Life after hell in Rwanda

The extent of the genocide was so great, and the way it was carried out so brutal (machetes were a preferred weapon), that other atrocities drew less attention. Hutu militia repeatedly and violently raped thousands of Tutsi women. Many of the women became infected with HIV. It’s believed that 20,000 children were born as a result of those rapes. The women are largely ostracized for “having a child of the militia.’’

The photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik first went to Rwanda in 2006. He began interviewing rape victims and photographing them with their children. Twenty-five of the portraits make up “Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape.’’ The show runs through Oct. 23 at Suffolk University Law School’s Adams Gallery.

Torgovnik presents the women and children simply, with what one might call a relaxed formality. The subjects know the camera is there. They look at Torgovnik - which is to say they look at us. They pose, but without stiffness or ostentation. Torgovnik keeps artifice, and polemic, to a minimum.

The size of the photographs, 19 inches by 19 inches, gives the subjects a greater personal presence. So does the photographs being in color. We associate black and white with a greater seriousness. It’s newsier, we assume, more real. That we do so is a quirk of technology. For decades, the means of color reproduction were either inadequate, expensive, or both. In fact, black and white abstracts and aestheticizes the reality it shows - black and white makes reality look less real.