Photographer Fazal Sheikh has captured the lives of marginalized and displaced communities around the world for more than twenty years. Sheikh was born in New York in 1965. His father was Kenyan and his mother American. Sheikh’s exploration of his personal and familial history often informs his approach to engaging with communities in order to tell their stories.
Ajoh Achot and Anchol Manyen depicts two Sudanese refugees at a refugee camp in Lokichogio, Kenya. They both look directly into the camera, transfixing the viewer. The facial expression of the figure on the left is plaintive, while the expression of the figure on the right is attentive as she stands with her hand pressed gently upon her chest.
The town Lokichogio is located in the Northwest region of Kenya and lies less than 20 miles from Sudan. Because of its proximity to the Kenya-Sudan border, it became a refuge for many Sudanese emigrants who were forced to flee their homeland as a result of conflicts that arose from the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-1995). In the summer of 1992, approximately 25,000 Sudanese emigrants sought refuge in Kenya. Achot and Manyen would have been just two of thousands of refugees that made the arduous journey from Sudan to Kenya. The ensuing refugee crisis brought many of international photojournalists into Kenya to document refugee camps for various media outlets. Sheikh recalls the feeling of his encounter with these photojournalists: "I remembered watching them working and feeling a sense of unease, an inability to follow along and make the expected photographs." The “expected photographs” Sheikh refers to are the sensationalized and often exploitative representations of refugee communities in mainstream media that treat these civilians as hapless victims deserving of pity.
Sheikh, however, humanizes his subjects in his sensitively rendered portraits. He spends extended periods of time with the communities he photographs to build a strong rapport and familiarity with his subjects. Behind each portrait, the artist has established a relationship and consensus with all the individuals involved. His collaborative photographic practice is rooted in a profound empathy that reveals a rare intimacy between subject and photographer. By collaborating with his subjects, Sheikh recognizes their agency and provides space for moments of self-possession that they are often denied in mass-media depictions.
Ajoh Achot and Anchol Manyen is taken from the series A Sense of Common Ground, a body of work that Sheikh produced from 1991-1994 which documents Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Somali refugees at camps in Kenya and Mozambican camps in Malawi. During his travels, he considered photography as a tool that enabled him to relate to others and sought a pared down style that captured the individuality of his sitters. This method of working and the resulting style would become the foundation of Sheikh’s later work with marginalized communities around the world.
In his later work, beginning with the series, The Victor Weeps, Sheikh includes personal testimonies from his sitters in which they speak of their lives. He saw a need for “text to elaborate on the message of a photograph.” However, this photograph was taken before the introduction of personal testimonies in Sheikh's work and does not include narratives from the subjects. But despite the absence of an accompanying testimony, Sheikh's sincere portrayal dutifully announces Achot and Manyen’s presence. The direct, black-and-white portrait of the pair in natural lighting reduces the distraction of extraneous detail in the photograph and invites a careful contemplation of their personhood. They are not defined by the tragic circumstances in which they find themselves; they are more than the dispossession and geographical displacement that has altered their lives. Achot and Manyen stand dignified and distinct before Sheikh’s camera in an affirmation of their humanity.
