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The Arts Intel Report

Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington

Tim Hetherington, A Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy combatant sits beside a hand grenade in Tubmanburg, Liberia, 2003.

Apr 20 – Sept 29, 2024
Lambeth Rd, London SE1 6HZ, United Kingdom

Tim Hetherington didn’t know he wanted to be a photographer. When he was a young man studying at Oxford Cardiff, he read the classics and dreamed of pursuing a career in literature. But after graduation in 1989, Hetherington received £5,000 from his grandmother’s will and decided to travel through Asia. He went to India, China, and Tibet, and somewhere along the way realized he “wanted to make images.” Returning to England, he went back to school, studied photojournalism in Cardiff under Daniel Meadows and Colin Jacobson, and then moved to London, where he worked as a trainee for the street newspaper The Big Issue. Hetherington preferred the nitty gritty over celebrity assignments—boxing gyms, homeless shelters, demonstrations. He covered political upheaval in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Afghanistan. In 2011, while photographing the besieged city of Misrata, Libya, during the Arab Spring, Hetherington was killed. He was 40. This exhibition presents imagery from his entire career. —Elena Clavarino