Humber Street Gallery Highlights The Effects Of War On Women & Girls

Humber Street Gallery Highlights The Effects Of War On Women & Girls
Highlights The Effects Of War On Women & Girls

A moving new exhibition that highlights the effects of war and conflict on women and girls around the world is set to open at Humber Street Gallery.

The installation, called Torn, will be on display from Monday 6 November until Sunday 31 December and features photographs of wild poppies that have been picked, dried and torn apart by Beverley-based photographer Lee Karen Stow.

Having initially been drawn to Hull’s sister city of Freetown in Sierra Leone in 2007 to capture images of women who had lived through civil war, Stow returned numerous times before eventually displaying her work in an international touring exhibition called 42, in response to the average life expectancy of women in the country.

This initial exhibition was the first step in a journey that saw Lee travelling around the world to meet with women and girls who have lived through conflict and been left to pick up the pieces of lives torn apart. She visited and photographed women in Hiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia, the West Bank through to Holocaust survivors and listened to their stories of being torn from their families, their homes and their lives. She also began documenting the stories of women from Somalia, Syria, Ethiopia, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, etc, who had arrived in Hull and the US as refugees.

Lee said: “These intimate encounters revealed an untold story that I really wanted to tell and show. These stories I have told from the perspective of the women who were there. Remembering these stories is not to negate the impace of war on men, but to acknowledge the suffering of women, and to recognise that it is often women, who are the ones left to pick up the pieces.”

Inspired to find out more about the flowers and their symbolism, she began researching their significance and discovered the often-forgotten story of the birth of the red poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Lee continued: “It was conceived by American woman Moïna Belle Michael and French woman Madame Anna E Guérin in 1918 as a symbol of grief and a declaration of hope, for peace and an end to war. A century on and the poppy remembrance symbol, although giving comfort to the bereaved, has wandered from its original purpose. Likewise, each November, Michael and Guérin are forgotten, as are many women affected by war, whose stories are lost behind the bigger headlines and the politics surrounding the symbol.”

While unpacking some poppies she had set aside to dry in 2016, Lee heard the story on the news of the bombing of a hospital in Syria and in sheer frustration tore the poppy in her hand and threw it down on the table.

She said: “TORN represents my own personal frustration and anger, as I watched war and conflict happening again, and again, with women and girls being disproportionately affected. I thought nothing has changed in the decade that I have been documenting this. But when I looked again at the shredded petals I picked them up and tried to reconstruct them and make something beautiful out of the damage. Suddenly I was reminded of the strength, resilience and resourcefulness demonstrated by women. Women who somehow manage to pick up the pieces and carry on, providing for their families and often becoming active advocates for peace.”

David Sinclair, Curator at Humber Street Gallery, said: “Lee’s work really highlights the hidden impacts of war and conflict in a really beautiful way. It forces us to think more broadly about the ripple effect on those who aren’t on the front line, but on those who deal with different, but equally devastating, consequences.”

Lee said: “Not only do the impacts of war ripple through families, but through time too. There are many men who have served in wars who are still feeling the effects and there are many women who are still trying to rebuild their lives, their families, their homes and their communities.

“Remembrance shouldn’t be for just for one day in November or just about looking back, because it’s every day now that war and conflict are ruining the lives of thousands of women and girls. I hope this opens up a conversation, but that talk turns into greater awareness and action, because women and girls’ lives are being torn apart. Women and girls are dying; experiencing sexual exploitation, harassment and trafficking; abuse and torture; and being torn displaced from everything they’ve known.”

Torn is open at Humber Street Gallery from 6 November – 31 December, admission is free.



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