2011 was a heavy year. A year of disorder and also a year that brought change. Live Magazine went to Somerset House to check out Frontline: A Year of Journalism & Conflict, which aims to give a unique insight into the news reporting of the four major stories of 2011: Egyptian revolution, Syria, the Libyan conflict and the UK riots. This is what Culture Editor Edwina Mukasa thought of her experience at the exhibition.
The first thing I noticed was how loud it was to be in there. Exhibitions can often be quiet affairs but this was far from it. You can hear noise before you walked in the door, like a football match was playing near by. When you walk in you realise why, the video displays Sky News footage, depicting the harshest of images as well as giving us an insight to the reporting behind of one of the most poignant moments in history.
The layout of the space makes it really easy to digest the huge of amount of change and youth revolt that has taken place. With the use of a timeline around the room, you get a sense of the scale of the change happening throughout Egypt, Syria, and Libya. This is not football, there is no footage of anything entertaining here. Some of the images of violence and footage can be really disturbing to watch. Especially when you enter “The Last Days of A Dictator” area of the exhibition. The space holds several TV’s that chronicle the last days of Colonel Gaddafi. With commentaries by several reporters that got to interview (albeit briefly) Gaddafi when he was in power, they comment on his personality “he almost acted like a rockstar”, his sons, and on his downfall. They comment on the footage released of his dead body, which only brings to the forefront the dilemma of broadcasting extremely disturbing images to the public.
The timeline comes to an end with one of the most pertinent times for our youth last year; the August riots. I think this hit home the most for me. With the Arab Spring, although both devastating and encouraging in equal measures, there was a sense of detachment because it’s far away and about an issue that stemmed from a long time ago. But watching the live Sky News reports of the August riots unfold brought back memories of me watching the exact same footage back on August 8th 2011 in my living room, wondering what the hell was going on in this country. Hearing reports of fires not in Tripoli, but in a town I actually knew and in fact lived in. The feeling of both chaos and anger arrived afterwards and only made me think that this was something we can never see again. While the Arab Spring felt like something that needed to be done, the August riots felt to me like a horrible mistake and something we can now move on from. The footage and images displayed helped remind me of that.
It’s not always an easy place to be in but it’s certainly worthwhile to get a sobering look at how far each nation has come.
This exhibition is FREE at Somerset House (Nearest Station is Charring Cross) until the 5th of Feb.
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@thislondonchick
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