Never Again - Stories from Survivors of Genocide in Rwanda

Never Again is an issue based exhibition that acknowledges the traditions inherent in photo documentary work while seeking to challenge the viewpoint of the author and the visual language employed. Never Again seeks to allow the viewer to live the experience of another.

In 1994 the world stood by as one of the most efficiently organised and systematically executed acts of genocide occurred. When finally forced to act, Australia was one of a number of countries that contributed to the United Nations Assistant Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR II). Angela Blakely and David Lloyd were commissioned by the History section of the Australian Army to accompany the first rotation of troops to Rwanda and (photo) document Australia’s involvement in this crisis. In 2006 they returned to Rwanda (under the auspices of the Australia Council), and again in 2008, to find and tell the stories of some of the survivors of genocide.

In this project they have attempted to capture Rwanda fifteen years on. Photographing massacre sites as they exist today they bring together two extreme and ostensibly disparate events separated only by the thin veil of time. The sites appear banal and impotent. But they house a history that condemns not only the perpetrators but also the inaction of the West, bringing mockery to the United Nations claim of “never again”.

Capturing stories of survivors, some now forced to beg on streets, raises questions concerning Australia’s responsibility for the people whose lives were saved and severely altered by our involvement in this crisis. Does our responsibility end when we withdraw troops? This is a timely question considering our involvement in Iraq. But it is the stories (visual and text) of the sixteen women they met living on a hill behind Kigali that raises questions as to the world’s responsibility to genocide survivors. These women, widowed through the genocide watched as other family members were murdered. Many were kept as prisoners, raped, shot, or hacked with machetes. Today they live among the perpetrators, forced into silence by their slight of numbers and an elusive justice.

This exhibition makes visual the voice of the survivors, the massacre sites and the backdrop in which these must exist with the perpetrators of the genocide. Never Again prompts the audience to ask fundamental questions of responsibility, humanity and racism. Importantly, this body of work gives voice to people who have been portrayed as a “collective them”.

David Lloyd and Angela Blakely lecture in photojournalism and documentary practice at Griffith University. For over fifteen years they have worked, individually and/or collaboratively, on a number of projects that have ranged from global conflict areas to personal crises. In 1995 they began working collaboratively and were commissioned by the History section of the Australian Army to document Australia's involvement in the Rwanda crises. In 1996 Blakely and Lloyd continued their collaboration and were commissioned by the World Health Organisation (Euro Office) to document sensitive health care issues in the former USSR. Prior to this they had worked individually with aid organisations in Somalia, Bosnia, Malawi and continued to work on a number of projects within Australia – sexual deviancy, hospice and palliative care, suicide and grief, eating disorders, solvent abuse in the far north regional areas. In 2006 and 2008 they returned to Rwanda to collect stories (visual and text) of the survivors of the 1994 genocide who are denied justice through the pragmatics of national politics and the indifference of the international community.

For Blakely and Lloyd, (visual) storytelling is a strongly political act. It can be used to challenge the boundaries that promote exclusion and establish a more universal and inclusive community. In attempting to give voice to the people in their stories, they seek to celebrate each person’s particularity, negate stereotypes and identify those traits that connect us as a species.