Sara Terry and Mariam X
In My Life
July 7 - 31, 2011
Mariam X is the pseudonym of a former child soldier from Sierra Leone who was abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at the age of eleven. Before escaping the RUF nearly a decade later, Mariam had been made the “wife” of a rebel commander, bore him a child, and was forced to commit random executions or risk losing her own life at the hands of her enslaver.
In My Life is a collaboration between mariam X and the documentarian Sara Terry, born out of Mariam’s struggle with forgiving herself for the atrocities she committed as a younger person. The series includes vivid color images made by both women, each presented with a simple caption. Essayist Sue Brisk characterizes their dynamic this way: “the bond between Sara Terry and her subject is symbiotic. In Sara Terry’s photographs Mariam can see herself and find the safety to rediscover her past. The Images taken by Mariam herself look innocent, as though she is playing with a small camera on a class trip or snapping Polaroids for the family album. The simplicity of her imagery, however, is in stark contrast to the handwritten text describing Mariam’s nightmare. Viewers quickly absorb her experience, through the simple imagery and the simple comments, because Mariam speaks a simple truth.”
Sara Terry is an award-winning documentary photographer and filmmaker known for her work covering post-conflict stories, and a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow for her long-term project, “Forgiveness and Conflict: Lessons from Africa.” Her first long-term post-conflict work, “Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace,” led her to found The Aftermath Project in 2003 on the premise that “War is Only Half the Story.” An accomplished speaker on aftermath and visual literacy issues, her lectures include a TedX talk, “Storytelling in a Post-Journalism World,” and several appearances at The Annenberg Space for Photography. She has directed and produced two feature-length documentaries, Fambul Tok (2011) and FOLK (2013). Fambul Tok, about a groundbreaking grass-roots forgiveness program in Sierra Leone, premiered at SXSW in 2011, and grew out of her photo project, “Forgiveness and Conflict: Lessons from Africa.” It was supported by the Sundance Documentary Institute and Chicken and Egg, and was hailed by Paste magazine as one of the best 100 documentaries of all time. Terry became a photographer and filmmaker after a long, award-winning career in print and public radio. She is working on her third documentary, “That’s How We Roll,” about mobile home parks and the affordable housing crisis.