Imaging War Conference

Staff from Applied Global Ethics recently travelled to the historic town of Vadstena on the banks of Lake Vattern in Sweden to participate in the conference, Imaging War.

The conference was attended by academics and professionals from countries including Nigeria, Columbia, Bangladesh and the US, who are  interested in how war is imaged and imagined, perceived and presented - on television, in film and photography, via computer games and through the news media.

Keynote speaker, war correspondent Kate Adie, gave a fascinating talk, drawing on thirty years of world-wide war reporting. Presentations also included war photographers, specialists on computer war games and future military technologies, which were mixed with stories of the propaganda and tragedy of war and reports of humanitarian work in conflict zones.

Other talks drew on personal experiences as war victims and Osvaldo Gasparini spoke movingly of being imprisoned and tortured for eight years in Argentina.

Anahi Medina Otby, twin sister of Leeds Met PhD student Ayeray Medina Bustos, presented her series of paintings at the conference which depict women affected by war. One of her images exhibited at the conference (pictured right), reflects their aunt and her daughter who was held as a political prisoner under the Argentinean military dictatorship.