March 28, 2024

People Column

Shadid

Press credentials, reporting notes, business cards and other mementos contributed by OPC members and other war-zone journalists are key elements in an art installation exploring memories of conflict. The exhibit, “Eyes on the Ground – Journals of War,” is on display through Jan. 2 in the Sprint Flatiron Prow Art Space, a street-level gallery in the Flatiron building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd St. and in Manhattan.

Kane collected mementos from 50 journalists and collaged the material to steel
helmets from the Vietnam era. With tens of thousands of pedestrians passing the
gallery every day, the exhibit should raise awareness about overseas
correspondents reporting from dangerous areas.

The show is dedicated to the memory of OPC member Anthony Shadid, who sent Kane a
Saddam Hussein medallion, old currency and press badges for her project before
he died in 2012 while on assignment in Syria for The New York Times. Other OPC members who contributed are Lynsey Addario, Jonathan Randal and Charles Sennott.

Addario, a photojournalist who has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, and Congo, shared photos, journal entries from Afghanistan and Iraq, copies of press credentials and scans of old letters written to a friend when she started photographing war. Addario is based in Istanbul and regularly photos for The New York Times, National Geographic and Time magazine.

Sennott

Randall was a foreign correspondent for 30 years
for the New York Herald Tribune, Time magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post. He said he covered more wars than he can remember. He provided Kane with two Lebanese banknotes and other material, saying in his note: “You doubtless are the only one on your block with a press card from the
breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina (actually part of Croatia). Don’t ask.”

Sennott, the co-founder of GlobalPost, is an award-winning foreign correspondent with 25 years of experience who reported on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in at least 15 countries. He sent the artist a set of black worry beads, a Boston Globe business card with his blood type written on it, notebooks from Kosovo and
Afghanistan and his embed application to the Coalition Press Information Center
in Kuwait. Sennott is a member of the OPC Foundation board.

Sennott