Photography show captures heart of Africa

Friday, 10 April 2009 13:55

Claire Lorentzen, a member of the Convent of the Sacred Heart class of 2006 and a Greenwich resident, is exhibiting her artwork in the show, “Hearts that Hold Nothing Back: the Religious of the Sacred Heart in Kenya and Uganda."

The show, which opened in February, continues through April 16 in the Sister Cora E. McLaughlin Art Gallery at Convent of the Sacred Heart. The exhibit will be open during school hours.

Ms. Lorentzen received a grant in the summer of 2008 from Stanford University to photograph the work of the Religious of Sacred Heart throughout Uganda and Kenya. She visited 11 different convents and communities of which four were schools and the others served missions in HIV/AIDS, pastoral work, prisons, women, peacemaking and health care.

“Inspired by my own Sacred Heart education, my involvement in the African Task Force and the curiosity both instilled in me about the greater Sacred Heart community I had become a part of, I had the opportunity to use photography as a means to witness the selfless lives and work of the honorable women of the Religious of the Sacred Heart,” she said in a press release. “In all locations, I was as openly welcomed to sit beside them at the dinner table at the end of each day and share a meal, laugh, as if I were a sister or family.

From a hilltop school in affluent Greenwich, to one on top of a hill in Kyamusansala, Uganda, the gaps between the poorest and most privileged societies were evident, she said, but so were the ties between the two schools.

“I immediately felt connected to the nuns, the students, and their country,” she said. “We are all part of the international Sacred Heart community. This was the first of many moments of connection throughout my eight weeks.”