Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Kael Alford, Thorne Anderson, and Rita Leister

Truth, it has been said, is the first casualty of war. In the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, official, mass media “truth” has been slippery and elusive, leaving Americans with an incomplete view of life in Iraq during these recent war years. In their unflinching look at war-ravaged Iraq, photojournalists Abdul-Ahad, Alford, Anderson, and Leister show that life there is brutal, yet poignant; that compassion co-exists with anger, hatred, and fear.

Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art
January 18 – March 18
Exhibition opening: Thursday, January 18, 5–7 p.m.

Panel Discussion
Thursday, January 18, 7 p.m.
Miller Center for the Humanities, Room 105

Photojournalists Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson will participate in a panel discussion led by Lewis & Clark College faculty members Robert Eisinger, Associate Professor of Political Science, and Andrew Cortell, Associate Professor of International Affairs.

Kael Alford is a freelance photojournalist who has spent more than eight months of the last year and a half in Iraq. She was based in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Her recent work from Iraq focuses on the growing culture of resistance, conservative religion and the grass roots movements developing since the invasion of Iraq. Kael is one of the photographers featured in the CBC documentary Beyond Words. The film focuses on the world’s top war photojournalists, and attempts to turn the lens of attention onto them as they reflect upon their experience photographing war and conflicts.

Thorne Anderson has spent ten months of the last two years in Iraq. He is among the few active journalists who worked in Iraq during the sanctions period before the most recent war. While covering the war itself from Baghdad, he was arrested by Iraqi intelligence and expelled from the country. He returned to Iraq as soon as the borders opened at the end of the war and has covered the nascent occupation resistance movements - both Sunni and Shiite. His most recent Iraq coverage (late June - early September) focused on Shiite uprisings from the Mehdi Militia side from the defacto autonomous Sadr City to the besieged Najaf, where he and journalist, Phillip Robertson, spent three days inside the Imam Ali shrine with the Mehdi Militia and it supporters at the peak of the American military siege.