Diamonds still Matter. One year exhibition.

The pictures of Kadir van Lohuizen, assembled in the exhibition Diamond Matters, follow the route of a diamond; from Africa via India to the West. They show the dangerous alluvial mining in Sierra Leona, the poor working conditions of the diamond cutters in Surat, the jewish traders in Antwerp and finally the rich customers in cities like New York and Amsterdam.

'Very educative on how we are losing our wealth, gaining no benefit or development, but lifting the European World to a top vertex and development'. (A visitor in Sierra Leone)

Since the exhibition was launched on March 24th, 2005, it has been exhibited at many different places and occasions in Europe and abroad. Many workshops, events and educational programs on the extractive industries and diamond mining in particular have been supported with these pictures.
In Europe as well as Africa the exhibition has contributed to a better understanding of, and more interest in, the management of African diamond mines in former conflict areas and the exploitation of the mineworkers and surrounding communities that still takes place. It has had a great share in the Fatal Transaction campaign for a more just extraction and distribution of the resource-wealth and the abolition of the horrid abuse of human rights in the mining sector.

`During the Youth Festival in Berlin about 10.000 youngsters got the opportunity to see the pictures, the photo museum in Antwerp attracted more than 13.000 visitors! The exhibition has revealed the erroneous state of affairs in the diamond industries to the diamond workers in Sierra Leone, Democratic republic of Congo , Angola, and South-Africa. The successful exhibition in these countries contributed, amongst others, to the commencement of a dialogue between local organisations and the diamond industries.

In the Democratic Republic Congo Diamond Matters inspired Jean Pierre Muteba, director of the mineworkers union Nouvelle Dynamique Syndicale, NDS to shoot his own series of pictures of child labour in the Congolese mines. See a selection of his pictures here: