The Weight of Seeing

We live in an age of contradictions—where images of war stream in real time alongside viral memes and curated moments of joy. This juxtaposition creates a strange normalization, a blurring of the horrific and the mundane. In this fractured visual landscape, photography takes on new urgency and meaning.

The Weight of Seeing explores the role of the photographer in times of war—not only as a witness, but as someone who carries the invisible burden of what has been seen. Many of the photographers in this selection are still living and working in war zones. Their images are shaped not just by proximity to violence, but by lived experience—by memory, loss, alienation, and survival.

While Some artists engage photography as documentation, other follow a conceptual process of distancing, or detachment, while others confront their personal realities head-on. Whether through direct testimony or metaphorical language, what unites them is a deep engagement with what it means to see—and to keep seeing—when reality itself becomes unbearable.

To see is to bear witness. But today, seeing also implies responsibility. It demands resilience. It becomes a way of processing trauma, of negotiating one's place between the personal and the collective.

While anchored in Ukraine, The Weight of Seeing speaks to a universal condition. War alters not only landscapes and bodies, but also the act of looking. To photograph in such times is to carry fragments of history, echoes of destruction, and the quiet strength required to endure. This selection honors that weight.