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"The expression of a spell. Since his first trip to Morocco in 1972, Harry Gruyaert has returned again and again, in search of the initial shock he felt: a splendid harmony between shapes, colours, the everyday gestures of people and nature. From the High Atlas to the desert, from the countryside to Marrakech, Fez, Essaouira or Erfoud, Gruyaert's images are imaginary theatres in which he expresses the spell that this country has exerted on him for over 50 years. But his photographs are also paradoxically very physical. "Making a photograph means both seeking contact and refusing it, being the most there and the least there at the same time. In the field, it's a real 'battle' with reality, a kind of trance to record an image or perhaps miss the whole thing. It's in this struggle that I find myself at my best.
Morocco is the expression of this particular tension, halfway between exaltation and rapture. " - Publisher presentation

Publisher : Textuel
November 2023
French
ISBN : 978-2-84597-976-5
29 x 23,5
Hardcover
208 pages

Morocco. 2023.

In the tropical region of Los Yungas, Bolivia, resides an African monarch surrounded by coca plantations—Julio Pinedo. He traces his lineage back to Uchicho, the Kikongo tribe's king who, as a slave, arrived from Congo in 1820. Despite never aspiring to be the king of Afro-Bolivians, the demands of his community compel him to confront the contemporary challenges faced by minorities in Bolivia, a nation where African heritage has struggled to persist for decades. A new era is dawning for Afro-Bolivians, symbolized by his heir, Prince Rolando Julio Pinedo Larrea, who is poised to assume the responsibility and bridge both his community and family to their illustrious past.

The Royal Pinedos

In September of 2013, Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall was the scene of a terrorist attack by the Islamist group al-Shabaab, which left 67 people dead. Political leaders were then urged to implement a security system.

Since then, a contract has been signed between the Chinese company Huawei and Safaricom, Kenya's main telecommunications operator. The aim is to install cameras on Nairobi's main roads, and send the data to the national police headquarters. The city is now home to nearly 2,000 cameras.

However, these surveillance cameras are not solving the city's crime problem: since 2023, a report by Magnum's partners at the Edgelands Institute, an organization that studies the digitization of urban security, has shown that criminal activity has only increased in Nairobi over the last ten years. Video surveillance also poses an ethical problem, as the country lacks sufficient data protection laws to prevent the misuse of data circulating via surveillance systems.

Nairobi's vast network of CCTV cameras has raised concerns about the privacy of Kenyans.

Nairobi: Africa's First City Under...

From November 8 to 10, 2023, an international conference organized by French President Emmanuelle Macron called "One Planet" will take place in Paris. This meeting aims to disseminate information pertaining to melting polar ice from the scientific community and offer suggestions for improving polar and glacial protection.

The Polar Melt

Guy Le Querrec

Last month Hamas launched an unexpected assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing over a thousand civilians and capturing hostages.

In response, Israel has declared a state of war and emergency in the region, launching a counteroffensive involving intense airstrikes on Gaza, and most recently, a ground invasion. Calls for an immediate ceasefire have resounded globally, as the death toll in Gaza has surged beyond 10,000 according to BBC reports.

Magnum Photographers are on the ground providing visual updates from the region.

War in Focus: Visual Updates from...

"A searing, diaristic portrayal of a city and society in revolution by Magnum nominee Myriam Boulos
In her debut monograph, Myriam Boulos casts an unflinching eye on the revolution that began in Lebanon in 2019 with protests against government corruption and austerity—culminating with the aftermath of the devastating Beirut port explosion of August 2020. She portrays her friends and family with startling energy and intimacy, in states of pleasure and protest. Boulos renders the body in public space as a powerful motif, both visceral and vulnerable in the face of state neglect and violence. Of her approach to photography, Boulos states: “It’s more of a need than a choice. I obsess about things and I don’t know how to deal with these obsessions in any other way but photography.” Featuring a contextual essay by noted writer Mona Eltahawy, What’s Ours showcases Boulos’s strident and urgent vision."
Publisher presentation

Aperture
Text by Mona Eltahawy and Myriam Boulos. Designed by Maya Moumne.
Hardback
Number of pages: 192
Number of images: 150
Publication date: 2023-11-14
Measurements: 7.1 x 8.6 inches
ISBN: 9781597115605

What’s Ours

On September 11, 2023, torrential rains caused critical flooding in the towns of Shahhat, Al-Bayda, and Marj. In Derna, the collapse of two dams caused floodwater to tear through the city of 100,000 people, washing away buildings, cars, and residents, leaving the town in a state of devastation.

