48 women. 48 unimaginable stories. It is their scars which make people look at them. They
are openly stared at or eyed discretely. They are excluded and therefore have become
invisible. Ann-Christine Woehrl visited survivors of fire and acid attacks in Bangladesh,
Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Uganda. She portrayed the women on their paths back
to life. She does not present them as tragic victims, but as the personalities they have
always been and still are despite their unimaginable suffering. The result is an
insightful – almost private – album. It is an homage to women that master their unique
lives with humility and heroic strength. „People just have to accept me the way I am. And
I actually love myself now. I have learned to appreciate inner beauty more, even in other
people. So I am trying to be proud of what is in my heart“, says Flavia from Uganda.
It is precisely this openness and vitality that the photographer wanted to portray. She
set out to present each survivor as an individual, way beyond their collective stigma as
marked women, and to give each of them a face again, to make them visible. By choosing a
neutral black background for the portraits in the first part of the book, Ann-Christine
Woehrl left out any reference to the social environment of these women and provided them
with a safe and also spezial frame. A frame within which they could pose and present
themselves as they saw fit and not as victims.
In the second part Ann-Christine Woehrl takes a closer look at one survivor in each of the
six countries, whom she has accompanied over a longer period, and captures her everyday
life, her will to survive, moments of hopelessness and despair as well as those of joy and
happiness.
