The 11 black-and-white portraits that were part of the “Dawn of Recovery” exhibition Nov. 7-9 at Gallery Ras Aid in Amman, Jordan, showed the tragic faces of war and violence: burned skin and lips, missing fingers and hands, and disfigured faces. Next to each portrait, a colored photo showed the same person after reconstructive surgery — still scarred, but showing at least a glimmer of hope and joy.
“[The surgeries] have given them the opportunity to return to a life that is almost normal,” Faris al-Jawad, the communications manager at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF) hospital in Amman, who organized the exhibition, told Al-Monitor.
From Yemen to Syria, from Iraq to Palestine, innocent civilians have consistently borne the brunt of conflicts that have swept through the Middle East. Some of them, such as the 11 people portrayed in the photo exhibition, found their way to the MSF hospital in Amman. The exhibition opened Nov. 7 as part of a belated celebration of the 10th anniversary of the hospital, which was established in May 2006. Its original aim was to help Iraqi war victims who were unable to access needed medical treatments, but with conflicts and wars raging in the Middle East, the hospital has been treating patients ever since.
The color photographs, along with the explanations next to them, show the patients not just as victims but also as living, breathing individuals, doing things such as playing a guitar or riding a bike. The portraits show that the children and adults have regained, at least partially, their lives.
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