It has been almost a generation since Sebastião
Salgado first published Exodus in 2000, but the story it
tells, of fraught human movement around the globe, has
changed little in all these years. The push and pull factors
[5] may shift, the nexus of conflict relocates from Rwanda to
Syria, but the people who leave their homes tell the same
tale: deprivation, hardship, and glimmers of hope, plotted
along a journey of great psychological, as well as physical,
toil.
[10] Salgado spent six years with migrant peoples,
visiting various countries all over the world to document
displacement on the road, in camps, and in overcrowded
city slums where new arrivals often end up. His images
feature those who know where they are going and those
[15] who are simply in flight, relieved to be alive. The faces he
meets present dignity and compassion in the most bitter of
circumstances, but also the many ravaged marks of
violence, hatred, and greed.
With his particular eye for detail and motion,
[20] Salgado captures the heart-stopping moments of migratory
movement, as much as the mass flux. There are laden
trucks, crowded boats, and camps stretched out to a
clouded horizon, and then there is the small, bandaged leg;
the fingerprint on a page; the interview with a border
[25] guard. Insisting on the scale of the migrant phenomenon,
Salgado also asserts, with characteristic humanism, the
personal story within the overwhelming numbers. Against
the indistinct faces of televised footage or the crowds
caught beneath a newspaper headline, what we find here
[30] are portraits of individual identities, even in the abyss of a
lost land, home, and, often, loved ones.
Humanity on the move: Sebastião Salgado’s searing account of exiles, migrants, and refugees. Internet: www.taschen.com (adapted).
Considering the text on Exodus and the photograph taken by Salgado, of refugee camp in Rwanda, judge the following item.
With “many ravaged marks of violence, hatred, and greed” (ℓ. 17 and 18) the text may be referring to suffering migrants experienced both before and after leaving their homeland.