Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul · 27 October 2026
On 27 October, I brought Witnessing Conflict to Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) in Seoul. Held with the Austrian Embassy in Seoul, the event was an opportunity to share the work and the decisions behind it with students at the university. Photographer Ethan Swope also joined the programme as a speaker.
Behind the photographs
A photograph shows a moment. It rarely shows all the decisions that came before it: how we approach someone, how trust develops, when we raise the camera and when we leave it down. For me, talking about documentary photography means making room for that part of the work, too.
Witnessing Conflict is about human stories and the responsibility of making them visible. The images matter, but so does the context that allows another person to read them. What we choose to show, and what we leave outside the frame, shapes that understanding.
Coming to Seoul after our photography workshop in Mongolia meant moving from working in the field to sharing that perspective in a university setting. Different surroundings, but the same concern for the people behind the photographs.
Thank you to HUFS, Ambassador Eva Marie Russek and the Austrian Embassy in Seoul for making the event possible, and to everyone who came to listen. I am grateful to Ethan for contributing his own experience to the programme.