Moises Saman documented the scenes after the storm, as well as the rescue crews and support teams in the devastating aftermath, and the homelessness crisis that hit the population as tens of thousands were displaced.

Aftermath of Libya's Floods

On October 15th 2023, Poland's opposition parties won the majority of votes in the Parliament, leaving the conservative and populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) without enough seats to continue an absolute governing of the country. Following an eight year rule of PiS, the election results signal the potential end of a hard-right government that has adversely affected Poland’s democracy, asserted control of the state media, and dismantled the judicial system while undermining LGBTQ+ and women's rights. The three opposition parties are now in a strong position to create a coalition government, having won a record-turn out (74.4%) since the end of communism.

Poland's Parliamentary Elections...

On Saturday, October 7th, Israel was taken by surprise in an unexpected and severe cross-border assault by Hamas from Gaza, resulting in the initial deaths of 900 people. The BBC reported that included in this number were 260 individuals attending a music festival. With many still missing or abducted by Hamas in Israel, families are left desperately seeking information as the conflict unfolds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on Hamas, vowing to use “enormous force” by launching strikes in Gaza and imposing a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, freezing the flow of essential supplies. According to the BBC, as of October 9th approximately 690 people in Gaza had lost their lives and more than 120,000 had been displaced from their homes.

The result of this has triggered the latest outbreak of fighting in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing in outside powers and echoing across the broader Arab region.

Israel and Palestine from the Archives...

The Yom Kippur War was fought 50 years ago. On October 6th, 1973 an Arab coalition launched a surprise attack on Israel with the goal of retaking territory seized by the latter during 1967's Six Day War. The fighting was over in less than three weeks with Israel claiming victory.

50 Years Since the Yom Kippur War...

On September 28th, the government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced its dissolution, marking the formal end of over three decades of self-rule. This decision comes a week after Azerbaijan seized control of the mountainous region through a rapid "military operation".

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict stands as the longest-running armed struggle in post-Soviet Eurasia. Situated in the South Caucasus region, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh has been trapped in a violent tug of war for over 30 years. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to Joseph Stalin's actions in the 1920s when, under Soviet control, he originally placed Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan's borders. However, given that the enclaves population was 90% ethnically Armenian and housed numerous ancient Armenian sites from as early as the 4th-5th centuries, he designated it as an autonomous region.

As the Soviet Union's dissolution became inevitable, tensions escalated between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both vying for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO). In 1988, the NKAO's national assembly voted to dissolve its autonomous status and join Armenia, sparking a full-scale war that persisted until Armenia's victory in 1994. This conflict resulted in millions of people from both countries being displaced and thousands losing their lives. The ceasefire reached in 1994 remained fragile, and in 2016, a conflict known as "The 4-Day War" claimed hundreds of more lives. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed, but the commitments on paper proved short-lived.

In 2020 the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War began. While Vladimir Putin pledged Russian peacekeepers to the region, the overshadowing presence of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict diverted international attention and dominated Western media, granting Azerbaijan an upper hand in the conflict. After further violence, displacement of families, and the seizure of Armenian territories by Azerbaijan, another ceasefire was signed. The aftermath of this led to protests in Yerevan against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and celebrations of victory in Azerbaijan's capital Baku.

With another ceasefire broken, border conflicts persisted from 2021 onwards as Azerbaijani soldiers repeatedly encroached upon sovereign Armenian territory. In 2022, Azerbaijan initiated an illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the only route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. This blockade further compounded the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh by obstructing the transport of essential aid, food, and oil. In August of 2023, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed alarm over the closure corridor, which had remained blocked for 9 months.

Amid the isolation of Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of the world, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive on September 19th, 2023. The following day, the leader of the Republic of Artsakh (NK), Samvel Shahramanyan, declared the surrender of all armed forces, the dissolution of institutions, and the intended dissolution of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh by January 1st, 2024.

