In many regions of the world widowhood marks a “social death” for a woman – casting her and her children out to the margins of society. Photojournalist Amy Toensing and National Geographic’s Deputy Director of Photography, Whitney Johnson, discuss the project, A Life After Loss, that looks at the status of widows In Uganda, Bosnia, and India.
Presenters: Amy Toensing Whitney Johnson
Location: St. Ann’s Warehouse
Presented by:
In many regions of the world widowhood marks a “social death” for a woman – casting her and her children out to the margins of society. Photojournalist Amy Toensing and National Geographic’s Deputy Director of Photography, Whitney Johnson, discuss the project, A Life After Loss, that looks at the status of widows In Uganda, Bosnia, and India.
Amy Toensing, an American photojournalist committed to telling stories with sensitivity and depth, is known for her intimate essays about the lives of ordinary people.
Toensing has been a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine for nearly two decades and recently completed her fifteenth feature story for the publication. She has covered cultures around the world, including the last cave dwelling tribe of Papua New Guinea, Aboriginal Australia, the Maori of New Zealand and the Kingdom of Tonga.
Amy began her professional career in 1994 as a staff photographer at her hometown paper, The Valley News, in New Hampshire. She then worked for The New York Times’ Washington D.C. bureau, covering the White House and Capitol Hill during the Clinton administration. In 1998, Toensing left D.C. to receive her Master’s Degree from the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University.
Toensing was named the recipient of the 2018 Mike Wallace Fellowship in Investigative Reporting at the University of Michigan, where she will study the impact of women’s movements globally and documentary film production. Her work on widows, published in the February 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine, will be exhibited at the 2017 Visa Pour L’image.
Whitney Johnson is the deputy director of photography at National Geographic. Prior to joining the magazine, she was the director of photography at The New Yorker. She’s been a champion of documentary photographers since she began her career at the Open Society Foundations, nearly 15 years ago.
The Pulitzer Center makes possible in-depth reporting on important systemic issues, from climate change to health to the impact of AI. We make sure that the journalism reaches the right audiences to inspire curiosity, understanding, and action.
Our grants, trainings, and tools support more than 200 journalism projects each year, published by hundreds of news outlets all over the world. Over our 20-year history, that adds up to 11,000 stories illuminating some of the most urgent, complex issues facing the world today, and the intersections between them.
The journalism we support has led to the repeal of harmful laws, helped change government programs, and borne witness to events and atrocities that otherwise would be hidden from public scrutiny—and garnered the industry’s top accolades, including Pulitzer Prizes and Emmy awards.
Journalism also is a driver of civic engagement. We connect our projects to classrooms, communities, and public forums worldwide, extending impact far beyond publication. As the ways people get their information change, our impact-driven, audience-driven approach is even more necessary for a healthy society.
Breakthrough Journalism, Stronger Communities. That’s been our mission and our passion for two decades. We’re excited to see what the next 20 years bring.
This website was made possible thanks to the generous support and partnership of 