Update: The Whitewater Arts Alliance has announced it will be extending this exhibition through March.
The photographic works of Mark Lawrence McPhail will be on display at the Whitewater Cultural Arts Center, 402 W. Main St., Whitewater, until Feb. 28, according to a recent Whitewater Arts Alliance press release.
The exhibit features images documenting the work of the Akola Project, formerly known as the Uganda American Partnership Organization (UAPO). McPhail, serving as a board member, traveled with the group to Northern Uganda in 2009.
McPhail worked with a local refugee community on serval development projects, according to the release, and documented the experience through explanatory photographs depicting the work being done and portraits of the people served by the project.
In an accompanying “artist’s statement,” McPhail said: “This collection of images offers a commentary on the well known Yoruba proverb: ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ In Africa, a continent underdeveloped and exploited for centuries, it takes more than a village to serve and support children displaced from their homes and families by war, conflict, and environmental disruptions. It takes people of conscience, compassion, and generosity to truly raise a child. In working with the Akola Project, an organization that seeks to serve and support the least, the lost, and the left behind, I had the opportunity to document and observe the power of people of conscience to serve as an extended family for children who had lost the families into which they were born.”
The Akola Project, founded by Brittany Merrill Underwood as the UAPO, employs hundreds of women in Dallas and Uganda to make jewelry, selling their designs at exclusive stores including Neiman Marcus.
In 2009, UAPO traveled to refugee camps in Northern Uganda to assist with several development projects and work with women in their communities to build sustainable businesses. These images tell the story of the kindness, compassion, and commitment of the UAPO volunteers, and the hope, appreciation, and joy clearly captured in the eyes, expressions, and smiles of the children they served, information provided by the Whitewater Arts Alliance noted.
Within his statement, McPhail said: “This is a story that needs to be told in a time when division, conflict, and disease seem to have undermined our collective capacity for empathy, kindness, and generosity. At a time when cruelty and indifference seems to have crippled our politics, and threatened the wealth and health of nations, perhaps those of us who too often take for granted the privileges we enjoy might learn from children for whom such privileges are a distant dream.
“In Uganda, I discovered that when our privilege is tempered by compassion and motivated by a spiritually inspired commitment to serving others, we will raise children who can help us realize and appreciate the dreams of democracy, freedom, and equality to which we aspire. As these images indicate, it may take more than a village to raise a child, and yet it might well be the children who teach us the simple lessons of life that define our humanity, and remind us of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s recognition that ‘We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’”
The Whitewater Cultural Arts Center is open Friday through Sunday, 2 – 4 p.m.
For more information about the Whitewater Arts Alliance and its programming, visit: https://www.whitewaterarts.org.
Mark Lawrence McPhail (Photo submitted).
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