The Department of Photography & Imaging in the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will host a panel discussion entitled Photography & Human Rights: What Works? The panel is presented in collaboration with the Magnum Foundation as a part of a summer program designed to explore strategies to create effective documentary projects linked with issues of human rights.

NYU and Magnum Foundation Present Panel Discussion on  Photography and Human Rights, June 21
Photo by Nina Berman

The Department of Photography & Imaging in the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will host a panel discussion entitled Photography & Human Rights: What Works?  The panel is presented in collaboration with the Magnum Foundation as a part of a summer program designed to explore strategies to create effective documentary projects linked with issues of human rights. It will take place Monday, June 21 from 6:30-8:30pm in the Dean’s Conference Room (12th Floor) at 721 Broadway.  The event is free and open to the public. Photo identification is required for access to the building. For further information, call 212.998.1930.

Presenters are Nina Berman, documentary photographer with a primary interest in the American political and social landscape; Ed Kashi, photojournalist, filmmaker, and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times; and Larry Towell, documentary photographer, writer, poet, and folk musician. The panel will be moderated by photographer and Photography & Human Rights Program instructor Peter Lucas.

Questions to be presented to the panelists include: For a photographer, how is it possible to judge the impact of one's documentary work on society? Do the people in the pictures, or others like them, gain from one’s intervention? To what extent are collaborations with non-governmental organizations effective? Can a photographer manage to work independently?  What strategies are being used to alert the public?  These issues will be discussed in tandem with possible pathways, insights, and practical advice for young and emerging documentary photographers and human rights activists whose aim it is to work in a changed and still evolving media environment.

The Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts is a four-year B.F.A. program centered on the making and understanding of images. Students explore photo-based imagery as personal and cultural expression. Situated within New York University, the program offers students both the intensive focus of an arts curriculum and a serious and broad grounding in the liberal arts.

Press Contact

Richard Pierce
Richard Pierce
(212) 998-6796