The Frontline Club

The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with the University of the Arts London (UAL) photography research centre PARC, based at London College of Communication, for a new series of events examining how today’s photographers and artists are finding new strategies to bring to light important information in the public interest – information that governments would rather remained secret. Working with lawyers, human rights specialists – and becoming rigorous investigators in their own rights – these new war photographers reveal the invisible battlefields that have been multiplying the world over since 9/11.

For the second event of the series, the club was joined by critically-acclaimed artist David Birkin, in conversation with Max Houghton, who uses his work to examine elements of censorship and spectacle in the so-called War on Terror. He has explored subjects ranging from the covert deployment of drones in Pakistan and Yemen, to the Bush-era ban on photographing flag-draped coffins. We will be hearing from Birkin on his recent work that engages with invisible warfare – including ‘The Shadow of a Doubt’, his public performance involving a plane circling the Statue of Liberty’s torch; and ‘The Evidence of Absence’, in which he launched a replica of a military surveillance blimp currently flying over Kabul above a London residential neighbourhood.

This event was moderated by Max Houghton, senior lecturer in photography at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She previously ran the documentary photography MA at the University of Westminster, and edited the photography biannual 8 magazine for six years. She writes regularly on the arts for publications including FOAM, Photoworks, 1000 Words and The Daily Telegraph.

David Birkin is a British-born artist based in New York. He studied anthropology at Oxford University and fine art at the Slade, and was a fellow on the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His past projects have included a collaboration with the courtroom sketch artist at Guantanamo, a visual rendering of identification numbers from the Iraqi civilian casualty database, and skywriting an extract of CIA legalese above Manhattan. He has exhibited internationally, most recently at The Mosaic Rooms in London, FotoFest in Houston, and the Whitney ISP in New York, and has written for publications including Creative Time Reports, Cabinet Magazine, Ibraaz and the Harvard Advocate.

This event was organised by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

The vulnerability of journalists to kidnappings was starkly illustrated by the killing of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic militants in 2014. Their murder underscored the risks taken by journalists and news organisations trying to cover developments in dangerous regions of the world and has forced news enterprises to more clearly prepare for and confront issues of safety.

We discuss how news organisations prepare for and respond to the risk of kidnap, and how insurers, victim recovery firms, journalists’ families, and governments influence the actions of news enterprises – and why freelancers are particularly at risk.

This event was chaired by Richard Sambrook, chairman of INSI, senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and author of Reporting Dangerously: Journalist Killings, Intimidation and Security.

The panel:

Nicolas Hénin is a French freelance journalist who has reported on conflicts in Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. In June 2013 he was kidnapped by Daesh militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa. He was held captive for eleven months until his release in April 2014, and was held alongside other Western hostages including James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Alan Henning and David Haines – all of whom were killed by the extremist group. He is the author of Jihad Academy: The Rise of Islamic State, published in 2015.

Colin Pereira is Director of HP Risk Management and Head of High Risk Security for ITN. He started out as an analyst at the BBC and left a decade later as Deputy Head of the Security team. He has managed and developed risk management structures and training programmes for a number of organisations and manages journalists and filmmakers working on the frontline on a daily basis.

Hannah Storm is director of INSI and author of The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from High-Risk Conflict Zones and No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters.

James Harkin writes for Vanity Fair, Harper’s Magazine and Newsweek and is the author of Hunting Season, about the rise of Islamic State and its campaign of kidnapping.

As one of the world’s deadliest yet least reported conflicts escalates into its second year – and following recent announcements that US military troops are allegedly assisting Yemeni forces on the ground – we will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss the current situation in Yemen.

We will explore the disproportionate lack of media coverage – as well as the extent to which the US, the UK and France may be complicit in fuelling the conflict as they sell billions of dollars worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition. We will map out the players involved, and discuss the toll of the conflict on one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, as well as the potential for reconciliation and a lasting peace process.

Chair: Nawal Al-Maghafi is an independent journalist and filmmaker, and was the first journalist to enter Sadah and gain an exclusive interview with one of the key leaders of the Houthi movement. She has reported across the border in Saudi Arabia on the conditions facing the Shi’a population there, and recently produced a BBC World film on Abdu Aljanadi and his family, interviewing the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his close associates. She has documented the journey of Ethiopian migrants traveling to Saudi Arabia for work and the stories of those who were kidnapped and tortured in Yemen, including at the hands of members of the Yemeni military. Most recently she worked on two films with BBC Newsnight investigating the UK and US role in the war in Yemen and is a frequent writer on The Telegraph, Middle East Eye amongst other publications.

