Next Of Kin - TIM FRECCIA

Next Of KinPhotographs by Tim Freccia

August- October 2017

catalogue

Gallery • 704 Columbia Street • Hudson, New York 12534 • 718 450 6801 • [email protected]

Studio hours: M-F 9AM- 6 PM. Private viewing by appointment. Mounting and framing are available. For custom sized prints and paper stock, please make an appointment to discuss your needs.

Next Of Kin

“The full length portraits represent a body of work I created in South Sudan- the world’s youngest nation, now an effective example of failed statehood. I’ve lived with and documented the major ethnic groups of South Su-dan, traveling into all areas of this vast country, which is roughly 1/3 the size of Western Europe.

The Dinka and Nuer represent the two largest ethnic groups in South Sudan, and there have been tensions between these two groups for over 100 years.

In late 2013, President Salva Kiir (a Dinka) accused Vice President Riek Machar (a Nuer) of an attempted coup d’etat. Machar accused Kiir of corruption and an attempted dictatorship, and fled into the bush of the tradi-tional Nuer homeland, summoning the infamous “White Army” to wage rebellion.

The portraits of the Dinka were created in Yirol, in early 2011, just before South Sudan achieved independence from the North. In the run up to independence, there was a sense of triumph and unity- even ecstasy, through-out South Sudan. After two decades of civil war with the North it seemed peace had finally come. However, the Dinka ethnic group had consolidated power, and despite the excitement surrounding Independence, ethnic tensions remained. Civil war erupted in December 2013 as events unfolded in Juba.

The portraits of the Nuer “White Army” were created in February, 2014, as they launched a major offensive on the strategic oil port of Malakal. I had joined Riek Machar in the bush with his wife Angelina Teny for the mak-ing of my film Saving South Sudan, and lived with them as they attempted to create a new SPLA (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army) “In-Opostion”.

“The White Army” is an organic collection of armed Nuer civilian militias, with no central command structure and a mythos of prophecy. Machar summoned this in an attempt to seize power, and had effectively taken con-trol of the oil rich regions of South Sudan by April of 2014.

I traveled with the White Army for a few weeks, slept and ate with them, watched after their children with them and bathed with them. I witnessed their victories and defeats. As they sacked Malakal, I watched the fighters carry away the spoils of battle: plastic chairs, bedframes and mattresses, cooking utensils- things they didn’t have, and had pillaged from their vanquished enemies.

I’ve witnessed the humanity of the peoples of South Sudan, and have been deeply moved by it. The current events sadden me greatly and remind me of my inability to fully comprehend the complexity of these ancient social relationships, no matter how close I ever get. It’s easy for many to express compassion, empathy, outrage or even pity for the citizens of South Sudan. I remain on the fringe, at times suddenly thrust into the middle of it, and do the best I can to capture some of that humanity visually.”


Next Of Kin

“A few years ago I started working on a book with the working title “Next Of Kin”. As I ruminated on a ca-reer spanning three decades, I realized that a significant goal of this project was not just to examine my work over the years, and put the stories into words, but to examine my life, and the turns it’s taken- the turns I’ve taken.

I’ve been married three times and have three children who are now adult, or rapidly approaching adulthood. I’m very proud of (and grateful for) the exemplary humans they’ve turned out to be. As I looked back on the events and personal decisions that have influenced and shaped my life, I focused on a melancholic symbol: when filling out forms for clients or officials, there is inevitably a line item labeled “Next Of Kin”- who to call in an emergency; who to send your remains to. I’ve always balked at this line. I’ve never been able to list a person I’d want anyone to call- hence the title of the book.

My son recently wrote a paper for school on the theme of crisis and conflict photography, and posing the ques-tion of whether documentary photographers are “vultures or artists”. He and I discussed this at great length, and I introduced a third category or quality- “tradespeople”. The industry of documentary photography has evolved significantly since I started (in the days of film), and I’ve evolved from a person with a technical skillset (and possibly an unusual ability to exercise that skill under the most horrific conditions), to an “artist”, with a statement to make, or a vision to share. I’m not exactly comfortable with this monicker.

The takeaway from all this was that while examining my own life and focusing on the term “Next Of Kin”, I understood that part of what I’ve been attempting to do for years is to document the humanity in conflict and crisis. In a sense, I’ve been making “family portraits”- photographs of our extended family; the “relatives we don’t hear from so often”.

I now spend my days in a bucolic upstate NY town, the home of the romantic Hudson Valley School of art. I watch the sun set behind the gentle silhouette of the Catskill mountain range. Cottony clouds are lit softly underneath with pink and lavender. I realize I’ve watched the same sunsets on battlefields in Congo and Sudan.

“Misery” is relative. Part of my daily task entails an attempt to reconcile the indigenous (upstate NY) defini-tions of “suffering”, “hardship”, “outrage”, etc. with my own ideas of the same. My ideas are colored by my own experience and, in a sense, by yet other indigenous peoples’ definitions of these emotions and experiences.

And then, the negative isn’t the only yardstick of the human experience. We all experience humor, love, embar-rassment, joy, pride, jealousy, wonder, fear, enlightenment, pain, confusion... and so on. At the risk of stating the obvious, we are all therefore, “next of kin”.

