Pieter Hugo

Portrait #30, as part of the series 1994, Rwanda, 2015

The adolescents photographed by Pieter hugo show themselves in a self-confident attitude, with a direct view. They are not photographed unnoticed, but rather are actively involved in the image’s creative process. Body language and facial expressions counteract the conventions of misery. They establish a change of perspective at eye level. Pieter Hugo subliminally refers to historical events, the Rwandian genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, which the series traces 20 years later, and the end of apartheid in South Africa 1994. “There’s a thin line between nature being seen as idyllic and as a place where terrible things happen – permeated by genocide, a constantly contested space. Seen as a metaphor, it’s as if the further you leave the city and its systems of control, the more primal things become. At times the children appear conservative, existing in an orderly world; This is most noticeable in the Rwanda images where clothes donated from Europe, with particular cultural significations, are transposed into a completely different context.” (P.H.)