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By Martha Wick, Staff Writer
On July 12, 1993, Dan Eldon was stoned to death by an angry mob in Mogadishu, Somalia. He along with others had been documenting the bloody Somalian Civil War and the equally bloody U.S. response to the harrowing bedlam. A photographer and artist, Eldon, who was born in England, spent his childhood in Kenya. Eldon's mother's family is from Iowa and from January through March 1992, Eldon was enrolled at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon.
Eldon's life was brief - he was 22-years-old when he was killed - but significant. As a young Reuters photojournalist, he helped to alert the world to a major famine in Somalia through his compelling photography. His photographs appeared in many publications including Newsweek and Time - powerful images of the atrocities in the country in the early 1990s. CNN recently aired a documentary on Eldon's life entitled "Dying to tell the Story."
Eldon's photography was public, but his private journals told a deeper story of his life. The exhibit entitled "Dan Eldon: Images of War. Celebrations of Peace," is on display at Iowa Wesleyan College's PEO Art Gallery. The exhibit is a collection of reproductions pulled from his personal journals. His journals are filled with not only traditional writing, but include photographs, drawings and collages which he used to express his feelings about life and the events happening around him. Eldon's journals gained fame after his death when excerpts were published in 1997 in the book "The Journey is the Destination," compiled by his mother. The collages are delicately handled because of the materials Eldon used and the original journals are kept in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Poster-sized reproductions of his journal pages, collages and news photos are included in the traveling exhibit in tribute to the young artist and his spirited life.
Iowa Wesleyan College is displaying the photographs and journals of Dan Eldon from 8 to 5 p.m. from Nov. 12 through Dec. 5, Monday through Friday in the PEO Art Gallery on the campus. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
For more information on the life of Dan Eldon visit the website: www.daneldon.org.
This story was compiled by Mt. Pleasant News staff writer Martha Wick with the help of Iowa Wesleyan College Director of Communications, Carol Brown.
©Mt. Pleasant News Inc. 2003
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