KARACHI: Oftentimes, what we read is what we don’t get. The reference is to the reports that the media feeds us with on a daily basis (in today’s context, on a minute-by-minute basis). This makes it important for us to know the stories behind the stories. A photo exhibition organised by Médecins Sans Front­ières (Doctors Without Borders) titled Pakistan Behind the Headlines at the Arts Council attempts to do the same.

The photographs taken by Sa’adia Khan depict the lives of the people that belong to, what the photographer calls, far-flung areas such as Fata. Obviously, it is one area which has seen a great deal of turbulence in recent times. The turbulence has been captured in terms of physical damage, but Khan has tried to arrest the moments that indicate a psychological effect on the lives of the photographed people, and at the same time leave a similar psychological impact on the viewer. This means the photographer is able to create empathy in the viewer for her subject.

One image that stands out is that of a child looking through a window. The mat covering the hole through which the kid is looking lends a rustic feel to the scene. What is most noteworthy, though, is the semi-covered face of the child, as if there is a deliberate ploy to evade the camera. What could be the reason for it? Or is it just shyness?

Children also feature in a shot that has both inertia and movement in it. Incidentally, in either case the children’s faces tell a story by virtue of the structure in the background. This is the point that Khan is trying to make: the foreground does not look like something that will make it to the headlines; the background would.

The exhibition will conclude on Friday.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2017