Memoria, photographs by James Nachtwey

The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris is showing photographs by James Nachtwey until 29 July 2018. An exhibition both harsh and magnificent — and in any case not to be missed.

I was a witness. A witness to those people from whom everything had been taken — their homes, their families, their arms and legs, even their judgment. And yet, one thing had not been taken from them: dignity, that irreducible element of the human being. These images are my testimony.

James Nachtwey

Wars and violence

Stepping into the first of the four spaces in which James Nachtwey's photographs are displayed, you're plunged straight into the subject. We arrive in the West Bank in 2000 and in Nicaragua in 1984. A first series of colour images takes the visitor into a world of violence — freeze-frames of war scenes. The colours are vivid and saturated, the scenes striking. The visit begins.

The world of James Nachtwey, American photographer born in Syracuse in 1948, becomes reality as you walk through. About a hundred photographs covering the period 1983–2015 take you to Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda, India, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq, among others. It's a journey alongside the most vulnerable, and through them, a journey through human barbarity. A journey to undertake out of respect for these women and men.

The mix of colour and black-and-white photographs is sometimes tricky to handle. Here the layout gives each type of photograph a strength and depth that comes not from the technique used, but from the subjects photographed.

A small personal favourite for the section devoted to wartime medicine, and especially the installation "Sacrifice" — a wall of 60 images taken in military hospitals in Iraq in 2006.

More about Memoria, photographs by James Nachtwey

Maison européenne de la photographie, 5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris. From 30/05/2018 to 29/07/2018.

Curators: Laurie Hurwitz, Roberto Koch and James Nachtwey

Exhibition website: https://www.mep-fr.org/event/memoria/