With grave concerns of ethnic cleansing, Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh fled as the corridor reopened in September, hastily packing what belongings they could carry and resorting to burning what they could not. Left in the wake of this exodus are centuries of ancient heritage, with many Armenians haunted by the prospect of their culture being erased, especially given Turkey's ongoing support for Azerbaijan, the same nation responsible for the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Many are concerned that the land seizures will not end here and are anxious about the overall sovereignty of the state of Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Over...

"Over 70,000 Karabakh Armenians have already fled their homes for the Armenian heartland after Azerbaijan's authoritarian President Aliyev launched a “military operation" in Nagorno-Karabakh. Perhaps a few more days and Nagorno-Karabakh will be emptied of Armenians, who inhabited this land for over 2,000 years. Many Armenians we met fear the seize might not end with this but that the existence of Armenia as a sovereign state is under threat while the world watches silently." - Nanna Heitmann, via Instagram

On Thursday, September 28th, the government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced its dissolution, marking the formal end of over three decades of self-rule. This decision comes a week after Azerbaijan seized control of the mountainous region through a rapid "military operation".

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the longest-running armed struggle in post-Soviet Eurasia. Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited by 120,000 ethnic Armenians and more recently acknowledged as part of Azerbaijan's territory, has been trapped in a violent tug of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for 35 years. The tensions stemming from the disintegration of the Soviet Union led to a full-scale war between the two countries, with both vying for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) and its transfer from Soviet Azerbaijan to Armenia’s borders in 1988.

From 1994 to 2016, Armenia remained in control of most of the enclave until the fragile match reignited in 2020, beginning the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. While Vladimir Putin pledged Russian peacekeepers to the region, the overshadowing presence of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict diverted international attention and dominated Western media, granting Azerbaijan an upper hand in terms of military power and the use of force.

In August of 2023, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed alarm over the closure of the Lachin Corridor, the sole route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis by impeding aid transportation. Amid the isolation of Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of the world, Azerbaijan violated the Russian-brokered ceasefire, launching a military offensive on September 19th, 2023. The following day, the leader of the Republic of Artsakh (NK), Samvel Shahramanyan, declared the surrender of all armed forces, the dissolution of institutions, and the intended dissolution of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh by January 1st.

Amidst fears of ethnic cleansing, Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh are fleeing towards sovereign Armenia, hastily gathering their possessions and resorting to burning what they cannot carry. Left in the wake of this exodus are centuries of ancient Armenian heritage, including historical sites dating back as far as the 4th and 5th centuries. Many Armenians are haunted by the prospect of their culture being erased, particularly in light of Turkey's continued support for Azerbaijan, the same nation responsible for the Armenian Genocide in 1915, in this unfolding humanitarian crisis.

Armenian Refugees Flee Nagorno-Karabakh...

Men Untitled by Carolyn Drake is a new series of photographs exploring her relationship to myths of masculinity in American culture. Following Knit Club (2012–2020), a subversive work about a community of women in rural Mississippi, Drake shifts her gaze in Men Untitled. In contrast to her previous work, her subjects are uprooted from their geographies. Erasing nearly all signs of place, Drake invites the viewer to look directly at the male bodies in front of her camera. The subjects in Men Untitled appear nude or half-dressed, frozen in awkward poses, torsos twisted and bent, backward-facing, wearing furniture, and even hung upside down. But they also appear to be at ease with—possibly even acting in collusion with—the artist. Still-lives punctuate the portraits: an anatomical model of male genitalia perches on a velvet chair, a charred board of nails stands erect, and a formidable snake wraps itself around an empty window frame. Playful on its surface, the work’s underlying levity is brought to the fore in Drake’s epilogue, which recounts a sequence of personal experiences that motivated the work. Carolyn Drake was awarded the 2021 HCB Award by the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson to produce this series of photographs. With a row of embossed white faces tipped on the cover, each book is signed by the artist. Epilogue in English and French.

TBW Books
Flexi soft cover with embossed tip-on
118 pages, 33 color / 23 duotone plates
9 x 11.75 inches

Men Untitled

At the end of July 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist and religiously conservative coalition adopted a new law that would ultimately weaken the power of the Supreme Court, leading to wide-spread demonstrations in the country, the largest of it’s history. These protests reflect a deeper split along secular and religious lines about what kind of country Israel should be, and consequently reawakens tensions in both class and ethnical origins as well.

