"“I thought I would die,” he says. In 2017, he created the Legacy of War Foundation, which works in Ukraine, Lebanon and Rwanda. Duley is not speaking as an observer. He has personally suffered and overcome the full consequences of war. The former fashion photographer lost both legs and an arm after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan."
"At the 12 May opening of Distortion/Memory/Resilience (until 24 May), Duley pulled visitors from the stunning views into a room darkened with blackout curtains. A camera obscura, upside-down version of the skyline is punctuated by the sound of Shaheed drones, recorded live by his friend Yuliia Tymoshenko, a Ukrainian journalist, while she took cover in her bathroom in Kyiv at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. He compares the camera obscura version of the city to lives being upended by war."
"The blackout room installation, Youth (2026), about the youth and dreams stolen by war, is one of three installations in smaller rooms of the 4,600-sq.-ft space at Sutton Tower, a residential high-rise overlooking the East River. The other two are Childhood and Memory. Childhood is composed of wooden school desks filled with children's art gathered by Gen Ukraine, which works with young victims of wartime trauma."
"The corridor outside the room has Duley's photos of Angolan child soldiers as grown men with no names, who no longer have the sympathy of the world. “These kids were not helped,” Duley says of the grown-up child soldiers. “The distortion of childhood leads to the next generation of violence.”"
Giles Duley leads visitors through a 77th-floor penthouse exhibition focused on wars worldwide and their links to earlier conflicts. He presents the work from lived experience after losing both legs and an arm to a landmine in Afghanistan, and he founded the Legacy of War Foundation to support communities in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Rwanda. The exhibition includes a darkened room with a camera obscura skyline paired with live-recorded drone sounds from Kyiv during the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Youth (2026) addresses stolen youth and dreams, while Childhood uses wooden school desks filled with children’s art collected with Gen Ukraine. Photos of Angolan child soldiers depict unnamed grown men, emphasizing that unaddressed childhood trauma fuels future violence.
#war-photography #memory-and-resilience #landmines-and-trauma #ukraine-conflict #childhood-and-violence
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