Comments about Thomas Hirschhorn's 'Incommensurable Banner' from the Fabrica comments book:
"It's interesting how easy it is to become inured to the suffering of others when viewing a block of images such as these and the others in the University gallery. Photography's failure is how it distances you from suffering whilst pulling you close. There is no 'bodily' contact. The record is away and other, these are other people. The presentation of this work in a sort of discotheque of colour lessens the specialness of each individual event. This won't stop now. That would be naive to think. People are resilient and can learn to cope with all sorts of events, perhaps that is why we will continue to experience and perpetrate aggressive events such as war."
"Although this piece is indeed shocking and extreme I feel it does not so much highlight the suffering inflicted by war as create a gallery of gore that appeals to the dark, voyeuristic side of our nature, that which compels us to slow down when we pass a car accident. We are horrified by what we see, yet we cannnot turn away. We are constantly bombarded by the media reports of bombings and suicide attacks, 'friendly fire incidents' and ghosts of past war atrocities yet we do not allow the victims of these awful events to rest easy, to dredge up these images and display them to an audience which has (largely) never experienced the sorrow of conflict firsthand, an audience who will recoil in horror and make offhand statements about the transience of life and exclaim 'what is the point of it all?' before going to lunch, making light jokes about what they have seen is not a respectful treatment of the dead. Would we respond in the same way if it were images of OUR loved ones splashed across the banner? Would we pace up and down in respectful silence, contemplating all the evil occurring in far flung corners of the world, brought to us safely anaesthetised through the medium of our televisions and the omni-net? No. We would fall to our knees and we would wail."
Comments about Thomas Hirschhorn's 'Incommensurable Banner' from the Fabrica comments book:
"It seems totally surreal and makes you realise how lucky we are to live in a non-war zone!! Well done to photographer – need a lot of courage and bravery!"
"It's horrible, these people's lives ruined or ended."
"It shows the suffering that is hidden by the media so well."
"Lovely colours"
"This is all happening now and in our town EDO/MBM in Brighton manufacturing the components that allow this kind of carnage to continue. SHUT THEM DOWN!"
"I've recently graduated on Media and Popular Culture at Leeds Met … My final year dissertation on film, more exactly, the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and its representation in fiction both in Spain and abroad… It's been a long struggle, most of my life, to know and learn about the recent history of my country: this was banned for ages because of Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975)… Still is kind of difficult to talk about this with both of my parents… Still is hard to today for most spaniards to talk about this… Although the images in today's exhibition made me cry, not much seems new to me and yet, tears can't be prevented from coming out of my eyes 'seeing' what human beings still are inflicting onto other human beings … yet (and again) these horrible images, perhaps in a smaller size are shown to us everyday through the media and it seems to me that perhaps we have grown blind and deaf and mute as if our hearts have stopped beating as if we too are dead!"
"Thanks for putting this up in Brighton. This reality needs to be seen."
"This is an important work. Please take away the wall!"
"Shocking but very valid."
"I started out being brave to view these images and halfway along I was suddenly being confronted with a very sick feeling in my stomach (literally a physical sensation of sickness and pain!!) These images are that powerful!! In reality all these are even hundreds of times more shocking and dreadful. Gruesome."
Comments about Thomas Hirschhorn's 'Incommensurable Banner' from the Fabrica comments book:
"Truth at last."
"Bold and uncompromising, if a little obvious. This is just one truth, framing in an exhibition in that most liberal of cities distorts the message of the piece to bend it purely to one end of the political spectrum. Where are the Al-Queda victims in this picture? Very provoking piece, though, expertly realised."
"Incommensurable!"
"suitably disturbing . . .
comment though that the biggest casualties of war by the end of C20 are civilian 90% i.e. women, children and ineligible' men (UN) . . .
one thing stands out is the absence of caucasian victims thus the exhibition and war is … someplace out there far away …"
"resist the bomb makers – smashEDO"
"Unbelievable – war is disgusting – humanity can be evil. 'War' is an abstract word – until you see these images."
"very good X"
"War is so evil."
"Nauseating and overpowering. This is an exhibition that needs the widest possible audience. If we could get the likes of Blair, Bush and Brown to understand the consequences of their actions."
"If everyone saw these important images there would be no more war!"
"It's good to show the real horror of war – if it's done in our name we should know what it means."
"Powerful and eye opening. I am forever affected and want to make the world a better place. Peace and love is the only way…"
"Appalling and necessary – but I was not sure if the pictures humanised the victims of war or de-humanised them. Not nice. But how could it be?"
response from Alice Flight, artist:
"I don't usually look for what people have written about things but wanted to to this…felt like I wanted to join in a communal response to these images…not in my name…didn't feel any responsibility or anything but just wanted to see what people wrote….it was weird having my back to the images to start with. I felt like that felt insensitive to start with when I turned and looked at the books on the table where the images are. I could sort of feel the images there behind me….the faces….that was sort of the thing to me….afterwards I walked along the seafront and past the children's playground on the front and all the kids running around in the sunshine which was heaven."
On Tuesday a group of photography and art students from BHASVIC (Brighton and Hove 6th Form College) came to Fabrica for a workshop with their teacher, Polly. I was nervous about the session because I was curious to see how what a workshop would be like where it was possible that not everyone would have seen the exhibition. Since everyone who enters the Fabrica exhibition has the choice as to whether to go in and see the banner or not it was important that this group had that choice too and that the individuals in it did not feel that they all had to look at the images just because they were there as an organised group. I think the session went very well in the end and the students were very articulate about their thoughts and feelings about the work. They had to come up with a brief for a new piece of work involving photography and their ideas were great. They suggested putting on a multi-voiced outdoor exhibition in as a protest against war using a stage and projections representing different views in the same spirit. Another idea was to throw paper aeroplanes from a tall building each with handwritten message on it protesting about how it is never the sons and daughters of those in power who are sent off to war to be killed. They thought it important that the messages be handwritten so that there was a personal touch to the planes and they pointed out that the planes would remind people of war. Someone raised the doubt about how to get so many messages handwritten and one fo the group really impressed me with her matter of face response to this that all you had to do was involve loads of people. She made it sound so easy to involve loads of people and spoke with such assured confidence which was really inspiring.