On commission with New York Times, Moises Saman traveled to thirteen towns and cities across Israel to document the internal opposition that is seeping into the country's daily life as it attempts to remain as one in the face of unresolved conflicts.

Divided Israel's Judicial Crisis...

" Dislocations presents a contemporary update of Alex Webb’s long out-of-print 1998 book by the same name, which was first published by Harvard’s Film Study Center as an experiment in alternative book making. The book brought together pictures from the many disparate locations over Webb’s oeuvre, meditating on the act of photography as a form of dislocation in itself. Dislocations was instantly collectable and continues to be sought after today. Webb returned to the idea of dislocation during the pandemic, looking at images produced in the twenty years since the original publication—as well as looking back at that first edition. Dislocations expands a beloved limited edition with unpublished images that speak to today’s sense of displacement. As a series of pictures that would have been impossible to create in a world dominated by closed borders and disrupted travel, it continues to resonate as the world resets."

Aperture, 2023
Hardback
128 pages
2023
11.8 x 10.2 inches
ISBN: 9781597115445

Dislocations (2023)

(In March of 2023, photographer Chien-Chi Chang underwent prostate cancer surgery. After a brief recovery, he started walking regularly with 9-kilogram bulletproof vest equipped with level-four armored plates for four to five kilometers every day to regain stamina. Just three months after his surgery, he embarked on another journey to Ukraine, neither death nor artillery could deter his passion for capturing reality and reporting the truth.
 This is a unique journey, as he had just confronted his personal battle within his own flesh, then immediately arrived at the fiercest war-torn Eastern Ukraine to document the ongoing conflict. Through his lens, we witness Ukrainian soldiers, after enduring a year-long arduous struggle, quietly launching a counteroffensive. Amidst the cacophony of battle and swirling dust, we see residents who would rather endure life among the ruins, without water or electricity, than abandon their homeland.

This is a somber scene of historical significance. He takes us along to observe and prompts us to contemplate on Taiwan's own situation.)

"When the surgical ward slides open at National Taiwan University Hospital, a cold clinical air swooshes, and everything inside looks and smells sanitarily clean and calm under the cacophony of fluorescent lights. From my wheelchair, I can see the robot-assisted arms of the Da Vinci surgical system, which Dr. Huang, one of the best urologists in the country, and his team will use to perform my prostatectomy. I asked a uniformed staffer if I could play Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries during the surgery; she grinned but hinted I could only listen to it before entering the ward. Once the anesthesia was injected, I was out within seconds. Six hours later, I was in my hospital bed in excruciating pain. Behind me, on the wall, were pictures of my kids in Austria and their drawings with colorful hearts and get-well-soon letters.

I looked at the multiple bloody scars across my numb, swollen stomach with disbelief. To ease the agonizing pain, an IV pole with a small dose of morphine stood next to my bed. When I reached my pain threshold, I would squeeze the button. Then I had to wait ten minutes for the next fix, no matter how tortured I felt!

Occasionally, patients moaned, and nurses pushed carts across the hall. Otherwise the night was dreadfully still but for the tick of the second hand of the clock on the wall, each echoing louder than the one before. I stuffed my ears with wet tissues, knocked myself out with another fix of painkiller. In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up after coughing and there was a sharp, stabbing sensation on my belly. It was March 4. On the same day in 2022, the year before, I had arrived in Ukraine to document the invasion of Ukraine, an innocent landscape despoiled by Russia. I wished I were there now.

Two months after surgery and recovery, I finally returned to Graz, Austria, where I have lived since getting married and becoming a parent, to make up for the lost time with my kids. In addition, I gradually exercised to regain stamina. Despite reminders from my doctors and fellow prostate cancer survivors not to carry heavy stuff over three kilos, I walked regularly with a bulletproof vest equipped with level-four armored plates. That’s about nine kilos. Finally, with “fit-to-travel” permission from my urologist in Austria, I arrived in Kyiv on June 4.

The first Sunday of June in the capital was bright and blue even though it had been under attack from ballistic cruise missiles and Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones. My friend who saw the Patriot air defense system intercepting the incoming missiles warned me not to take pictures of intercepts. One day in May, thirty-two individuals who posted pictures or videos of the Patriot intercepting Russian missiles on social media, were arrested. They were forced to make confessions and apologies on TV and on the social media site Telegram with their faces blurred.

