Outdoor photo exhibit explores Darfur victims during TIFF

Crisis in Sudan also highlighted with Darfur Now documentary, panel discussion

Last Updated: Sunday, September 9, 2007 | 2:44 PM ET

CBC News

A photographic exhibit highlighting victims of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region is being projected in a massive outdoor display downtown during the 32nd annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Darfur/Darfur projects more than 150 large-scale images onto the exterior of the Royal Ontario Museum, accompanied by traditional Sudanese music.
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The Royal Ontario Museum, in association with festival organizers, has unveiled Darfur/Darfur, a nightly exhibit that projects more than 150 large-scale images onto the exterior of its new Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Two film loops of the images are accompanied by traditional Sudanese music.

Mark Brecke, a documentary photographer and filmmaker who is among the eight artists whose images make up the exhibition, described the display as "powerful."

"It's almost like the medium of what advertisers use as billboards," Brecke told CBC News: Sunday.

Brecke began documenting displaced people in eastern Chad and in the Darfur region of Sudan about four years ago.

Since the conflict began in 2003, officials estimate that more than 200,000 people have died and approximately 2.5 million have lost their homes.

"Everybody had a story. Everybody wanted me to hear their story," Brecke said of his experiences in the region.

Documentary filmmaker and photographer Mark Brecke said he hopes the exhibit will inspired people to take action about Darfur.
(CBC)

"I wish that everyone could spend just five minutes, or five hours, with these people … to get a sense of the culture, from what they come from, what they've been through. They still have this dignity and pride. It just makes you feel really humble."

Brecke added that he hopes that the photo exhibition, which has previously been displayed in Los Angeles, Washington and Berlin, will have a significant effect on passers-by in Toronto.

"I hope that it shakes them so that they will do more research on Darfur and take action. Call their local representatives, call the media, donate to a [non-governmental organization] that is trying to bring aid and security on the ground to these people," Brecke said.

Darfur/Darfur continues nightly outside the ROM until Sept. 17.

The continuing conflict in Darfur is also being explored in film and during a panel discussion at the film festival.

The documentary Darfur Now, which looks at six individuals working in different ways to end the humanitarian crisis, debuted as part of the festival's Real to Reel program on Sunday. It screens again in Toronto on Tuesday.

The Time is Now: A Conversation About Darfur, a panel uniting four of Darfur Now's subjects and its filmmakers, is also taking place Sunday afternoon.