Three images from journalist and Louisville native Molly Bingham's photographic documentary, "IRAQ: remains" at Kaviar Gallery:
- A young girl in a hospital bed looks on as doctors examine an X-ray of her showing a bullet lodged near her spine
- Iraqis look for missing relatives in a room packed with bodies found in a mass grave of people mostly killed in 1991's U.S.-encouraged uprising
- A U.S. soldier delivers supplies to a classroom: some schoolgirls are apprehensive about this armed man; others react as if he's as commonplace as their teacher
The opening reception for "Iraq: remains," a collection of Bingham's images from 14 months in the country, is June 5 at 6 p.m., in connection with the First Friday Trolley Hop and the Louisville Visual Arts Festival, which Louisville.com previewed earlier. (Bingham, is in London, however, and is unable to attend.)
The exhibit runs until Aug. 1. The first rotation, "Early Days," will show through June 27, with "Reaping" beginning June 30.
"This is the first time it's been shown this way in a two-part rotation, which had its own challenges," Bingham said of the exhibit, which was first shown at Washington, DC's, R Street Gallery in 2007. "But I think it's interesting. I like the way we've decided to hang it and what Blair's [Kaviar Forge Gallery Manager Blair Arseneaux Manning] done with it."
"My career as a journalist, particularly as a photographer, has been largely built around the notion of building understanding between communities," Bingham said.
"If people are able to go and spend a little time and just contemplate the information and the images together and think about what it means for your country to be occupied by foreigners and the kind of response that provokes in human beings, be they Iraqis or Americans or Afghans or Russians or whoever, I hope that builds a level of understanding of people that we don't know that well."
Alongside the photographs, Kaviar Gallery is playing Bingham and co-director Steve Connors's film "Meeting Resistance," a documentary released in 2007 that "raises the veil of anonymity surrounding the Iraqi insurgency by meeting face to face with individuals who are passionately engaged in the struggle."
Tomorrow Louisville.com will feature an interview with Bingham, covering the evolution of reactions to her film, how she gained access to insurgents and details behind some of the photographs on display at the Kaviar Gallery. [Update: The interview is here.]
(Photo: Molly Bingham)