The country has been living with a palpable sense of tension and unease since the Russia’s full-scaled invasion in February 2022. Under martial law, heightened security measures and constant vigilance are everywhere. Any slight suspicious move will be reported and investigated by the Ukraine State’s Secret Services (SBU.) I know that for a fact!

Back in the late afternoon of March 2022, I heard a high-pitched, piercing whistle moving in the air towards me. The swoosh became higher in pitch. I looked up and it was an eight-meter Kalibr cruise missile. Then another one, both whizzing over my head, the sound died down as it receded, and then seconds later, they struck an oil depot outside the city. The rumbling explosions thumped the earth as an impenetrable mushroom cloud billowed into the air. The wind carried it further spread, darkened and suffocated the beautiful historical city of Lviv. Meanwhile, fire engines and police vehicles, wailing, converged on the engulfed depot. I rushed up to a nearby hilltop of the landmark Lychakiv Cemetery to take pictures.

As I held my breath and looked through the viewfinder, I could also sense in my peripheral vision that onlookers were sizing me up suspiciously. Before I knew what was happening, a man in his mid-30s with a black baseball cap ran up the hill. Then another two men, in dark windbreakers, black jeans, baseball caps and sling pouches, hurried up. In less than a minute, I was boxed in! I raised both arms but the first order was turn around with both hands on the guard rails and remain absolutely still. I could see something protruding from one of the men’s lower right windbreaker pocket. It’s probably either a walkie-talkie or a pistol, I thought. An hour-long body search examined every pore and between my every finger and toe. Every picture and all the phone records, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Messenger from the previous hours and days were questioned and verified: “Who is Marta? Girlfriend?” “No.” “Who is Igor, is he Russian?” “A photographer friend from Kharkiv.” “Why are you keeping receipts? Are you CIA?” “No!” “Mossad?” “No!”

It was getting dark and chilly. I was finally allowed to put on my socks upon the somewhat satisfactory completion of the interrogation. As I looked around, all the onlookers had already disappeared. It was just me and three baseball-capped, dark-clothed men, all with identical hair-cuts. There was still audible murmuring and the blaring and wailing far away.

I might have been perceived as an informer taking pictures and providing coordinates for Russia. Being cooperative as I was searched and truthfully answering every question, was my only chance to prove my innocence. I later related the event to a friend with NATO, and he said I was lucky to have an Asian face, or I could have been mopped on the ground before questioning! I hurried back to my hotel just before the curfew started, had a shot of leftover Polish vodka from Krakow and phoned up my fixer—who supposedly was smoothing my way—with one sentence: “You’re fired.”

This latest was my fifth trip to Ukraine since the invasion. My only objective in Kyiv was to catch up with colleagues over beer and to pick up my new press credential. I was planning to leave for Donbas the next day. Then I realized that the accreditation application from my agency, Magnum Photos in Paris, to the Ukraine Ministry of Defense (MOD) in Kyiv had been lost in the digital abyss. A major hiccup! I had no choice but to reapply right there and right away. I was told that there were a thousand-plus applicants ahead of me all queuing up for approval. And I was further told that it’s an “immovable process” that requires three to four weeks. It’s not up to the MOD but the SBU for the final approval. I cannot clarify how I jumped the line to get my press card. I am forever grateful to friends in high places for expediting the process!

It was a smooth drive from Kyiv to Dnipro via Highway M03 with my fixer, Evhen; no air alerts and no checkpoints. But once we were headed towards Pokrovsk in Donbas, drab olive-green military vehicles were zooming by in both directions. We slowed down and stopped at checkpoints newly-reinforced with concrete blocks. More often than not, when a policeman with a Kalashnikov rifle checked my passport and press card, my fixer would joke, “Jackie Chan!” And that often was an immediate ice breaker with grins and laughter. With my right fist clenched, I would respond by saying, “Jackie Chan stands with Ukraine,” although I do not think that Jackie Chan would ever have the gall to say that. Not in this life!

