Threads: Playground Battlefield

An overview of the final trend.

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Research Reference: Cedric Gerbehaye for Time Magazine

Cedric Gerbehaye produced a photo essay for Time Magazine looking at the Congo's child soldiers. This work inspired me to look into the child soldiers feelings and situation, in particular this picture.

It also gave glimpses of their environment which I used to inspire the print effect of my collection.

Cedric Gerbehaye Photo Essay

Threads: Playground Battlefield

Research Reference: Patrick Robert

A section of Patrick Robert's work is from conflict areas such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. It was Roberts work which inspired the location for Johnny Mad Dog and his photographs are featured at the end of the film while the credits are rolling. Jean-Stephane Sauvaire wanted to show the photographs to show the audience that although the film is fictional the experience is real.

www.patrick-robert.com/

Threads: Playground Battlefield

Research Reference: War School by Ben Newman

WAR SCHOOL from Ben Newman on Vimeo.

This film brings the reality of the conflict in war torn countries to a western audience. At first the audience thinks they are observing a normal English classroom, it then come apparent that they are being taught about guns and having shooting practice, how to kill. It bring to the forefront the brutality, torture and pressure on a child soldier to do what the are told and to do it well.

Threads: Playground Battlefield

Research Reference: Charities

There are many charities which are set up to help child soldiers; getting them out of combat, giving the a safe place to live and an education. In an interview with Jean-Stephane Sauvaire the director of Johnny Mad Dog, he explains that the ex-child soldiers aren't interested in education because they don't see themselves having a future. They live each day as if it is their last because they believe that they are more likely to die the next day than go on and have a successful career. These charities want the ex-child soldiers to realise they have a right to an education as much as anyone else and that they can go on to be successful.

A lot of the campaigns used by charities highlight what a child should be doing against what these child soldiers are doing.

Child Soldiers International (formally The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers)

Project AK47

Amnesty International

Help Child Soldiers (Candian division of War Child)

Unicef

Invisible Children


The Protection Plan from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Threads: Playground Battlefield

Research Reference: Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry is a photojournalist who has won many awards for his work.
He disguised himself before crossing the Pakistan border into Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion and came back with some of the first images to show the conflict sewn into his clothes. The majority of his work is taken in war torn countries around the globe.

www.stevemccurry.com

Threads: Playground Battlefield

Research References: Johnny Mad Dog Review


This film along with was a great source of information to gain a greater understanding of the life of a child soldier.

Johnny Mad Dog (2008) directed by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire follows a group of 15 rebel, child soldiers at the end of the Liberian civil war 2003. It shows them terrorising, intimidating and interrogate civilians involving rape and death. It not only shows the damage they commit but also how they themselves are manipulated to  believe that they are doing what needs to be done by older soldiers. The phrase, “You don’t wanna die, don’t be born,” is repeatedly used and they are told they with be shot if they mention their families, at one point, one of the soldier says, “My weapon is my mother and my father.” This shows how detached they are from their lives before becoming and child soldier. The lead character ‘Mad Dog’, doesn’t even remember his real name.

Although detached from their family they still have a strong sense of unity between each other, when one of them dies, after only being abducted just a short while before, he is still giving a kind of memorial, showing their respect. Scenes like this show another side to the soldiers, their vulnerability and naivety which is what the older soldiers take advantage of as they manipulated them to become killers, but some of it still remains. We see one child soldier, No Good Advice, struggle to accept that they need to kill a pig to eat that he got off an old man, they appear to have killed a pig before but for some reason he has an attachment to this pig showing that they are not completely detached from all emotions.

The Making Of...

The actors are in fact ex-child soldiers and the director took their experiences to help make the film realistic, changing aspects if the children said that it would not of happened that way. Being part of the film helped the ex-child soldiers with their recovery of their experiences. Months were taken to prepare them for filming which was like therapy to them. For them it was a way of showing themselves and their communities, who have exiled them, that they did not know what they were doing and they didn’t have a choice but know they are a different person.