P H O T O J O U R N A L I S M L I N K S. Dawoud Bey's Harlem USA at the Art Institute of Chicago. Present-day Chicago is not Harlem in 1979. Present-day Harlem isn’t even Harlem in 1979. But at the Art Institute of Chicago’s new exhibition Dawoud Bey: Harlem USA, some things have stayed the same. The show comprises the 25 original prints from Bey’s noteworthy 1979 exhibition of the series at the Studio Museum in Harlem, plus five previously unpublished prints from the same era.
Dawoud Bey Smokey, 2002 The impetus for Harlem USA, which was made throughout the 1970s, was Bey’s visit to the Harlem on my Mind show at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969; it took him ten years to start and finish the work. He is not the only one who sees the thread running through his work. A Boy in Front of the Loews 125th St. And Witkovsky says that the photographs, though they remain unchanged, are still fresh. Bey, who now lives in Chicago, says the photographs themselves are not the only constant. Dawoud Bey is a Chicago-based photographer and professor. 20 Years Later: The Bosnian Conflict in Photographs. The photographs in the gallery above are from the book Bosnia 1992 – 1995, available July 2012. The book will be self-published by the photographers who covered the Bosnian conflict—which began 20 years ago today—and printed in Bosnia. The captions below these photographs are the personal reflections of the photographers on their experiences in the region.
If the last lines of the 20th century were written in Moscow in December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the prelude to the 21st century was written months later—and 20 years ago this month—in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, as the disorderly break-up of Yugoslavia turned into genocide. In that bloody April, America’s moment of triumph over totalitarianism was transformed into a tribalist nightmare as Bosnian Serbs, determined to seize large parts of Bosnia as part of a plan to create a Greater Serbia, targeted Muslims for extermination.
Japan Tsunami Anniversary at Minori-kai. Shingo Kobayashi remembers what happened on March 11 of last year all too well. “It was the day our center was destroyed,” he says, resting his long fingers on a table at Minori-kai, a facility for the disabled in Natori, Japan. “It’s not there anymore.” He would be happy to talk about it but—he turns his wrist to show the face of his watch—it’s already a minute past 3:00 pm. And that’s when he leaves. Everyday. No matter what. At Minori-kai, everyone’s day revolves around routine. At 2:46 pm, the staff and members of Minori-kai were having afternoon tea in the new center when a violent shaking rocked the building. What was coming destroyed the huge swath of Natori that is still barren today. Without a live-in group home in Natori, all of the members whose caretakers died have had to leave town for facilities that could take them.
Rebuilding the facility will be the first step. To rebuild a new facility, Minori-kai not only needs another $4 million—it needs land. Aung San Suu Kyi’s Path to Victory by James Nachtwey. Aung San Suu Kyi, once a prisoner, is now a parliamentarian. On April 1, the Nobel Laureate led the National League for Democracy to victory in by-elections hailed as a landmark for Burma. For five decades, the former British colony has languished under military rule, caught in the clutch of a small group of cadres. This was just the third poll since they seized power in 1962 and the first that might plausibly be called free or fair. Suu Kyi’s party swept it, claiming 43 of 44 seats. For Suu Kyi, who spent much of the last 20 years under house arrest, the win was a stunning reversal.
James Nachtwey’s photographs from the campaign trail capture this rapturous moment, but hint, too, at challenges to come. James Mollison Photography.