Beautiful images tell terrible Anzac tale

The stony hills of Gallipoli only hint at the terrible tragedies that occurred there 100 years ago but a new exhibition delves into those stories.

Australian photographic artist Kurt Sorensen.

Artist Kurt Sorensen has created a new exhibition based on stories from the Gallipoli campaign. (AAP)

Artist Kurt Sorensen went to Gallipoli and came back with stories that have never been written down.

Like the story of the Turkish soldiers who were buried alive near The Nek.

Because many of the Turkish soldiers who manned the cliffs of Gallipoli against the invading Australian and New Zealand forces in 1915 were illiterate, few events were recorded in diaries.

But many stories have survived by being told and re-told.

Mr Sorensen visited Gallipoli equipped with cameras and a recorder to create his exhibition, Their Names Upon Gallipoli.

In the village of Buyuk Anafarta on the Gallipoli peninsula, Mr Sorensen met a man who recounted a story told by his grandfather, who had fought on the Turkish side in 1915.

An explosion during an Allied shelling attack buried a number of Turkish troops under rocks and their comrades could not get them out.

For days, as the fighting went on, they listened to their comrades call for help.

That man's voice is heard in the exhibition but he is not seen.

Instead it runs over Mr Sorensen's footage of the steep cliffs of the peninsula - deserted, serene and entirely at odds with the horror played out on them a century ago.

"It's quite deliberate that I try to make pictures that are nice to look at," the artist said as he prepared his exhibition.

"I tried to take photos that were pretty intimate.

"I wanted to go to areas in those battle sites that had an intimate feel to them, almost romantic - but when you read about what happened there it becomes quite horrible."

Fittingly, the exhibition is at the old Newington Armory in western Sydney - a sprawling ammunition depot established in 1897 that handled munitions sent with the troops to Gallipoli.

Their Names Upon Gallipoli is an audio-visual exhibit featuring large-format, hand-printed photographs and video footage of famous and less well-known battle sites.

Mr Sorensen has explored how Gallipoli was experienced from both sides.

The exhibition features recordings of direct descendants of Australian and Turkish soldiers reading diary extracts of their ancestors or telling the oral stories preserved for a 100 years.

The free exhibition runs from March 28 to June 14 in the Powder Magazine, Building 20 at Newington Armory in Sydney Olympic Park.


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Source: AAP


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