The Man I Left Behind

For Larry Towell, the son of a farmer, ‘connection with the land’ is fundamental. His magazine reportages, photo books and documentaries cover civil war in Nicaragua, US anti-terrorist actions in Afghanistan, the Palestinian Intifada and the Zapatista revolution in Mexico, but ultimately their subject is the same: the struggle for land rights. Time and again, citizens are severed from the place that provides their livelihood, and from which they derive their identity and pride. The result: hunger, deaths, injuries and streams of refugees.

In The Man I Left Behind, the Canadian photographer draws on his 40-year oeuvre as a member of the famous photography collective Magnum. He opts for empathy rather than drama, and thus goes beyond conventional news images.

A small digital video camera enables him to capture things that a fully-equipped film crew would miss. He provides commentary in the form of his own folk songs. And his poetically political voice-over is not lacking in self-reflection. He too lives on land that once belonged to others.