With these images of “foreign people”, in “foreign places,” dressed in “foreign clothing”. engaged in “foreign ac-tivities”, I’m attempting to focus on our “next of kin”- humans who experience and feel the same things I (and you) feel and experience. “

Tim Freccia, 2017


Yirol 3, South Sudan, 2010 Edition 1/1084 in x 42 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD18,000


USD18,000


USD18,000

Next Of Kin


White Army 1, South Sudan, 2014 Edition 1/1084 in x 42 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD18,000

White Army 2, South Sudan, 2014Edition 1/1084 in x 42 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD18,000


USD18,000

Next Of Kin



USD18,000

White Army 5, South Sudan, 2014Edition 2/1084 in x 42 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD18,000


USD18,000

Next Of Kin


Yirol M/F 2011Edition 1/1049 in x 44 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD 8,000

Yirol 13, South Sudan, 2011Edition 3/1084 in x 42 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD18,000

Edition 2/1542in x 21 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD 6,000


USD18,000

Edition 1/1542in x 21 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

USD 6,000

Next Of Kin


Dakar, Senegal, 2014Edition 1/1066 in x 44 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A man washes his horse in the sea in Dakar, Senegal.

USD 4,000(mounting/framing available)

Malakal, South Sudan, 2014Edition 1/10044 in x 33 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

A young White Army fighter enters the Nile oil port of Malakal after defeating government troops.

USD1,200(mounting/framing available)

Numbi Mine, Eastern Congo, 2011 Edition 1/10044 in x 33 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

Fashionably dressed young Congolese miners pose in the remote resource-rich Numbi region.


Next Of Kin


Malakal 2, South Sudan, 2014Edition 1/10044 in x 33 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

A White Army fighter looks into a cleared home following a fierce battle for the Nile oil port of Malakal.


Eastleigh, Kenya, 2014Edition 1/10044 in x 33 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

A man pulls a cart through the predominantly Somali neighbourhood of Eastleigh, Nairobi, Kenya.


Ad Dafiniyah, Libya, 2011Edition 1/10044 in x 33 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

Boys head to the front to fight in the last weeks of Libya’s civil war.


Next Of Kin


Libyan Rebels, Libya 2011Edition 1/10040 in x 26.5 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

Libyan rebels pray on a fishing boat off Misrata, Libya.


Yambio, South Sudan, 2013Edition 1/10040 in x 26.5 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

A man transports a mirror on a motorbike during unrest in Yambio, South Sudan.


Malakal 3, South Sudan, 2011Edition 1/10040 in x 26.5 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

A young White Army fighter, outside the Nile oil port of Malakal after defeating government troops.


Next Of Kin


Malakal 4, South Sudan 2014Edition 1/10040 in x 22.5 inGicleé Print, 192 gram enhanced matte

White Army fighters carry away loot after defeating government forces in a firece battle for the strategic Nile oil port of Malakal.


Next Of Kin


Roma Woman, Montenegro 2010Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A Roma woman in Konik Camp, Podgorica Montenegro.


Roma Man, Montenegro 2010Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A Roma man in Konik Camp, Podgorica Montenegro.


Roma, Montenegro 2010Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

Roma women and children in Konik Camp, Podgorica Montenegro.


Next Of Kin


Butcher Boy, Eastern Congo 2008Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A young butcher in Kiwanja, Eastern Congo.


Street Boy, Eastern Congo 2008Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A boy is beaten by policemen in Goma, Eastern Congo.


White Army Fighter, South Sudan 2014Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A wounded White Army fighter rests after a fierce battle with government troops in Eastern Nile State, South Sudan.


Next Of Kin


Sweeping, Somalia 2009Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A man sweeps up outside a battle scarred building inMogadishu, Somalia.


Leading The Blind, Liberia 2012Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A man crippled by polio leads a blind man to the beach in Monrovia, Liberia.


Bar, Liberia 2012Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A man exits a bar on the beach in Monrovia, Liberia.


Next Of Kin


Canmeraman, Nuba, 2012Edition 1/10031 in x 19 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A man pretends to photograph with a can in the Nuba nountains.


White Army Panel1, South Sudan 2014Edition 1/1052.25 in x 18.25 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

Tiled panel of 18 images from South Sudan’s civil war.

USD 4,000

White Army Panel ll, South Sudan 2014Edition 1/1052.25 in x 18.25 inC-Print, face mounted on acrylic, aluminum subframe

Tiled panel of 18 images from South Sudan’s civil war.

USD 4,000

Next Of Kin



Next Of Kin

Turkana, Kenya, 2009Edition 1/1066 in x 44 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A girl poses with her most treasured item- a water gourd.


Mother And Child, Akobo, South Sudan, 2014Edition 1/1066 in x 44 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

A rebel mother with child in Akobo, South Sudan.


Salifu, Sierra Leone, 2012Edition 1/1047 in x 44 inGicleé Print, 310 gram archival Cotton

King Salifu Amadu the first wears a protective cloak made of the feathers of all the birds in his reign.


Documents

Next Of Kin - TIM FRECCIA