The war's impact on life in Ukraine is just as incomprehensible as it is lasting. Since the illegal and immoral invasion, every Ukrainian has families and friends fighting in the war as well as displaced, domestically or overseas. Ukraine will face gigantic problems after the war. But for now, the main goal is to win the war and to liberate the land that belongs to Ukraine.

The long-anticipated counteroffensive has been silently and cautiously under way on the eastern and southern fronts to puncture Russia’s defenses. Russia had spent months fortifying their lines with anti-tank ditches, vast minefields, concrete “dragon’s teeth,” iron “hedgehogs,” intricate infantry trenches, barbed-wired fences and artillery. Every square meter gained will require a slow and grinding battle.

Ukraine will need time, will, lives and a lot of firepower to launch a full-scale counteroffensive. I was with the 59th brigade artillery unit equipped with GRAD, a multiple rocket launcher system. Some forty rockets were loaded on the truck with four soldiers standing by, all camouflaged in the woods, ready for the firing order from the command center. Once a target had been confirmed, they would drive to the position, adjust the coordinates and fire within minutes. The commander would confirm whether the target had been hit or not. Then another two or three rockets could be fired before they swiftly relocated under another tree line lest they too be targeted and take return fire. It’s all “shoot and scoot,” but also to conserve ammo. I was quite near the firing rockets, and so, not just the sound, but the shock wave penetrated my body. I covered my ears and kept my mouth open to balance the pressure.

We were all told to switch our phones to Airplane mode before reaching front line positions. The only connection was via Starlink. A soldier from the 72nd brigade told me that the Russian soldiers were just behind the tree line about a kilometer away from where we stood. We were on the so-called Zero Line. As we moved around a dark, damp, dense and mazelike trench, it was more than clear: “If you want to live, dig!” The soldiers in the trenches are to hold the position with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, AK rifles and Javelins, no matter what!

Later, I was embedded with a platoon that would operate drone attacks on Russian trenches and high-value targets, such as tanks, Armored personnel carriers （APCs）, or artillery weapon systems. The choice of weapon has been the modified DJI Mavic 3 Pro with a 40mm grenade attached underneath. We watch the drone's movement on the tablet from inside a reinforced trench within the command center. Sunlight shines through cracks in the wood and the holes of camouflage nets. Mosquitos flies, and bees buzz in and out of the trenches.

Three Russian soldiers without T-shirts were spotted digging trenches under some fallen twigs and leaves. The drone was hovering right above them. I was thinking that they were going to die. The grenade dropped but did not explode. The drone returned to base to mount another grenade and took off again for the mission! It all looked like another video of war until the connection with the drone was lost. The drone operator was disheartened. He reset repeatedly to try to reconnect the drone, but by then, Russia had intercepted or shot down the drone.

We could see all the Russian frontline positions from high above, and so could they see us. Did they spot me when I took a leak in the woods on the frontline? Were those annoying buzzes those of wasps skimming around? Or a deadly drone hovering above me? There was no explosion that afternoon! I got to live another day to document the war.

Nazzri, a politician with no fighting experience before the war, has been a battle-hardened war hero, and is the commander of the unit I was embedded with. He told me that a three-thousand USD Mavic Pro drone might last for a week. He’s been quite public and popular on social media, but it scares me to travel with his convoy, especially during the hours of daylight; there is a fifty-thousand USD bounty on him, dead or alive.

Through an encrypted app, I arranged to meet Yuri in the only pizzeria in Pokrovsk. (Note: on August 7, within 40 minutes, two Russian missiles struck the pizzeria and the adjacent hotel where I stayed for almost two weeks in June, killing at least nine people and wounding eighty-plus people.)

Yuri is a retired American career soldier from California and has been devotedly fighting for Ukraine since the spring of 2022. He’s low-key, down to earth and soft-spoken, occasionally scanning his sectors during lunch. He didn’t resemble the fighter I saw on viral drone footage of a QRF (quick reaction force) mission, in which he was charging on the lead Humvee, assaulting a Russian position with a machine gun at close range. The moment the fighters jumped out of the Humvees, they were already in auto-pilot mode, with a killer’s instinct. It’s either shoot or be shot, kill or be killed. All the training is to make a soldier into a fighter to kill the enemy. I asked Yuri his opinion of the ongoing Chinese aircraft sorties on the Taiwan Strait. He replied firmly, “You guys should know better and be prepared for the attack.”

