Intended Consequences, Photographs and Interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik
During the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups, known as the Interhamwe. Among the most isolated survivors are women who have borne children as a result of those rapes. The number of children born from these atrocities is estimated around 20,000. Due to the stigma of rape and “having a child of the militia,” the women’s communities and few surviving relatives have largely shunned them. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape brings together Jonathan Torgovnik’s remarkable portraits of these women and children, and their harrowing first-hand testimonies.
The exhibition on view at Aperture Gallery is comprised of thirty-one stunning individual portraits of these women with their children, accompanied by their testimonies—intensely personal accounts of what they have gone through, the daily challenges they continue to face, and their conflicted feelings about raising a child who is a reminder of horrors endured. The testimonies are presented in text panels and multimedia interviews projected in the center of the installation, produced by MediaStorm. The exhibition also features a video interview with Torgovnik.
Come see this powerful exhibition on view starting tomorrow, Friday, February 20, at Aperture Gallery.
Click here to view a special multimedia feature from Intended Consequences.
Aperture’s accompanying book, Intended Consequences will be published worldwide on April 7, 2009, coinciding with the fifteenth anniversary of the genocide and the opening of a satellite exhibition in the lobby of the United Nations.
Opening reception:
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 6:00–8:00 pm
Exhibition on view:
Friday, February 20–Thursday, May 7, 2009
Panel Discussion with the Artist: Wednesday, April 29, 6:30 p.m.
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
(between 10th and 11th Avenues)
New York, NY
(212) 505-5555
Subway: C, E to 23rd Street and 8th Avenue or 1 to 28th Street and 7th Avenue
FREE
This book and exhibition were done in collaboration with the Open Society Institute, Amnesty International, and Foundation Rwanda.
Tags: Amnesty International, Foundation Rwanda, Intended Consequences, Jonathan Torgovnik, MediaStorm, Open Society Institute
February 28th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
[...] Intended Consequences, Photographs and Interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik is a multimedia (photos, text, video) exhibition documenting the devastation left in the wake of the sexual violence unleashed during the Rwandese genocide. In February of 2006, Torgovnik traveled to East Africa to report on a story for Newsweek, coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. While in Rwanda, he heard an interview with Odette, a survivor who was raped during the Rwandan genocide and as a result of that rape, had a child and contracted HIV/AIDS. She described how her entire family had been killed and recounted the terrible abuse she experienced. Odette’s horrific story led Torgovnik to return to Rwanda to work on a personal project about women who, like her, were left pregnant as a result the militia’s heinous crimes. Over the next three years, he made repeated visits to photograph these women and their children, and record their heart-wrenching stories. [...]