In 2008 world-renowned portrait photographer Rankin travelled with Oxfam to meet survivors who have taken refuge in camps around Goma, in the northern Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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The exhibition’s name “Cheka Kidogo”, meaning “laugh a little” in Swahili, celebrates the spirit of the Congolese people in the face of adversity, but was also the phrase that people called out to their friends being photographed. Rankin’s touching photographs capture the bravery, humanity, strength, and determination of the people who live there.
Rankin said:
“I think we have become anesthetised to traditional photographs of conflict victims. By taking my celebrity portraiture style of photography and applying it to the survivors in the camps in Congo I have tried to get beyond the statistics and show the human side of the conflict.
“It is crazy that we hear nothing about the Democratic Republic of Congo. The level of suffering there is horrendous, but it hardly makes the news. I heard awful stories of young girls being raped and people fleeing attacks on their villages. Despite the suffering that they have been through the people of Congo are just like us and need our help. I hope the exhibition will wake people up to what is going on.”
The photos were exhibited in outdoor exhibitions in Dublin’s Wolfe Tone Park and Belfast’s City Hall in 2009. The Dublin exhibition was generously sponsored by Irish Aid.
