Concerning intent, interpretation, memory and ambiguity in the work of an informal collective working on the Western Sahara conflict

Abstract

In October 2016 I made my first visit to the refugee camps of Western Sahara’s Saharawi people near the Algerian town of Tindouf. This was an opportunity to advance my research on the work of an “informal collective” who work with a collection of photographs belonging to Moroccan soldiers, seized by SPLA (Saharawi People’s Liberation Army) over the course of 15 years spent fighting Moroccan forces. In this essay, I conceptualize the relationship between two disparate practices centering around photography—that of the Saharawi’s political organization, the Front Polisario, and the work undertaken by this informal collective. The latter’s work involves exploring the ontological coordinates of these photographs in a dialogical setting. Besides probing the many resonances between the group’s work and the Polisario’s treatment of the photographs of Moroccans in their possession, this essay is also concerned with the relationship between the conflict and its medial representation.