Dutch Discovery – World Press Photo 2011 at De Oude Kerk

I am not a religious person. For me, religion come from the same root word as legislation, meaning rules, law, a code. I feel I don’t subscribe to a particular religion, but I have my own spirituality. I can’t accept a strictly materialistic world when there is imagination, creativity and a wealth of unknowns. I believe in stories.

I was apprehensive at the thought of the World Press Photo 2011 exhibition at the Oude Kerk. This church is a beautiful building and a wonderful space for exhibitions. Light comes in through quite spectacular stained-glass windows. What I did not know is how I would feel about such a deeply emotional response within a prominently religious site. This is my conflict that I’m not able to accurately articulate. Don’t hold it against me.

Groups of large, high quality images of the photographs hang from lighting rigs. These rigs are arranged in a horseshoe shape, along the south aisle, around the ambulatory and along the north aisle. The first photo you see is the winner of Photo of the Year, Jodi Bieber’s portrait of Bibi Aisha. This girl is beautiful. I struggled to accept just how ugly people can act.

Following from the entrance along the first two-thirds of the exhibition, I felt mentally beat-up facing the captures of the horror of past twelve months. There are images of Haiti’s earthquake, Pakistan’s floods, the Love Parade’s crush, Mexico’s drug wars and the mass cremation of victims of the Chinese earthquake. I don’t know what to make of the photographs of Julian Assange and Kim Jong-Il with his son amidst all this. I guess they are people in the middle of a different kind of mess that was the previous year.

I want to highlight one particular work: Darcy Padilla’s THE JULIE PROJECT, an eighteen-year documentation of Julie Baird.

At this point, I was ready to break down. This is where the setting of a church started to creep into my consciousness. Photojournalism is about the objective recording of reality. Churches are usually centres of discussions into the metaphysical. But it just didn’t feel right to, say, sit within the church and take solace in a religion I was not part of, nor to rage to the sky and blame God for the series of tragedies.

I can’t say if it was intentional for the sports and nature photography to be a palette cleanser, but I thank then for it. Thomas P. Peschak’s photo of a landing gannet is an amazing instance of the beauty of nature. Mike Hutchings’s photo of Demy de Zeeuw getting kicked in the face is… well… amusing, and certainly lighter. Probably not for de Zeeuw, but accidental sport’s injuries can’t compare.

The World Press Photo organisation’s mission is “to encourage high professional standards in photojournalism and to promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information”. These awards are to show those exceptional examples of the craft. If ever I was desensitised to these very same events on television, These photographers are able to capture these real moment and make them more real.

A sign told me that all royalties made from the postcard of Bibi Aisha are donated to a foundation in her name. I bought one as I left.

The World Press Photo 2011 at the Oude Kerk runs until 19th June.