Black.Light Project

For ten years Pedro Rosa Mendes (writer) and Wolf Böwig (photographer) traveled the region to document the West African wars. Their work has been recognized and published in newspapers and publications around the world. Under the label “The Charles Taylor Wars”, an international lineup of illustrators and artists now create a crossover version of the reports, merging illustration, photography and written word. With this media conversion the project aims to attract especially young people.

Through the collaboration of artists, photographer, writer as well as local eyewitnesses, Black.Light Project creates the fragments of 15 different stories in a series of workshops. Black.Light Project aims at creating synergies and a transcontinental dialogue that goes far beyond of what traditional war correspondence can achieve. The work is presented in galleries and public venues on three continents, Europe, Africa and the United States and eventually published in a book.

After its initial presentation at the BROWSE Fotofestival 2012 BLP project progress will be visible in an outdoor exhibition at Global Music Academy.Wolf Böwig will be present at the festival and talk about the project and its unique cross media approach June 14th, 8 pm in a panel with Robert King, Rocco Castoro and Micha Brunveils discussing different multimedia reportage formats and opportunities to reach younger audiences. At 7 pm Berlin actor Alexander Radszun will perform a reading of, accompanying a short BLP video.