Co-operative businesses are returning workers’ power. These photographers have shown both the beauty and the effort of when Americans get to be their own bosses.
Presenters: Joseph Rodriguez Stacy Kranitz Alissa Quart Mark Murrmann
Location: Online
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Supported by:
Photoville Festival 2021 Sessions On-demand recordings are made possible thanks to our partner, PhotoWings.
While worker-owned co-operatives make up only a tiny sliver of U.S. businesses, the chaos and privations of the pandemic and its aftermath helped make them newly popular. People are drawn to a model that returns them power. Six photographers from across the country have recorded a range of these co-ops—from a workers co-op comprised of ride-share drivers in New York City, to one that sews sweatshirts in North Carolina.
Joseph Rodríguez is a documentary photographer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and in the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program at the International Center of Photography.
His work has been published by National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Esquire, Stern, BBC News, and New America Media. He has received awards and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and others. He has authored eight books of photography, including East Side Stories: Gang Life in East Los Angeles, Juvenile, and Taxi: Journey Through My Windows 1977–1987, all published by powerHouse Books.
Joseph is represented by Galerie Bene Taschen, Cologne, Germany. His work has been exhibited at Aperture Gallery; Reva and David Logan Gallery for Documentary Photography at the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, CA; and the Bronx Documentary Center.
He has been a visiting artist at many universities in the Americas and Europe and taught at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and The International Center of Photography.
Stacy Kranitz is an American documentary photographer based in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee.
Alissa Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She is also the author of five nonfiction books and two works of poetry. The former include the acclaimed “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America” and “Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.” Her latest is forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins in 2022. Quart contributes journalism to the New York Times, the Guardian, and many other publications. The multimedia, photo, and film collaborations she has written or executive produced include the Emmy-winning documentary “Jackson.”
Mark Murrmann is the photo editor at Mother Jones. As a photographer, he specializes in documentary-style work. His photos have appeared on dozens of record covers, as well as in commercial projects and publications around the world.
Mother Jones is a reader-supported investigative news organization. Founded in 1976, Mother Jones is America’s longest-established investigative news organization. We are independent and are accountable only to our readers. Our mission is to deliver hard-hitting reporting that inspires change and combats “alternative facts.”
The Economic Hardship Reporting Projects supports independent journalists so they can create gripping stories which often counter the typical disparaging narratives about inequality. This high-quality journalism is then co-published with mainstream media outlets mobilizing readers to address systemic economic hardship.
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