I recall a New York Times editorial in mid-April this year written by a former Taiwan minister of culture. It was nicely written but clearly by someone without common sense. It was as if organized gangsters were brandishing daggers and machetes before an innocent civilian’s front yard every day, and the homeowner, despite being bullied repeatedly and threatened by deadly weapons, should just bow to defuse and de-escalate the situation.

As for the jointly signed antiwar statement by the Taiwan scholars a month before, it seems that the eggheads have comfortably dwelt in an ivory tower for too long. They live away from the practicalities and complexities of the real world, hindering their empathy and holistic understanding of societal issues.

I have my feet on the ground. I don’t view the world from on high, from a metaphorical tower full of PhDs. What would a Ph.D. do if their house were about to be attacked by organized gangsters? I don’t know, but I think, first of all, that they should jettison their lofty thinking and be connected with the concerns and experiences of ordinary people.

If there were an imminent threat that gangsters would attack my house, I would first reinforce my place to make it a fortress. Furthermore, I would mobilize and unite a network of friends and relatives to fight back!

Divided, we fall. United, we stand. In the spring of 2022, NATO and the U.S. were wishy-washy (they still are, I might add!) regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and dawdling about instituting sanctions. The rest of the world was masked and locked down due to the virus spreading from Wuhan, China. Foreign assistance was thin. But I remember a Ukrainian friend telling me that if Russian tanks roared into Kyiv, there would be Kalashnikov rifles and Molotov cocktails out of every window and aiming at each tank.

If I don’t take the initiative to protect my home and loved ones, how can I expect any help, domestic or foreign? I don’t kowtow to appease or surrender to an organized mafia.

Is an attack far-fetched? It would have seemed so for most of the Ukrainians before February 24, 2022. Who could have imagined the devastation and destruction on the front-line towns and the shelling of villages and cities far away from the frontline?

Raisa, a 53rd brigade press officer, took me to Avdiivka, two to three kilometers from the frontline, flanked by Russian troops from the north, the south and the east. There are no air alerts to warn citizens of imminent missile attacks because there are constant incoming and outgoing rockets, night and day. Every house, apartment building, kindergarten, school, store, alley, and road has been destroyed and razed. Not a home, not a life, has been untouched by the Russian invasion. Even though I had been to Ukraine several times earlier in the war, I was unprepared for how the hatred Ukrainians feel towards Russia has grown since the invasion.

We moved swiftly from one pocket of wreckage to another to avoid being detected by the Russian drones. Military trucks with camouflage zoom by, spraying another layer of dirt onto the unexploded rockets on the roadside.

A nearing rumble signaled that an armored ambulance was about to roar in. The engine grumbled, and dust shrouded the meeting point where two teams of medics with stretchers had been standing by. In less than a minute, they had transported an injured frontline soldier to another ambulance en route to a stabilization unit.

The ambulance driver grabbed his Kalashnikov, slammed the door, and sped up. Inside the air-conditioned ambulance, the air was stuffy, mixed with chemicals, sweat, and blood stains. In bullet-proof vests with three rifle magazines and helmets, the two doctors tried to keep the severely injured soldier from bumping up and down as the driver zigzagged through the dirt roads full of potholes. The disoriented soldier’s eyes were full of fear and panic. His tall and heavyset body was covered with shrapnel wounds. His left arm was stabilized with splints and wrapped with gauze but was motionless. Blood was still seeping through the plaster and down to his muddy fingertips. One medic hastily cut open the dark-stained fatigues with a pair of shears. His body was already full of chest seal packs to stop the bleeding from multiple wounds. The two doctors used an Israeli abdominal bandage to staunch the wounds. Two tourniquets covered with dirt were already applied near the groin of his left leg after the explosion. What happened on the frontline? It's hard to fathom that this soldier, who risked everything to liberate the land that belonged to his country, could die at any second. Three soldiers I spent time with in Donbas last August have already sacrificed their lives in battle.

Upon arriving at the boarded-up stabilization unit, the traumatized soldier was rushed into the emergency room. Another team of doctors and nurses with ballistic goggles took over. I asked one of the ambulance doctors if the soldier would survive. He said that the soldier’s fight on the frontlines was over. He will now have to fight for his life in the hospital if he lives. I touched my fading surgery scars thinking of the soldier; if he lives, his scars will be emotional as well as physical.

