Shamsa Moka Abdi and her sister Shahil, Somali Refugee Camp, Mandera, Kenya
Maker
Fazal Sheikh
(American, b. 1965)
Date1993
MediumGelatin silver print, possibly toned gold
DimensionsImage: 12 × 9 3/4 in. (30.5 × 24.8 cm)
Sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 15/16 in. (35.4 × 27.8 cm)
Sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 15/16 in. (35.4 × 27.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman
Collections
Object number2014.716
Status
Not on viewFazal Sheikh dedicates his photographic practice to documenting the displaced and marginalized in the world. His subjects include some of the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who, since the early 1990s, have fled to Kenya to escape a violent civil war, which rages on to this day. Amid the suffering in the Somali refugee camp in Mandera in 1993, he portrays the woman and children seen here with poignant dignity. Contrary to the photojournalists whom Sheikh observed rushing in to snatch an image for the news, Sheikh earnestly engages with the refugees. He recounts, “I remembered watching them working and feeling a sense of unease, an inability to follow along and make the expected photographs.” Instead, he worked among the refugees for an extended period of time, respectfully requesting the elders’ permission to take portraits of their people. This series, taken between 1992 and 1994, cemented mutual engagement as Sheikh’s modus operandi, with the portrait as his preferred format.
