This summer, Tate Modern will bring together new images of Afghanistan taken by British photographer Simon Norfolk (b.1963) alongside those taken by the nineteenth-century Irish photographer John Burke (1843-1900). Presented in Tate Modern’s Level 2 Gallery, a space dedicated to experimental ideas, themes and trends in contemporary art, the project is conceived as a collaboration across time between the two artists.

John Burke was one of the first people to take photographs of Afghanistan, having travelled there during the second Anglo-Afghan war of 1878 to 1880. His images of landscapes, cities and inhabitants provided a cue for Simon Norfolk to begin a new series of photographs in October 2010. Norfolk’s work responds to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict. Seeking out the original locations of these images or finding modern parallels with their subject matter, Norfolk’s new body of work depicts bomb-damaged buildings, local communities, soldiers and embassy workers, as well as uniquely contemporary sites such as internet cafés and wedding halls. Within the exhibition, these images will be presented alongside prints of Burke’s corresponding photographs, bringing history into close proximity with the present and drawing comparisons across a century of British involvement in the region. Also on display will be two original hand-illuminated Burke portfolios.

The exhibition takes place in conjunction with a complementary exhibition in March 2011 at the Queen’s Palace in Baghe Babur, Kabul. Views of Kabul was organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and with the support of the World Collections Programme, a UK initiative to broaden the cultural links between institutions in the UK, Asia and Africa. Arising from a series of photojournalism workshops with Afghan photographers led by Norfolk, the exhibition explored the city’s long history of conflict and its identity in the modern world. It featured work by Nasratullah Ansari, M. Hassan Zakizadeh and Fardin Waezi alongside Burke and Norfolk’s own photographs.

Simon Norfolk was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1963 and studied at Oxford and Bristol Universities before starting his career as a photojournalist. In 1994 he began working as a landscape photographer and has since won the 2004 Infinity Award from the ICP, New York and the 2005 Prix Dialogues in Arles. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Shanghai Art Museum; Russian Academy of Fine Arts, Moscow; and the Imperial War Museum, London. Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan is conceived by Sheena Wagstaff, Chief Curator, Tate Modern with Simon Norfolk. Views of Kabul was initiated by Sheena Wagstaff and Simon Norfolk and organised by Rachel Kent, Exhibitions Tour Manager, Tate Modern.

Burke + Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan
Tate Modern, Level 2
6 May – 10 July 2011