While driving across the country, I remember a friend who described the Ukraine landscape as “as flat as a pancake.” The vast and ever-changing cloud formation is astonishing and unpredictable. A colleague sent me a Telegram message saying Putin was about to address the nation in 20 minutes regarding the Wagner mutiny. This was the kind of historical event I would remember where I was and what I was doing. I was reaching Lviv on my way home via Krakow in Poland. In the western part of Ukraine, there was undoubtedly less destruction but no shortage of despair. I wondered if the mutiny was the start of the end of the war and the end of Putin! I also asked myself how the military rebellion would affect China’s continuous armed threat to Taiwan. I don’t know. All I know is do not let your guard down, ever.

A few days after returning to Graz and home with the kids, I heard Ria Pizza in the center of Kramatorsk was struck by a Russian missile during dinnertime. I couldn’t watch the footage of the dying people screaming for help underneath the rubble—my kids were next to me. But there’s a hole in my heart. I remember the place. I spent two weeks with my colleague Sergey working around Kramatorsk, including Bakhmut, last August. The next day, I received an Interfax news report, a reputable Ukrainian news service in three languages, from a colleague. It stated that SBU “in hot pursuit” detained a spotter activated by Russian military intelligence, who sent a filmed location of the café to Russian intelligence before the missile strike. The arrested agent would have to answer before the court for his war crime against humanity!

The short-lived mutiny ended, but the Wagnerian drama lingers—so many unanswered questions. I finally finished editing my pictures. And I continued to exercise and walk along the river with my vest and level-four armored plates, and I could listen to the Ride of Valkyries on my sweaty Air pods.

But then, all of a sudden, an air alert was on! Ah, yes, it’s the national weekly alert drill, fifty-two times a year. No exception. Just another Saturday at noon in Austria."

(Chien-Chi Chang, 2023)

Resistance: The Front Lines in...

Bruce Gilden first traveled to Haiti in 1984 for the famous Mardi Gras festivities. There he discovered an impoverished territory in the grip of numerous natural disasters but charged with a unique energy. True to form, Gilden immediately departed from the beaten track, choosing to roam the length and breadth of the island along serpentine paths that led him to meet people from the four corners of the island, and into situations that few would choose to encounter.
Gilden was to visit this country that he loves so much on 20 further occasions, tirelessly documenting the everyday lives of Haitians, their history and terrain. From vendors at the markets of major cities to its nightlife and funeral ceremonies, Gilden strives to take stock of Haitian culture and its rich visual diversity.
Images from the series were first published as a slim monograph by Dewi Lewis in 1996; the book won the European Publishers Award for Photography. Atelier EXB’s beautifully printed new volume greatly expands the series with previously unseen images comprising nearly half of the book.

Atelier EXB, 2023
Hardcover, 8.5 x 11.5 in. / 144 pgs / 75 bw.
ISBN 9782365113779

Haiti (2023)

On Friday 8th September 2023, the region of Al Haouz in Morocco was hit by a violent earthquake leading to thousands of deaths and homes lost. Magnum’s archives show life and architecture in the nearby city of Marrakech and the isolated villages of the High Atlas Mountains where tragedy has had such a devastating impact, while the ongoing documentation will be soon distributed.

Morocco

Ukrainian President Vicktor Yanukovych’s cabinet abandoned an agreement on closer trade ties in the EU, favoring closer cooperation with Russia. What began as small protests escalated to the Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan Revolution, a violent protest with at least 88 deaths. Following the Euromaidan protests and removal of Yanukovych, partnered with pro-Russia unrest in Ukraine, Russian annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

Demonstrations in the Donbas area of Ukraine escalated into a war between the Ukrainian Government and Russian-backed separatist forces. Russian military vehicles crossed the border in several locations of Donetsk Oblast, which is believed to be responsible for the defeat of Ukrainian forces in early September of 2014. In November, Ukrainian military reported intensive movement of Russian combat troops into separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.

In October 2021, Russia reignited concerns of a potential invasion after moving troops and military equipment to the shared border with Ukraine. The buildup continued until Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February, 2022.

Russo-Ukrainian Conflict

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