At the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival currently taking place in France, Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar has showcased a work titled The Sound of Silence.
An Overwhelming Image
This piece is based on the legendary photograph by Kevin Carter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer of 1994. Visitors enter a dark room where a screen silently displays a text recounting the life of this South African photographer.
Under the flashing lights, the image of a frail boy collapsed on the ground from hunger, alongside a vulture waiting for its meal, is recreated. This is the photograph that brought Carter the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 and, ultimately, led to his suicide.
At just 33 years old, South African photographer Kevin Carter made history in the world of photojournalism with this image. Throughout his years working as a photojournalist, particularly as a member of the Bang-Bang Club—a collective of four photographers aiming to document South Africa’s transition—Carter’s lens was closely tied to the lives of the impoverished.
In March 1993, alongside Joao Silva, a fellow Bang-Bang Club member, Carter traveled to Sudan to investigate the civil war and famine. On the way to the village of Ayod, he encountered a skeletal child crawling toward a food distribution point. Suddenly, a vulture appeared behind him. Struck by the scene of extreme poverty, Carter lifted his camera and shot.
Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Photograph
Carter stood there for 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would fly away, spreading its wings for a more powerful shot, but to no avail. He chased the vulture away and ran two miles, tears streaming down his face.
When he met his friend Joao Silva, Carter was deeply shaken. Twenty years later, Silva recounted: “He was clearly distraught as he described to me what he had captured; he spoke endlessly, gesturing into the air. He talked about his daughter Megan and wished to hold her tightly. Carter was undoubtedly affected by the image he took, and it haunted him until the end of his life.”
On March 26, 1993, The New York Times published the photograph, which had an immediate impact. The editorial office received numerous letters from readers inquiring about the fate of the child in the image. A few days later, The New York Times published an editorial stating that the child might have reached a relief center but was unsure if he had survived.
One year after the photo’s publication, on April 12, 1994, Nancy Buirski, the photo editor at The New York Times, called Kevin Carter to inform him that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for this photograph. This prestigious award brought Carter a storm of harsh criticism. Most people focused on the ethics of photographers in such situations. “A man who does not abandon his goal to help others in distress can only be a predator, a vulture on the scene,” The St. Petersburg Times wrote, questioning why Carter did not assist the child in the photograph.
Delayed Justice
In 2011, Alberto Rojas, a photojournalist for El Mundo, a Spanish newspaper, traveled to Ayod. Haunted by the image of the vulture, he began searching for information about it. Rojas found only articles criticizing Kevin Carter for not saving the child, but no evidence to substantiate that claim. Rojas was determined to investigate and seek justice.
Rojas started by speaking with his friend, Spanish photographer José Luis Maria Arenzana, who was also present at the Ayod refugee camp in 1993. Arenzana’s testimony became a pivotal moment in Rojas’s research. Arenzana had also taken a similar photograph. In Arenzana’s image, the child was not alone; he was just a few meters from the care center, alongside his father and medical staff.
This photograph gave Rojas hope; the presence of humanitarian organizations was a good sign for the child. “The child may have survived the famine, the vulture, and the ominous words of Western readers,” Rojas said. Rojas continued his investigation by reaching out to healthcare workers and doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières who were working in Ayod at that time. He then returned to the scene.
After conducting several meetings, Rojas eventually met the father of the child in Kevin Carter’s photograph. Surprisingly, in the village of Ayod, no one had seen this photograph or knew that their villager had become famous worldwide. The appearance of the vulture, a bad omen to Westerners, was quite normal here; there were vultures in abundance. Another surprising piece of news was that the child had actually survived the famine but died 14 years later from malaria.
Thanks to Alberto Rojas, we now know that the boy in the photograph did not starve to death, nor was he abandoned to become carrion for the vulture, as readers had “predicted.” Justice was delivered. But Kevin Carter was no longer around to receive the news. He died three months after winning the Pulitzer Prize.
“The persistent memories of killings and corpses” haunted this photographer every moment. There was no glory, no hope, no joy. The glory of the Pulitzer Prize did nothing for the Sudanese child or for the vulture’s fame but forced a talented photographer to seek death. The media had become a vulture for Kevin Carter, a child alone, truly alone in the world.
A paradox that everyone must acknowledge to this day: This photograph is worth far more than protests or wars. And Kevin’s death is a lesson for the entire world.
The Death and Desolate Circumstances of the Photographer
A few months after receiving the prestigious award, Kevin Carter was found dead by police from gas poisoning in his car. In his suicide note, he wrote: “I am completely devastated; no phone, no rent money, no child support, no debt repayment… I am haunted by vivid memories of death, corpses, anger, and pain… about starving children… about insane men, often executioners…”
