This panel discussion will explore where documentary photography is heading in the second decade of the 21st century.
Presenters: Ed Kashi Jessica Dimmock Lori Grinker
Moderators: Glenn Ruga
Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Pier 3
Presented by:
This panel discussion will explore where documentary photography is heading in the second decade of the 21st century by first looking at where it was historically, and then discussing how it is evolving into the next decade.
Ed Kashi is a critically acclaimed photojournalist who uses photography, filmmaking, and social media to explore geopolitical and social issues. A dedicated educator and mentor to photographers around the world, Kashi lectures frequently on visual storytelling, human rights, and the world of media.
A member of VII Photo Agency since 2010, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition. His early adoption of hybrid visual storytelling has produced a number of influential short films and in 2015 he was named Multimedia Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International.
His work has appeared in National Geographic, Open Society Foundations, The New Yorker, MSNBC, GEO, Human Rights Watch, MediaStorm, NBC.com, The New York Times Magazine, Oxfam, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and TIME. His work has been published and exhibited worldwide, receiving numerous awards and honors, and he has published nine books of his photography.
Jessica Dimmock is an award winning activist documentary photographer and videographer, most well known for her project and book, The Ninth Floor, on the lives of a group of young heroin users.
Glenn Ruga, Founder & Director, Social Documentary Network. Executive Editor, ZEKE magazine, is a photographer, graphic designer and curator. He founded the Social Documentary Network (SDN) in 2008 as a web platform for a global community of documentary photographers to present their work online. As a photographer, he has created traveling and online documentary exhibits on the struggle for a multicultural future in Bosnia, the war and aftermath in Kosovo, and on an immigrant community in Holyoke, Mass.
In 2015, Ruga launched ZEKE: The Magazine of Global Documentary, a print and digital magazine presenting the best stories from the Social Documentary Network.
From 2010-2013, Ruga was the Executive Director of the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) at Boston University. He curated numerous exhibitions while at the PRC including “Global Health in Focus” featuring work by Kristen Ashburn, Dominic Chavez, and David Rochkind. Ruga is also the former Publisher and Art Director of Loupe, the magazine of the PRC.
From 1993 through 2009, Ruga was the founder and president of the Center for Balkan Development, a non-profit organization established to help stop the genocide in Bosnia and create a just and sustainable future in the former Yugoslavia.
Glenn has a B.A. in Social Theory from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and a MFA in Graphic and Advertising Design from Syracuse University.
The Social Documentary Network (SDN), founded in 2008, is a global community of documentary photographers, editors, curators, NGOs, journalists, and others, who believe in the power of visual storytelling to build understanding and appreciation for the complexities, diversity nuances, wonders, and contradictions that abound in the world today.
Since our founding, the SDN website has featured more than 4,000 exhibits by nearly 3,000 photographers from all corners of the globe.
Our flagship publication, ZEKE: The Magazine of Global Documentary, is printed twice a year in print and year-round in digital, and features the most successful projects from the SDN website.
We also create gallery exhibitions, educational programs, lecture series, award programs, and portfolio reviews.
Recent stories on SDN and in ZEKE have explored sustainable solutions to the climate crisis, the war in Gaza, migration from Central America to the U.S., the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising seas of Antarctica, life in Iran, asylum in America, teen mothers, and many other global themes.
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