By The Poetry Foundation
Shame Every Rose: Images of Afghanistan, a photography exhibition currently on view at the Poetry Foundation gallery, 61 West Superior Street, displays the works of photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy and complements the June issue of Poetry magazine, “Landays.”
A form of oral folk poetry, landays – the term references a short, poisonous snake – are composed by and circulated among Pashtun women. Dense with emotion, these short, couplet-style poems are featured in the June issue of Poetry alongside Murphy’s images of Afghanistan.
“I wanted to shoot the drama, emotion, humor and darkness of their poetry,” said Murphy about his photos and his short film, Snake.
Taken over a period of 18 years, the photographs in this exhibition are sequenced to suggest the form of a landay and are meant to be read (or viewed) from left to right. The exhibition is free and open to the public and will run until August 24th.
In 2008, Murphy published A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan, which focused on the turbulent life of the Afghan people since 1994.
His film of the same name was a 2012 Emmy Award nominee and received the 2012 Liberty in Media Prize, and his 2012 multimedia film Syrian Spring was nominated for a Prix Bayeux-Calvados for War Reporting.
Murphy’s films include music videos for PJ Harvey, as well as an alternative view of the London Olympics for the New Yorker. In 2014, he will release a book of photographs focusing on the United States.
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Previously: “My Body Belongs To Me; To Others Its Mastery.”
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Here’s that PJ Harvey video:
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Murphy’s original pitch and trailer for A Darkness Visible:
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From The Frontline Club in London:
“From 1994 to 2006, Seamus Murphy photographed the effects of the Taliban regime, the tumultuous years of civil war and the historical elections following the fall of the Taliban. Alongside scenes of war and politics, his magnificent photographs capture intimate images of domesticity, work and leisure.”
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Comments welcome.
Posted on June 28, 2013