Stories behind the stories
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.