Rebel Lives: Photographs from inside the Lord's Resistance Army by Kristof Titeca

This visual story is not only about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), but a narrative about conflict in all times and places, where the boundaries between victim and perpetrator have become blurred. It is a story of people's struggle to survive and find their place, particularly focusing on the plight of children who bear the brunt of this tension.

The exhibition, published to accompany an exhibition at the Museum of Photography in Antwerp, running until October 2019, is based on photographs taken by LRA commanders between 1994 and 2004. Kristof Titeca, a senior lecturer in Development Studies and an expert on the LRA, collected this material and used it to trace the photographed (former) rebels. Together with Congolese photographer Georges Senga, he travelled back to photograph the former rebels in their current context, giving a voice to these actors.

The LRA, led by the infamous Joseph Kony, is a rebel group that was active in Northern Uganda from the second half of the 1980s. The rebellion became notorious for the use of extreme violence, particularly its large-scale abductions of civilians, more than half of whom were children.

Rebel Lives is a visual story about life inside the rebel group, documenting the rebels as they wanted to be seen among themselves and by the outside world. The book has received praise for its "disturbingly haunting and banally quotidian" nature, with one reviewer describing it as a "most important historical document" based on meticulous research and astute writing, complemented by beautiful poems and remarkable follow-up photos that unveil a layer of humanity.

In essence, this visual story transcends the specific context of the LRA, serving as a broader exploration of the complex dynamics of conflict, where the lines between victim and perpetrator become blurred and the struggles of individuals, particularly children, to survive and find their place in the midst of such tension, take center stage.

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