As an appendix to the recently published article on Omar D in 1000 Words #5 here is an associated video that has been downloaded from HumanRightsTV. It is taken form the conference called `Documenting Disappearance: Algeria, state terrorism and the photographic image´ that was held at the London School of Economics back in May 2008.
Taking as its starting point Omar D's book of photographs, Devoir de memoire/A Biography of Disappearance, Algeria 1992-, commissioned and edited by Autograph ABP, this event examines what happens when the apparatus of a state is turned on its own citizens. It asks how we can disseminate the truth about events that are officially denied or obfuscated by the legal system, how to lobby for the application of UN resolutions on forced disappearances and whether human rights organisations can overcome pot-colonial and economic interests. Can imagery be more potent than text in bringing human rights issues into public knowledge? Can we talk of a politics of aesthetics in the context of subjects who have been stripped of their civil existence? How can the invisible be made visible?
Here´s Tom O Mara, editor of Devoir de memoire/A Biography of Disappearance, Algeria 1992-, speaking on behalf of Omar D:
