Exhibitions & events

Venue

Musée National de la Résistance et des Droits Humains

Place de la Résistance

Esch-sur-Alzette

Duration

7.3 - 20.12.2026

Curators

Perri Hofmann

perrihofmann@gmail.com

Olivier Bouton

olivier.bouton@mnr.lu

Photo Exhibition

7.3 - 20.12.2026

WOMEN IN WAR by Lynsey Addario

OPENING : 7.3.2026, 11 am

More Infos

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Exhibition summary

Created especially for the museum as part of the Women in Conflict series of historical and artistic exhibitions, the exhibition Women in War by Lynsey Addario, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, highlights, from a female perspective, the many situations that women have to endure in times of war or conflict, as well as the particularly precarious fate of children.

Events and educational programming, including an educational brochure and exhibition catalogue, will raise awareness of the fate of women in wartime, the violation of human rights, the harmful effects of patriarchal societies, and the active roles women play as soldiers and resistance fighters.

The Women in War exhibition is a retrospective offering an immersion into more than twenty years of work by American photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Through a selection of powerful images, the public is invited to explore the territories and their populations ravaged by conflict in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They can thus follow a common thread deeply linked to themes dear to the photographer: the status of women in wartime, motherhood in conflict zones, survival in crisis regions, dignity and resilience in the face of destruction, violence and death.

On the opening day, the biographical film Love+War about Lynsey Addario, produced by National Geographic and Oscar-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, will be screened to the public at Neimënster Abbey in Luxembourg City. Love+War traces Lynsey Addario's rise in the male-dominated world of war photography.

In addition to the main exhibition at the museum, a free outdoor exhibition will be set up on Place de la Résistance to give a preview of the exhibition.

Around this exhibition, which is an important event in terms of human rights education, the museum is offering a rich programme aimed at a variety of audiences: families, schoolchildren, students, tourists, photography enthusiasts, image professionals, journalists, as well as refugees and expatriates.

From March to December 2026, in addition to guided tours focusing on Addario's photographs, the museum will offer a series of introductory workshops on photojournalism, image analysis and narrative choices, as well as discussions on ethical issues and the role of artificial intelligence. One of the central themes will be the role and involvement of women in societies in conflict. In addition, the project will also address the role of women in our societies. The content will be adapted according to the age and composition of the groups.

The project includes several public meetings with Lynsey Addario, during which she will share her career path, methodology and commitments. Complementary thematic conferences will be organised on current topics such as war photography, the status of women, the role of the media and image manipulation.

In addition to an exhibition catalogue, the museum will develop an educational booklet enabling teachers to address topics such as human rights, as well as the conflicts covered by Addario and the resulting humanitarian crises. As part of her analysis, she will also address the specific challenges faced by women working as photojournalists, as well as the processes of developing empathy through visual expression.

In keeping with the spirit of the project, the museum will organise a photojournalism contest. Its aim will be to promote socially conscious photography, raise awareness of the role of the witness and give young creators a voice and a platform. Participants will be asked to produce a series of images depicting the daily lives of women in Luxembourg. The results will be presented in an open-air exhibition.

Until now, Lynsey Addario has never devoted a retrospective exhibition to the plight of women in wartime. The project welcomes this renowned photographer to Luxembourg for the first time. The exhibition is an important event in terms of human rights education.

From 2027 onwards, the exhibition, created especially for the National Museum of Resistance and Human Rights, will be available for display in other European museums and institutions.

 The exhibition is multilingual (English, French, German).

Biography Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist who has been covering conflicts, humanitarian crises and women's issues in the Middle East and Africa for The New York Times and National Geographic for over twenty years.

Since 11 September 2001, Lynsey Addario has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Syria and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

In 2015, American Photo magazine named Lynsey Addario one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years, saying she had changed the way we see conflict around the world. In 2015, Addario wrote the New York Times bestseller It's What I Do, which chronicles her personal and professional life as a photojournalist coming of age in the post-9/11 world. In 2018, she published her first solo photography collection, Of Love and War, published by Penguin Press.

Addario has received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, two Pulitzer Prizes for her foreign reporting (she was part of the New York Times teams that were recognised for their coverage of the war in Ukraine in 2023 and Afghanistan/Pakistan in 2009) and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2025 in the Feature Photography category for her reportage on a young Ukrainian woman with cancer. Pakistan in 2009) and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2025 in the Feature Photography category for her report on a young Ukrainian woman with cancer, as well as a finalist in the Breaking News Photography category for her report on Ukraine in 2023. She recently won a Polk Award for her coverage of Ukraine in 2022, an Overseas Press Club President's Award, an Olivier Rebbot Award and two Emmy Award nominations.

She holds five honorary doctorates for her professional achievements, awarded by Barnard College, the School of Visual Arts, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bates College in Maine and the University of York in England.

Lynsey Addario Website

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Objectives of the exhibition

• To promote the inclusion of affected communities by collecting testimonies from refugees from the countries concerned, among other things.
• To raise public awareness of the realities of conflict and show the human impact of war, particularly on women and children. The images will highlight the suffering of civilians, the destruction of infrastructure and the long-term consequences for populations.
• Pursue a socially conscious approach that will humanise the victims and give them a face, a gaze and a story. Our goal is to elicit an emotional response that will lead to reflection. War photographs are not neutral; they are designed to shake people out of their indifference.
• Encourage visitors to take civic and humanitarian action by making tragedies visible, in order to encourage them to support NGOs, learn more, challenge political decision-makers, and even get personally involved in human rights issues.
• Influence the perception of political actors regarding crises that are often absent from political or media discourse.
• Actively support institutional sustainable development for lasting cooperation between culture and humanitarianism.
• Offer victims of war and violence recognition of their history, a space for remembrance and appreciation of their resilience.