Can an image change the world? Kim Phuc knows it can certainly change a life.

In 1972, Nick Ut took a photograph that was transmitted around the world showing Phuc and her family running from their bombed Vietnamese village, screaming as napalm burned their skin.

On Feb. 5, in a talk titled, "Learning to Forgive," Phuc visited the Mondavi Center to fill in the details of her life after the picture was taken. Prior to the event, Phuc joined UC Davis American Studies faculty Jay Mechling and Eric Schroeder, and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Kim Komenich in a panel at the Mondavi Center titled "Can an Image Change the World?"

An expert on the Vietnam War and the 1960s, Schroeder showed the audience four photographs that helped shape the American public's perception of the war. One of them — an image of a Buddhist monk who set himself on fire to protest the war — still elicited gasps from the audience 40 years later.

Yet Komenich discussed the challenge that today's war photographers face to make their work connect with the public. When showing a series of his own photographs from Iraq, he paused at an image of a car explosion and the burned bodies of Iraqi policemen. "The problem with horrific images is that you've probably seen this before," Komenich said. As a photographer, he must then ask himself: "How can I use my technique and skills as a storyteller in a way that makes you think about what's happening?"

Beyond the potential numbing effect of war photographs, Mechling — who served as moderator — raised the issue of what moral responsibility these pictures of suffering present. Quoting Susan Sontag's book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Mechling asked, "Do we have to earn the right to look at these photographs? Do you have to commit yourself to the scene in some way?"

Mechling invited the audience to consider these questions while visiting the current photography exhibit, titled War and Representation, at the UC Davis Nelson Gallery, which was planned in conjunction with Phuc's visit.

The hundreds of audience members who attended Phuc's evening talk were perhaps drawn by such a connection to a photograph, wondering just what happened to the little girl they had seen. Phuc returned to the stage dressed in a glittering red áo dài, a traditional Vietnamese dress, and proceeded to tell the rest of her story with soft-spoken but familiar ease, and a constant broad smile.

Phuc also included a video clip from a documentary made about her life. The video of the bombing at her village of Trang Bang reveals what even her famous photograph does not show: as Phuc runs down the road with her cousins and brothers, strips of burnt skin hang from her back like torn clothes.

While some criticize photographers for observing rather than helping the suffering people they photograph, Phuc explained how Ut, a photographer for the Associated Press, reached out beyond the scope of his lens. "Nick Ut won the Pulitzer Prize [for the photograph]," she said, "but he already won my heart when he put down his camera and rushed me to the nearest hospital."

Lessons learned

Phuc endured 14 months in the hospital, a battery of 17 operations, and excruciating physical rehabilitation, but came away with her life. Still, Phuc lives with a permanent reminder of that day. She revealed it when she rolled up her sleeves: her right arm is smooth and untouched, her left is a bumpy mosaic of scars.

But while the war left its mark, Phuc also shared the series of positive lessons she gleaned from her ordeal, such as the importance of love, the value of freedom, and the hardest lesson, how to forgive.

"It took so many doctors and operations," Phuc said of her recovery. "But the person saved by the doctors was filled with anger and bitterness. Nobody could help heal my heart. That took God's love, and the love of people around me." Embracing Christianity helped Phuc learn to forgive her enemies: "Napalm is very powerful, but faith and forgiveness are more powerful than napalm could ever be."

Life of freedom

Phuc also discussed the process of finding peace with her own photograph. "For many years, that picture controlled me," she said. When the Vietnamese government tracked down the girl in the famous picture, they pulled her from her medical studies to give interviews with the foreign press. Phuc was eventually allowed to continue her studies in Cuba, but government attendants followed her everywhere.

While at the University of Havana, she met her future husband, Bui Huy Toan, with whom she now has two sons. On the return flight from their honeymoon to Moscow in 1992, the couple defected to Canada, where they still live today.

Once able to live a life of freedom, Phuc discovered that the fame of a photo that was once her greatest burden could become her greatest asset to help other children caught in the aftermath of war. Phuc highlighted the current work of her Kim Foundation International, which gives aid to children around the world, including Uganda, Tajikistan and East Timor.

Phuc's life is proof that not just images, but the people behind them, can indeed change the world. At the end of her talk, Phuc left the audience with a new way to look at the little girl in the photo: "Don't see her as crying out in pain and fear. See her as crying out for peace."

Erin Loury is a News Service writing intern.