Tim Hetherington has experienced Liberia through the eyes of the invading rebel LURD army in their march towards the capital Monrovia and then subsequently as he stayed on in the country to document the slow move towards democracy and reconstruction. All this amidst the power wrangling of Liberia’s new fragile leadership, the presence of corrupt characters carrying baggage of a shadey past and Western nations intevening alongside the United Nations to help bring peace to the country after ten years of war.
Tim’s stories in stills and video have been instrumental in allowing us an understanding of events in this West African nation. As a photographer, film maker and even an investigator for the UN Liberia Sanctions Committee, Hetherington has devoted much of the past ten years living in Monrovia compiling reports on a country in great flux.
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Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold is his newly published book of photography and writing that brings together work from that time. It comes at an important time, as a document with many questions to be answered. And with former president Charles Taylor this week in the defense box on trial at the Hague for war crimes he committed Hetherington asks if the Liberians themselves will ever see justice? Or will Taylor’s trial in a European courtroom for crimes committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone along wth the difficult process of truth and reconcilliation deny Liberians the opportunity to come to terms with the terror of the past and move forward?
Further Information
An exhibition of Tim Hetherington’s book at Foto8’s HOST gallery in London.
9 Septemeber – 24 September 2009
See also: timhetherington.com , umbrageeditions.com