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The aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks shook the United States. In Iran and Afghanistan, families and everyday routines were fractured into unrecognizable pieces.

Lois Raimondo, now the Reed College of Media’s Shott Chair of Journalism, traveled to the middle east two years after the attacks. She’s an award-winning international journalist who combined her passion for people and photography in her most recent exhibit at West Virginia University’s Downtown Campus Library.

“I always try to present perspectives that aren’t necessarily already in the media,” Raimondo, the photographer, said. “Each story, every picture has a point of view, and each one of those are very important.”

The exhibit, “Fractured Spaces: Stories of Resistance & Resilience,” officially opened Thursday. Her photographs also explore Tibetans living as political exiles in India.

The exhibit is broken up into three parts, each showcasing former communities that have faced turmoil that left their people living with no choice but to become survivors.

“I’ve been working on this exhibit from the beginning, and I’m still learning things from the pictures,” said Carroll Wilkinson, director of WVU’s Library Strategic Initiatives.

One part of the exhibit, “In the wake of 9/11,” contains photographs taken in Iraq and Afghanistan after the World Trade Center attack. The emotional photos show Iraqis living among chaos from daily bombings, IED attacks and the complete disassembling of their own country.

Other photographs show Afghan Northern Alliance soldiers struggling across the rough terrain of the Hindu Kush Mountains and engaging Taliban forces during the Ramadan Offensive.

“Safe house Pakistan” displays a small group of Pakistani women locked up together in a government safe house for endangered women and children.

“Tibet in Exile” brings attention to the nearly 100,000 Tibetans living as political refugees in Dharamsala, India.

While the three exhibits strikingly convey the mayhem the world faces every day, Raimondo believes they’re also vital in making connections between what news is portrayed in the media and what news is hidden.

She spent three months crossing the mountains with the Northern Alliance Army during the Ramadan Offensive, but her determination to document the lives of foreign communities in need didn’t stop there.

In 2005, Raimondo spent a year working on stories about Honor Crimes in Pakistan, and she spent two years living in Dharamsala, India among Tibetans, working on stories about Tibetan cultural survival.

“I chose different stories that were really important to me,” Raimondo said. “I thought they were relevant today, to bridge the gaps (in the media).”

Raimondo risked her own safety to tell the stories of people who are not fortunate enough to tell their own personal stories themselves.

Her risk allowed her to not only make the public aware of certain civilizations’ fractured spaces, but civilians’ fractured lives as well.

Many of Raimondo’s photographs show individuals in distraught states, surrounded by the unsettling effects of combat.

Viewing the photographs is a riveting experience that’s sure to pull on even the coldest of heart strings.

“There’s a picture of a man who is obviously very ill and injured,” Wilkinson said. “It’s heart-wrenching to look at, and it really shows the effects of war.”

The visual narratives spanning over a 20 year period are meant to draw viewers in and allow them to experience a situation from someone else’s point of view.

The Fractured Spaces exhibit is part of the “Art in the Libraries” program, and is underwritten in part by a grant from the WVU Faculty Senate Research grant program and the Office of the Provost.

“Fractured Spaces: Stories of Resistance & Resilience,” sponsored by WVU Libraries, will be showcased in the downtown library until April 30.

Media College faculty member displays storytelling photography at Downtown Campus Library

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