19 - 24 February 2008

10am - 5pm

Informal Talk with Ann David: Thursday 21 February at 12noon

Desmond Tutu

Gill Hicks

A powerful photographic exhibition exploring the idea of forgiveness in the face of atrocity, and telling the stories of both victims and perpetrators.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who himself features in the exhibition and is a patron of The Forgiveness Project, describes forgiveness as a journey out of victimhood.  ‘Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done.  It means taking what has happened seriously and not minimising it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.  In these forgiveness stories there is real healing’.

THE F WORD: images of forgiveness is the brainchild of journalist Marina Cantacuzino and photographer Brian Moody who in January 2004, tired of a climate where revenge and retaliation dominated the headlines, resolved to present the public with an alternative view.

Travelling to places including the United States, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Romania, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, as well as the UK, they collected the stories of 26 people whose lives had been shattered by violence, tragedy and injustice - and who had chosen to take the challenging and often painful journey towards forgiveness.

The exhibition’s subjects include Berthe and Francis Climbié, parents of 7-year old Victoria Climbié who was abused and murdered by her aunt; Marian Partington, whose sister was murdered by Frederick West;  Pat Magee, the man behind the IRA Brighton bomb and Jo Berry, whose father was killed in the blast; Duma Kumalo, one of the Sharpville Six, wrongly imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit; and Andrew Rice, whose brother David was killed in the World Trade Center bombing.

"If you focus only on retribution, you extinguish the very spirit and memory of your child."
Francis Climbie, father of Victoria.

Dame Anita Roddick, whose company Anita Roddick Books sponsored the exhibition, said ‘Tit-for-tat killings and pay-back politics are all we hear about these days.  That’s why I think it’s so terribly important to give a platform to those who have gone the other way – people who have turned revenge on its head and tried to forgive.  An exhibition like this needs to be seen, and to be seen it needs support’.

The exhibition is produced by The Forgiveness Project, a non-partisan, non-religious charitable organisation working at local, national and international level to promote conflict resolution and restorative practices as alternatives to the endless cycles of conflict, violence and crime that are the hallmarks of our time.  Through collecting and sharing personal stories, and delivering educational and self-help programmes, The Forgiveness Project aims to reframe the debate about how individuals and communities can learn to celebrate difference and overcome division, thereby fostering positive social change.

Its patrons include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Emma Thompson, Britain’s Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, as well as Jilly Forster of The Forster Company who was instrumental in setting up The Forgiveness Project.  Amongst its supporters are Helen Mirren, Tony Benn, Katharine Hamnett, Terry Waite and Annie Lennox.

www.theforgivenessproject.com

Harbour House 2008 ©