the U.S. invasion and the war's subsequent events, American journalists Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson captured a series of images showing the war in its infancy. Eerily enough, many images of the region today remain the same, making the tragedy of this war a reality. Each picture has its own unique narrative and impressively creates a sort of intimacy between the situation and its viewer.
When asked about the intention of the photographs, journalist Kael Alford stated: "I consider these photographs invitations to the viewer to learn more, to explore the relationships between public policy objectives and their real-world execution, and to consider the legacies of human grief, anger, mistrust, and dismay that surely follow violent conflict. I hope that these images will also open a window on the grace of Iraq and perhaps help to give a few of these memories a place to rest.”
Visit Eye Level in Iraq from February 9 to June 16, 2013 at The de Young Museum.
