Ronan harris pictures from congo

Exposing the Congo

James West unearths the horrifying truth behind colonial brutality and sees how photography became a powerful catalyst in the campaign for human rights…

This powerful exhibition, Brutal Exposure: the Congo, currently on show at the International Slavery Museum and developed in partnership with Autograph ABP and Anti-Slavery International, documents the violent exploitation of Congolese people and national resources at the hands of King Leopold II of Belgium in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

It centres on the work of Alice Seeley Harris, whose images contributed to perhaps the first cohesive photographic human rights campaign.

Harris and her husband Rev. John H. Harris travelled to West Africa as missionaries, shortly after their marriage in 1898, but the horrific treatment of native Congolese at the hands of Belgian colonial agents and officials prompted them to become active campaigners for justice in the Congo.

Reverend Harris h