The British photographer Gabrielle Farah's series of photos “Bringing Home the War” adresses the unfortnaly highly topical and complex issue of what the women and men of Syria, Afghanistan or Gaza are fighting for and conversely what the English are defending from the tranquility of their gardens and century-old houses. Farah writes in her statement for the exhibition of the works:

"Bringing Home the War aims to create a social debate by rediscovering the quintessetial English landscape, and by disrupting accepted narratives demonstrate that content is often a subjectively rendering of facts.

War, displaced people and human suffering have become part of our everyday vernacular, we view them from a comfortable distance, in certain cases relying on received opnion to map the political landscape. If we were to be more directly affected, would we be compelled to question the cause and effect with greater scrutiny? [...]

Through these images I want the viewer to look at things afresh, to question the veracity of content of what they see and believe. The photographs, rather then being a romantic cliche of Englishness in fact introduce the complexities, diversity and ambiguity of our modern global culture."

The artist uses photo editing software to create the images of lurking conflict in tranquille landscapes. The original conflict images were taken by frontline photojournalist Medyan Dairieh in various conflict zones in the Middle East and is working in partnership with Farah on this project.The series had a feature in The Wall Street Journal and has been exhibited at Brighton Photo Fringe, P21 Gallery, London and the Human Rights in Action in Copenhagen 2014.

Provenance: The photographs were part of the exhibit “Bringing Home the War” held by Human Rights in Action in Copenhagen, 2014.