The panel:

Iona Craig is an award-winning independent journalist who was based in Sana’a, Yemen for over four years until December 2014. Former Yemen correspondent for The Times, she has also written for The Irish Times, The Intercept and The Los Angeles Times – and regularly contributes to Al Jazeera America, Index on Censorship, the BBC and others. When civil war broke out in Yemen in March 2015, she was the only international journalist to repeatedly cross the front lines to report on both sides of the conflict. She crossed the Bab el Mandeb by boat between Djibouti and Aden three times to file reports for TV, radio and print from inside the two besieged cities of Aden and Taiz, and spent more than five months travelling over 2,000 miles across the country from Saada to Seiyun to cover the conflict. In early 2016 she met with Al-Qaeda officials while reporting from the AQAP-controlled city of Mukalla.

Sarah Leah Whitson is the executive director of Human Rights Watch‘s Middle East and North Africa Division and oversees the work of the division in 19 countries. She has led dozens of advocacy and investigative missions throughout the region, focusing on issues of armed conflict, accountability, legal reform, migrant workers, and political rights. She has published widely on human rights issues in the Middle East in international and regional media, including The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Awssan Kamal has worked with diaspora groups in the UK to mobilise and campaign on humanitarian issues since the Arab Uprising in 2011. He co-founded the Yemen Relief and Development Forum, and on the ground in Yemen he has worked with a collective of country activists called #SupportYemen to advocate for the rights of marginalised communities, youth and women. He previously worked in Yemen for Oxfam’s governance programme, and is currently the humanitarian campaigns coordinator for Oxfam Yemen.

On 3 August 2014, Daesh militants attacked and took over Sinjar in northern Iraq, a Kurdish-controlled town that was predominantly inhabited by Yazidis.

It was a normal, unbearably hot August day and young Yazidi girl Rukan (11) and her friends had decided to play in the shade, building toys and playing hide and seek, when suddenly they heard cars and approaching gun fire. The genocide against the Yazidis was unfolding – the 74th of its kind.

The so-called Islamic State would brutally slaughter men and women, kidnap the girls and leave the rest of the families with nothing. As thousands of civilians fled to the Sinjar Mountains to find safety, they found themselves stranded without food and water.

Two years on, the plight of the Yazidis has disappeared from international attention. In making Descendants of an Angel – the first feature length documentary focusing on the genocide – the team at Dokumanity films travelled to Shingal, Iraq. They met with Yazidi commanders that were still there and refugees, young and old, that had to leave everything behind. Capturing first-hand accounts of the genocide and the struggles Yazidi refugees are continuing to face, Descendants of an Angel is an invaluable and sensitive record of the 2014 genocide that is carried by the voices of its survivors.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with editing director and reporter Henry Donovan, set manager Frederic Olofsson and creative director David Ben Koerzdoerfer.

The Pearl of Africa tells the story of Cleopatra Kambugu, a 28 year old Ugandan transgender woman. Born biologically male, she is transitioning into the woman she knows she was born to be, in one of the most transphobic places in the world. Forced to leave her country and loving boyfriend behind, she sets out to fight for her right to love, and against all odds, to become the first accepted trans person in Uganda.

From her warm demeanour and disarming smile, you wouldn’t know how dangerous life is for Cleopatra Kambugu. After being outed on the front page of the biggest tabloid in Kampala, in a country with some of the world’s most bigoted anti-LGBT laws (including a notorious bill threatening life imprisonment for homosexuality), her relationship with long-term boyfriend Nelson is tested. Forced to flee to Kenya to escape reprisals, Cleo begins the process of navigating a difficult bureaucracy to reconcile with her partner.

The Pearl of Africa follows its main character as she seeks to shine light on the intricate concepts of gender and identity, bringing viewers into a Ugandan community whose existence has been shrouded in myth and prejudice. A moving and universal love story captured in the face of extreme circumstances, this unforgettable documentary urgently reveals the consequences of Uganda’s anti-LGBT laws.

A Q&A with director Samira Goetschel moderated by journalist Luke Harding.

Tucked away deep in the heart of Russia, there is a hidden city where thousands of men, women and children live and work behind barbed-wire fences monitored by armed guards. The residents are told they are the nuclear shield and saviours of the world. They are told that everyone on the outside is the enemy. One of the most contaminated places on earth, and home to Russia’s largest stockpile of nuclear materials, this place is called CITY 40.

Built after the Second World War to create the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program, City 40 is one of Russia’s secret closed cities, collectively known as Z.A.T.O.

In this feature-length documentary, the film crew gets smuggled inside CITY 40 and – behind a psychological façade of normality – they encounter a single mother and a handful of other brave residents who risk their lives to warn us of the human and environmental catastrophe that threatens the region.

The candidates are all but decided and the race for the White House has begun. With six months of fierce campaigning ahead in what is set to be one of the most contentious US presidential races in recent history, we discuss what the deciding factors will be.

Will Republicans be able to unify behind Donald Trump? What does the nomination of such a divisive figure mean for the future of the party? Can Hilary Clinton defy the approval ratings and garner popular support? Join us as we debate the key issues facing both candidates.

Chaired by Michael Goldfarb, journalist author and broadcaster. He has reported for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and Global Post.

