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The Testimony of Faces: Struggle, War and Change Among Tobacco Workers in Jalapa, Nicaragua

Theology & Ministry Library Exhibit

Approximately 90 linear feet of space along three walls fitted with picture rail on the lower level Theology and Ministry Library. Exhibits are sought which are consistent with the Jesuit mission of Boston College and, more specifically, with the mission and values of the School of Theology and Ministry.

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The Testimony of Faces: Struggle, War and Change Among Tobacco Workers in Jalapa, Nicaragua
Photography by Lisa Fitzgerald

March 1 - May 31, 2016

"The most powerful human forces are found in the meeting of the face and gaze. Only there do we exist for one another."  –Karl Ove Knausgaard

Photographer Lisa Fitzgerald lived and worked as a Religious of the Sacred Heart in Jalapa, Nicaragua from 1980 -1984 at the time of the Contra War. During those years, she took photographs of many of the people she made friends with there, almost all of whom worked in the tobacco fields. Throughout the intervening years on repeated visits, she has re-photographed several of these same people, capturing their beauty, dignity and resolve while also powerfully chronicling the physical toll of strenuous labor, exposure to pesticides, and the after-effects of war on their lives and circumstances.

"The most powerful human forces are found in the meeting of the face and gaze. Only there do we exist for one another."  –Karl Ove Knausgaard

Photographer Lisa Fitzgerald lived and worked as a Religious of the Sacred Heart in Jalapa, Nicaragua from 1980 -1984 at the time of the Contra War. During those years, she took photographs of many of the people she made friends with there, almost all of whom worked in the tobacco fields. Throughout the intervening years on repeated visits, she has re-photographed several of these same people, capturing their beauty, dignity and resolve while also powerfully chronicling the physical toll of strenuous labor, exposure to pesticides, and the after-effects of war on their lives and circumstances.