Victor J. Blue:
Cities in Dust
On View: April 4 – 21, 2019
Bronx Documentary Center Annex
364 E. 151st St, Bronx, NY 10455
Victor J. Blue’s panoramic photographs of the destroyed cities of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, on view at the Bronx Documentary Center from April 4th to 21st, navigate a landscape of devastation from aerial bombardment scarcely seen since World War II.
This exhibition was curated by Michael Kamber and Cynthia Rivera.
Spanish translations by Maria de la Paz Galindo.
Exhibitions at the Bronx Documentary Center are made possible by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Foundation support is provided by the Clif Family Foundation, Chris Hondros Fund, Four Friends Foundation, Ford Foundation, Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, Lawrence Foundation, Pierre and Tania Matisse Foundation, Peck Foundation, Scherman Foundation, and the Van Agtmael Fund. Special thanks to our corporate sponsors Adobe, BronxCare Health System, Fujifilm, and Montefiore Health System.
Over the course of the four-year campaign against the Islamic State, the US-led coalition conducted 14,638 airstrikes in Iraq and 16,864 airstrikes in Syria, the bulk of which fell on Mosul and Raqqa, the twin capitals of the ISIS caliphate.
The cities were leveled in the fight to liberate them from their captors. A year after the bombing stopped and the fighters were routed, Raqqa and the Old City of Mosul still lie in ruins. No comprehensive reconstruction plan exists; the viability of both cities remains in doubt.
The cities’ destruction begs the question: what was the cost of the West’s war against extremism if the battlegrounds remain permanently uninhabitable?
Life in Raqqa and Mosul is frozen at a moment just after the last bombs fell, the fires went out, and the US-led coalition declared victory and moved on.
But the civilians of Mosul and Raqqa are left to consider the scale of the destruction, and the reality that they have been forgotten.
Victor J. Blue (@victorblue) is a photojournalist whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, human rights and the protection of civilian populations, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics. His work from around the world has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek and leading publications from around the world.