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“Famine images remain powerful and salient in modernity because they recall a precarious pre-modern existence that industrialised society has allegedly overcome. Understood as a natural disaster in which there is a crisis of food supply, famine is seen as a symptom of a lack of progress that results in the death of an innocent. It is for this reason that famine images are, more often than not, of individuals, frequently including children, barely clothed, staring passively into the lens, flies flitting across their faces.” — Fraser McDonald
Famine images remain powerful and salient in modernity because they recall a precarious pre-modern existence that industrialised society has allegedly overcome. Understood as a natural disaster in which there is a crisis of food supply, famine is seen as a symptom of a lack of progress that results in the death of an innocent. It is for this reason that famine images are, more often than not, of individuals, frequently including children, barely clothed, staring passively into the lens, flies flitting across their faces.