The panel:

Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. He is a columnist for the Financial Times and the author of Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

Peter Trubowitz is professor of international relations and director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and associate fellow at Chatham House. Before joining the LSE, he was professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ed Schultz is a broadcaster with over 30 years experience. He currently produces and hosts his own international show – News with Ed Schultz – which airs on RT America.

Leslie Vinjamuri is director of the Centre on Conflict, Rights & Justice and senior lecturer in international relations at SOAS, University of London. She is an associate fellow at the US & the Americas Programme, Chatham House.

Today’s photographers are finding new strategies to bring to light important information in the public interest – information that governments would rather remained secret. Working with lawyers, human rights specialists – and becoming rigorous investigators in their own rights – these new war photographers reveal the invisible battlefields that have been multiplying the world over since 9/11.

For this first event of the series we welcome photographer Edmund Clark and counterterrorism investigator Crofton Black, in conversation with Max Houghton, who have assembled photographs and documents that confront the nature of contemporary warfare and the invisible mechanisms of state control.

Since George W. Bush’s 2001 declaration of the “war on terror” until 2008, more than one hundred people disappeared into a network of secret prisons organised by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. These so-called “high value detainees” were transferred across the globe on contracted business jets, without legal process – otherwise known as extraordinary renditions. Their movements were never made public. Some were sent to Guantanamo Bay or released; others remain unaccounted for.

In a new volume of work, Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition, Clark and Black have recreated the network that links CIA ‘black sites’ – travelling worldwide to photograph former detention sites, prisoners’ homes and government locations; and assembling a paper trail that exposes the weak points of this unlawful system hidden in plain sight.

This event will be moderated by Max Houghton, senior lecturer in photography at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She previously ran the documentary photography MA at the University of Westminster, and edited the photography biannual 8 magazine for six years. She writes regularly on the arts for publications including FOAM, Photoworks, 1000 Words and The Daily Telegraph.

Crofton Black has spent over six years carrying out in-depth international investigations into counterterrorism tactics on behalf of the human rights group Reprieve, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and other organisations. He has a doctorate of philosophy from the University of London on the topic of early modern hermeneutics and was formerly an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Edmund Clark is an award-winning photographer whose work links history, politics and representation. His series Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out (2010), Letters to Omar (2010) and Control Order House (2012) engage with state censorship to explore hidden experiences and spaces of control and incarceration in the global “war on terror.” More recently, with The Mountains of Majeed (2014) he reflects on the end of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He has received worldwide recognition for his work, including the Royal Photographic Society Hood Medal for outstanding photography for public service and the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award. He teaches at the University of the Arts, London. His work is the subject of a major solo exhibition, ‘Edmund Clark: War of Terror’, at the Imperial War Museum from 28 July 2016 to 28 August 2017.

In 1980, China instigated one of the most radical social experiments in human history. The one child policy has long defined the family and wider society in China – but at the end of the last year a major shift took place when Beijing announced a nationwide two-child policy.

We discuss how the one child policy has come to shape the fabric of modern China, as well as the repercussions it has had. From the significant gender imbalance to the dramatically raging population, what can we learn from this social experiment and what does it mean for China’s future?

Chaired by Paul French, an author and widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is chancellor’s professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. He has edited a number of books on China and is the author of four including China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Mei Fong is a journalist with more than a decade of reporting in Asia, most recently as China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of One Child: The Past and Future of China’s Most Radical Experiment.

Isabel Hilton is a journalist, broadcaster and writer. She is the founder and editor of chinadialogue and has authored and co-authored several books and holds honorary doctorates from Bradford and Stirling Universities. She was appointed OBE in 2010 for her contribution to raising environmental awareness in China.

This groundbreaking documentary from Memento films and ARTE provides rare testimonies from Daesh defectors and those who have helped them escape. Gaining unprecedented access, directors Thomas Dandois and Francois-Xavier Tregan capture what daily life is like inside Daesh and expose the conditions surrounding the dangerous process of exfiltration.

In southeast Turkey, a few dozen kilometres from war-torn Syria, at great risk to themselves, a clandestine network is exfiltrating fighters who have decided to leave Daesh. For the first time, these deserters have agreed to give a detailed account of the roles they played and what life is like under the yoke of Islamic State.

Most of them have lived in Raqqa, the political and military capital of the terrorist group. Personal accounts of this sort are extremely rare because, in general, Daesh deserters go into hiding and keep quiet. If they give themselves up to their country’s authorities, they are immediately imprisoned and can no longer have any contact with their lawyers or families.

The exfiltration network, made up of long-term fighters of the Free Syrian Army, has agreed to reveal a few of its working methods. By helping the deserters to flee and by collecting their testimonies, they want to denounce Islamic State’s lies, its false promises, its cult of violence and its widespread corruption. The members of the network are convinced that, in doing so, they will be able to discourage future Jihad candidates and block precious recruitment channels.