Hafsah Jalloh, a Year 13 Student at Bishop Challoner Sixth Form, is exhibiting a series of black and white photographs taken during a school trip to Auschwitz. Hafsah visited the camp in September 2014 with a small group of classmates and Ms Tottingham from the History department.
Hafsah says: “What I saw at Auschwitz had such a profound effect on me that I wanted to share what I could of the experience with the rest of the school. All Bishop Challoner students study the Holocaust as part of the curriculum and images like these are important for children of every age to see.”
The exhibition opened in the drama studio on Friday 23 January, and attracted a huge number of boys and girls of all ages who visited during lunchtime. The exhibition, timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, will run for another week so that all Bishop Challoner students will have the chance to see and reflect on the images.
“All of my photographs are in black and white”, explained Hafsah. “Effective black and white photography is all about contrast, and I felt that using black and white for this project would reflect the contrast between the horrifying world depicted in the images and the world in the present day that many brave people fought to win. Photographs like these prove how important it is to study history and learn from the past”
Hafsah is studying History, English and Media at Bishop Challoner and will sit her A Levels in the summer. As well as a keen photographer she is a keen filmmaker and hopes to study Media at university and is currently preparing for interviews at Goldsmiths and UWE in February. This is her first solo exhibition.
