The Department of Photography & Imaging in the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will once again partner with the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting documentary photography, to present a summer program in Photography and Human Rights.

NYU’s Department of Photography & Imaging and the Magnum Foundation Will Offer Four Summer Courses in Photography and Human Rights in 2011
El Salvador, 1980 by Susan Meiselas

The Department of Photography & Imaging in the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts will once again partner with the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting documentary photography, to present a summer program in Photography and Human Rights.  The initiative, comprising four courses offered over five weeks beginning May 24, is designed to explore strategies to create effective documentary projects linked with issues of human rights. Three scholarships will be made available through the Magnum Foundation to international students for this program.

Intended for intermediate and advanced students, including experienced professionals, the program seeks to hone a participant’s documentary and media skills in the context of human rights.  Students will be taught to utilize a variety of media approaches while emphasizing new digital possibilities to create maximum social impact.  The program will begin May 24 and run through June 24, 2011.  Students may choose to take the courses for credit or non-credit. Applications for international student scholarships are due on January 18, 2011.

Faculty for the program include Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, professor of human rights and founding staff member of the International Center for Transitional Justice; Louis Bickford, PhD, Ford Foundation consultant and resident researcher in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU; Liesje Hodgson; and Fred Ritchin, NYU program director and associate chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging.

For more information on this program, please visit http://photo.tisch.nyu.edu or call  212-998-1930.  For more information about The Magnum Foundation and applying for scholarships, visit http://www.magnumfoundation.org.  To enroll in the courses, visit http://www.nyu.edu/summer.

The Department of Photography and 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 a university, the program offers students both the intensive focus of an arts curriculum and a serious and broad grounding in the liberal arts.  The faculty and staff consist of artists, professional photographers, designers, critics, historians, and scholars working from a wide range of perspectives and media.

Launched in 2007, The Magnum Foundation works to bring over half a century of historical and iconic photography to the public and to encourage the work of a new generation of independent photographers. Four pioneering photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and David “Chim” Seymour, had the insight to claim their independence by retaining ownership of their copyrights. Now today’s independent photographers are seeking to build upon this pioneering legacy with a newly formed charitable organization, The Magnum Foundation.

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