The Forgiveness Project Exhibition, ‘The F-Word: Images of Forgiveness’, is currently showing in Crieff. The ‘F-Word’ is an exhibition of photographs with accompanying text telling the stories of people involved in astonishing acts of forgiveness.
There are 22 ‘stories’ in the Crieff exhibition from all parts of the world including Northern Ireland, South Africa, the USA, Rwanda. Stories from different times; World War 2, the apartheid era in South Africa, the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001 and in London, 2005.
The exhibition is a powerful mix of horror and inspiration. Each story is told by those involved. The words tell of some really quite astonishing feats of forgiveness and the photographs seem to get to the heart of both the person and the story. It sounds gloomy – it isn’t. You come away feeling humbled and uplifted. And to bring things down to a day to day level Ginn Fourie, whose story is told here, says that if “I can forgive the killer of my daughter I ought to be able to forgive my neighbour’s barking dog”.
Come along and judge for yourself.
To accompany the exhibition Ginn Fourie and Letlapa Mphahlele from South Africa will be our special guests during this week. Ginn’s daughter, Lyndi, was killed in 1993 by a bomb attack in a Cape Town bar. Letlapa Mphahlele was at the time the Director of Operations of Apla (Azanian Peoples Liberation Army) and had ordered this attack. They met and somehow reconciled themselves. Their moving story forms part of the Exhibition and they will be giving a public lecture in Crieff on Friday November 16th.