Fazal Sheikh: A Sense of Common Ground

In 1991 and 1992, refugees from the wars in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia poured into Kenya, and numerous camps were established along the eastern border to receive them. Malawi had camps for people fleeing the war in Mozambique. Then, in 1994, after the Rwandan genocide, 250,000 people crossed the border in a single day, living in vast refugee camps in Tanzania.

From 1992 to 1994, Fazal Sheikh worked within these refugee communities and began to learn about their experiences. It was here that he first witnessed international photojournalists arriving in a flash, completing their coverage in less than 24 hours, and then leaving.

"Watching their work, I felt uneasy, unable to keep up, and unable to take the expected photographs," he later said.

He decided to stay in the camps for an extended period and sought permission from the elders to invite their people for portraits. The portraits he took during his first few months in Kenya established a working style that has remained essentially unchanged ever since. Subsequently, his work would include landscapes, still lifes, found portraits, and personal testimonies and his own stories. However, portraits remained at the core of his work.

In 1996, his first photobook, "A Sense of Common Ground" (Scalo, 1996), was born from this work.