TOWN HALL #002
VISUAL JOURNALISM IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA
On July 31 , 2020 FOTODEMIC hosted its second Town Hall panel discussion with Debi Cornwall, Tanya Habjouqa, Stephen Mayes, Zahra Rasool and Fred Ritchin.
THE PANEL
We are living in the Age of Image - a globalized, interconnected world in which access was supposed to make us more informed about other cultures and ourselves. But we are also living in a world rife with assertions of “fake news” and “alternative facts” and in societies so fractured that we can barely talk with each other.
How do image-based journalists and documentarians navigate all this? How can we more effectively locate and articulate what is real and engage different audiences? How do we stop repeating the same image tropes and deepen the discourse? Faced with enormous challenges, can we shift the public conversation, particularly during this pivotal US election year?
Talking with an international group of experts from diverse backgrounds, we consider a variety of strategies for moving forward with a more thoughtful, consequential use of the image.
Image by Tanya Habjouqa
THE SUBJECTS
These curated segments focus on the evolution of photography in the post-truth era. They cover topics such as collaborative approaches that render stories to be three dimensional, the differentiation of work that looks at symptoms vs systems, and impact evaluation.
Segments Edited by Zoe Potkin
#01
How Can Photography Evolve with the Times?
#02
Effecting Positive Change Through Imagery
#03
Realities and Fictions
#04
Understanding the Other
#05
Three Dimensional Stories
#06
Visualizing Symptoms vs. Systems
COLLABORATIVE STORY-TELLING
FULL PANEL →
speakers
DEBI CORNWALL
Debi Cornwall is a conceptual documentary artist who returned to visual expression in 2014 after a 12-year career as a civil-rights lawyer. Marrying dark humor and empathy with structural critique, she employs photographs, video, testimony, and other materials to examine America’s “state-created realities” in the post-9/11 era. Debi has been honored with a NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Photography, a Leica Women Foto Award, and a Harpo Foundation visual artist grant, as well as being shortlisted for the W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant and the Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award.
ZAHRA RASOOL
Zahra Rasool is an Emmy-nominated producer and media entrepreneur who leads the storytelling and innovation studio, AJ Contrast, part of the Al Jazeera Network. Working at the forefront of new technologies and recognized as a force in the art of immersive journalism, Rasool is pioneering collaborative ways of telling urgent stories about underrepresented communities and related conflict in a way that empowers diverse voices. Still Here, her most recent work about incarceration and gentrification premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
STEPHEN MAYES
Stephen Mayes is Executive Director of the Tim Hetherington Trust and an active board member of www.Catchlight.io. Across twenty-five years he has managed the work and careers of top-level photographers and artists in the diverse areas of art, fashion, photojournalism and commercial photography. As creative director and as CEO he has written successful business plans and reshaped operations for American, Asian and European imaging companies. Stephen acted as secretary to the World Press Photo competition 2004 ~ 2012. Often described as a “futurist” Stephen has broadcast, taught and written extensively about the ethics and practice of photography.
Tanya Habjouqa
Tanya Habjouqa is a Jordanian-Texan artist, educator and member of NOOR Images. Her work stems from long-term investments and collaborative methodology, blending ethnography, investigative reportage, and intuitive sense for metaphor. She mentors for the acclaimed Arab Photography Documentary Program and is a co-editor of the Jadaliyya photography page. Tanya trained in journalism and anthropology with an MA in Global Media from the University of London SOAS. Her book “Occupied Pleasures” received accolades by both TIME and Smithsonian magazines, the work winning a World Press Photo. She is in the permanent collections of the MFA Boston, Institut du Monde Arabe, and Carnegie Museum of Art, represented by East Wing.
MODERATOR
Fred Ritchin
Fred Ritchin is Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography and formerly professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University. Ritchin served as picture editor of the New York Times Magazine and co-founded PixelPress, an experimental online publication. He created the first multimedia version of the New York Times, and the online project “Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace” nominated by the Times for a Pulitzer Prize. His books include After Photography and Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen. He has curated many exhibitions, including An Uncertain Grace: The Photographs of Sebastião Salgado and has received the NPPA John Long Ethics Award.
Photo credit: Maria Cherdantseva