A visual grammar of humanitarian action

On the occasion of an exhibition co-produced by the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and the Rencontres d’Arles where it will be on display this summer, this work unveils an exceptional archive. These images from the collections of the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent reveal an immense heritage which had been left largely unexplored. Structured in a thematic path (to mobilize, to show, to witness), the book brings together the great names in photography as well as photos taken by humanitarian workers from 1850 to the present day.

The book is illustrated by photographs commented by great witnesses, photographers or actors in the field. These stories offer keys to understand the codes of representation of the humanitarian image and make it possible to highlight what it tells and what it does not show. It is this critical perspective that Nathalie Herschdorfer and Pascal Hufschmid are developing in their introduction, deciphering the links between humanitarian action and still images. Crossing a century and a half of photographic archives allows us to grasp the extent to which photography reproduces, reinforces and reinvents humanitarian narratives.