In the wake of nearly twenty-three years of brutal civil war, the population of Southern Sudan lies shattered and strewn across the Central and East African landscape. More than two and half million people have been killed and another five million have been internally and externally displaced by the conflict. Since January of 2003, a new exodus has flooded the western border region of Darfur in Sudan with displaced persons fleeing the same regime responsible for the Southern tragedy. Despite the fact that the United States has formally labeled this Diaspora genocide, the killing continues unchecked, threatening to shed blood on every grain of sand. In the words of former U.S. President Clinton, “If the horrors of the Holocaust taught us anything, it is the high cost of remaining silent and paralyzed in the face of Genocide.”

Notwithstanding pleas from the victims and bystanders around the world for cessation, systematic scorched earth campaigns continue. As a documentary photographer, I have covered displacement in the aftermath of this aggression wielded by the ruthless Sudanese Government. After graduating from Calvin College in May of 2002 I sold my car to pay my way to East Africa to document critical social issues. I am now in the final stages of completing, what has been, four years of documentation – a sustained effort to describe the two genocidal civil wars unfolding in modern-day Sudan.

Images are powerful statements by witnesses who were present as these events unfolded; indeed, they have become the primary sources in the documentation of our recent history. Yet an image becomes powerful only after it is given an audience. The collapse of news magazine networks for the distribution of in-depth reporting of historical events has required those who cover subjects such as the Sudanese condition to move to other venues. As part of a grass-roots level awareness campaign, this evolving narrative and compelling indictment, is now an exhibit and an appeal against the conflicts of Sudan while advocating for the people they are displacing. To date, this project, although in need of final form, travels universities in the United States with many including the work as part of a curriculum and as the impetus for further conversation within the educational disciplines of foreign policy, economics, communications, sociology, history, third world development, and art. To complete the photographic component of this is to mark the beginning of a journey that will include a book and exhibition designed and distributed with a focus on raising the level of debate.

The importance of the exposure of this work cannot be overstated. It sheds light on global issues by capturing them on a human level in a way that simple statistics never can. The testimony must be seen. Ultimately, my goal is to create a document which will give a human face to what was once unimaginable but nowadays shockingly familiar – a genocide unfolding before the eyes of an impotent, dithering world. The cost of doing nothing is one humanity can never afford.


Project Prospectus (PDF)