How Documented Imagery Registers Experienced Violence and Harship

‘How Documented Imagery Registers Experienced Violence and Harship’ in relation to art and the environment is a project for the AS Art and Design: Critical and Contextual Studies course dealing with human harship with a focus on child labour. The outcome of the work is a painting recreated from a photograph of a young Turkish-Cypriot girl in the yard of her house, immersed in hardship and poverty. Captured in a dominantly Turkish-Cypriot neighbourhood of my city, Limassol, this neighborhood was bound by a neglected and itinerant nature due to the constant movement of the residents between the South and North of Cyprus after the Turkish invasion and occupation of the North part of the island in 1974. The aftermath had great impact on all population groups. The quality of living in these neighborhoods is foul, economically distressed and dominated by the feeling of isolation. An enclave of neglect. Through docmentary photography, the project aimed to represent how human harship and foul living conditions could be registered. Based on research on earlier conditions of child labour, the project is a translation of the contemporary conditions of child suffering, isolation and displacement as results of war atrocities.