Visiting the WorldPress Photo exhibition at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam has become a yearly tradition for me, with various companions, but always with the same punch in the gut. It is an occasion to absorb more human misery, tears, blood and sweat; a significant and necessary load of human suffering. Yet beyond the sensationalism that certain photographs inevitably carry, it is ultimately about being human and living on this planet together. We in Western Europe have the easy part: we can watch others’ pain from the comfort of our peaceful, well-ordered lives. There are enough hot spots in the world to endlessly report war, destruction, death and mourning. From Gaza to Ukraine, from Sudan to Myanmar. Photographers, often at the peril of their own lives, witness, document, report and bring those pictures back to us to watch, ponder, act. Do we act enough is the fundamental question that lingers. What can we do? Those stories are often compelling and touching and yet, are we, as a society, affected? A couple of images stayed with me: a family sharing a meal in Gaza against an almost incomprehensibly vast field of rubble, and a mass of desperate men storming a supply truck at the border with Egypt. And then, the exhibit is finished, we step out into the sun of a beautiful sunny day in Amsterdam and continue to move on with our lives… until edition 2027 of WorldPress Photo.
