Fazal Sheikh Livres

"With Cole's words and Sheikh's photos of displaced humans, we are confronted with fundamental and newly necessary questions of coexistence: who is my neighbor? Who is kin to me? Who is a stranger? What does it mean to be human?"--Publisher's description

In India it costs a poor family 50 rupees, to hire a midwife to administer the birth of a child. For an additional ten rupees, the parents are assured that the birth of a girl will be met with an act of infanticide by the midwife. The alternative for many is an institution like the Delhi orphanage in which Fazal Sheikhs work on the predicament of the girl-child in India began 99% of that orphanages population are girls. By delving into the story of the girl-child, Sheik renders the other side of the spectrum of women in India. Ladli is the second part of his project on India, which was begun with Moksha (published in 2005 by Steidl). Co-published with Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris

For five hundred years the holy city of Vrindavan in northern India has been a haven for India’s dispossessed widows. Cast out by their families and condemned by strict marital laws which deny them legal, economic and, in extreme cases, even human rights, they have made their way to the city to worship at its temples and live in its ashrams, surviving on charitable hand-outs or begging on the streets. In Vrindavan they worship the young god Krishna, who invades their dreams, helping them to cast off memories from their past life and prepare for a new and better life to come. Their ultimate dream is to reach Moksha—heaven—where they will find freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and live surrounded by their gods forever. Fazal Sheikh once again contributes to our knowledge and understanding of a community whose existence, to those who live outside it, remains closed.

The portrait is central to Fazal Sheikh’s photography, where subjects face the camera without dramatization or fear. This approach allows viewers to connect with them as fellow human beings while acknowledging their unique experiences. Rather than a simplistic attempt to "read the soul," it seeks common ground and understanding of life's challenges. This book features a series of photographs of women in India, documenting their journey from birth to death over the past five years. Sheikh's previous works, Moksha and Ladli, explored the social and political issues surrounding the subordination and mistreatment of women in India, highlighting stories of isolation and abuse. He has observed how Indian women often use religion to cope with their tragedies, with traditional beliefs promoting consolation instead of rebellion. In this collection, Sheikh emphasizes the power of the individual gaze, fostering empathy and curiosity. The direct portraits reveal a level of intimacy between the photographer and his subjects that contrasts with common perceptions of Indian women. By inviting viewers to engage with these faces, Sheikh aims to convey their dignity, resilience, and, despite their struggles, a sense of calm.

The portrait is central to Fazal Sheikh’s work. For more than two decades, as he has worked in different communities around the world, the invitation to sit for a portrait has been one of the principle means by which he has established a link with his subjects and been allowed to enter and document their lives. Often these have been people in crisis: displaced from their homes and their countries, at risk from violence, poverty and prejudice. This book takes in the full range of Fazal Sheikh’s work, from his earliest portraits taken in African refugee camps, through long-term projects in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan, Somalia and Kenya, to more recent work in South America and in India. It considers the role of the portrait within this kind of social enquiry: the balance of its aesthetic and narrative qualities, its capacity for empathy and also for distance; the values of the collaborative portrait, and the moral ambivalence that surrounds this approach to documenting the lives of disadvantaged people within the context of contemporary art. Fazal Sheikh was born in 1965 in New York City. His previous books include A Sense of Common Ground (Scalo 1996), The Victor Weeps (Scalo 1998), A Camel for the Son and Ramadan Moon (International Human Rights Series 2001), Moksha (Steidl 2005), Ladli (Steidl 2007) and The Circle (Steidl 2008), Fazal Sheikh (TF Editores 2009).

Afghanistan has suffered from civil wars: first from the Mujahideen war againts the Russians, and then from the fights between the different factions within the country, which led to the current Taliban government. Photographer Fazal Sheikh, whose grandfather emigrated from this region to Kenya in the early days of this century, takes us into Afghanistan, where he has worked for the past years. His in-depth texts and sensitive portraits of the people reveal layer by layer a population that has kept its dignity and respect for life through almost two decades of violent struggle. Fazal Skeikh has gained the trust of his subjects, they have told him the stories of their family martyrs, and they trusted him so deeply that they even shared their often haunting dreams with him. Images of the women, of the elders gathered around the gaslight, of children anxiously looking into an unknown future, and of war victims maintaining their pride, create thoughtful insight. This volume in engaged with human rights and war as much as with photographic representation itself, and with the quest for what the people of Afghanistan really think and feel.

The pictures in Ether --Fazal Sheikh's first book in color--were made as a way to honor the experience of death and to try to comprehend its significance. Benares (Varanasi) is one of India's sacred cities, where many Hindus come to die in the belief that they will find salvation. As he walked its streets by night, Sheikh observed sleeping figures, shrouded in blankets, lost to an oblivion that seemed, in that holy city, to offer a simulacrum of death. In watching these ambiguous figures, which hover in the imagination between a dream state, sleep and death, Sheikh recalled his own experience with his dying father and their passage together through his father's final days. He remembered it as an invaluable period of emotional connection with the body and soul of the person he knew and loved, a connection that reached back to his paternal ancestors, who had travelled south from northern India a century before. To lose oneself in sleep is to abandon the senses and leave the way open to a dream state in which mind and body separate.

This stunning two-volume collection by the photographer features rich black pictorial cloth boards with red titles on the spine. Intended to be sold together, the volumes were distributed to Dutch parliamentarians, judges, mayors, and the media to foster a more sympathetic policy towards asylum-seekers fleeing their countries for safety. The first volume, "Ramadan Moon," poetically explores the plight of Seynab, intertwining passages from the Koran about Ramadan with her memories of Mogadishu, her flight to the Netherlands, and the Dutch treatment of Somali asylum seekers. The second volume, "A Camel for the Son," represents classic photojournalism, documenting the Somali refugee communities in Kenya's northeastern desert over a decade. It follows their journey from the onset of civil war in 1991 to the present, highlighting the impact of war on a generation of children raised in exile. Fazal Sheikh bridges the gap between the First and Third Worlds, raising awareness of Somali women's resilience amidst adversity. His images and testimonials serve as a poignant reminder of their existence, even as global attention wanes. Sheikh's commitment to "concerned photography" emphasizes the importance of recognizing each refugee as an individual, deepening our understanding of their suffering. This collection is a vital contribution to that ongoing quest.

Explores the anguish caused by the loss of memory - by forgetting, amnesia or suppression - and the resulting human desire to preserve memory, all seen through the prism of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict.