Truth in Photography :: An Open-ended Online Interactive Website Launches

This new platform presents an ongoing dialogue about photography, ethics,
and social change through an unprecedented collection of images.


Truth in Photography is an open-ended online forum for active dialogue and discussion about photography and social change, exploring issues vital to truth in image-making that are crucial to our understanding of the world today.

This interactive project questions the singular truth of photography by presenting multiple points of view, featuring a diversity of curators, photographers, critics, and historians, integrating vernacular photography, photojournalism, and fine art photography. Truth in Photography interrogates the nature and intentions of the medium and examines the relationship between the photographers and their subjects.

Working with leading international contributors–Aperture Foundation, Family Pictures USA, the International Center of Photography, Local Learning, and Magnum PhotosTruth in Photography continues the work of DocumentaryArts, a Texas and New York based non-profit organization, presenting essential perspectives on historical issues and contemporary life.

Truth in Photographywill launch new virtual exhibitions quarterly.

Each new edition will present different curatorial perspectives and historical content that delves into the way image-making developed into what it is today. Photo essays, conversations with curators and photographers, and the Share Your Truth portal, are all vital parts of this innovative site.

The Winter 2021 Edition Features three curated Exhibitions: Looking for Truth in a Digital Age, The Ethics of Truth, and Community and Cultural Identity.All exhibitions can be viewed FREE to visitors worldwide atwww.truthinphotography.org

The Winter 2021 edition features sixteen photo essays:Friendship Park, from Spanish photographer Griselda San Martin; Migration, from Mexican photojournalist Guillermo Arias; US-Mexico Border: Magnum Photos; Lynching Postcards: 1907;Execution for a Newsreel: 1914; Covid-19 Moscow from German-Russian documentary photographerNanna Heitman; Waiting: Photographs of the Terminally Ill;Homelessness; Crayon Portraits; African American Community Photographers, drawn from the Texas African American Photography Archive; Legal Aliens, from NYC-based Puerto Rican photographer Clarence Elie Rivera; American Idyll, Photographs of Paterson, New Jersey by Todd Darling; Diasporic Identities, from Korean-American photographer Mary Kang; and People of the Earth, a conversation about the photography collections of the National Museum of the American Indian between Wendy Red Star and Emily Moazami.

The exhibition also features recorded Zoom conversations with African-American photographer and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris, Fred Ritchin, author of Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary and the Citizen, and Pauline Vermare, Cultural Director of Magnum Photos.

An important component of the project is the ability for visitors to upload their own photos to the website through the website’s Share Your Truth page. Additionally photographers, curators, critics, historians, and the general public are invited to share ideas, essays, photographs, or short videos, and can begin this process from the Submissions page.

Truth in Photography evolved through an ongoing dialogue with Pauline Vermare (Magnum Photos), Chris Boot(Aperture Foundation); Andew Lewin, Paddy Bowman and Lisa Rathje (Local Learning) and Mark Lubell (International Center of Photography). Documentary Arts is supported in part by National Endowment for the Arts, Communities Foundation of Texas, Andrew and Marina Lewin Family Foundation, and The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation.

This new platform will be a place for critical thinking and a celebration of photography’s relevance and vital role in our societies at this crucial time in history. It is an invitation to look into the history of the medium through archives and contemporary work of renowned artists, as well as lesser-known practitioners and vernacular photography. The goal is to question the concept of “truth” in photography by presenting a multitude of points of view.

Documentary Arts was founded in 1985 to broaden public knowledge and appreciation of the arts of diverse cultures in all media. Under the direction of founder Alan Govenar, they have produced films, videos, radio features, public programs, educational initiatives, websites, exhibitions, catalogues, books, and interactive multimedia. Documentary Arts is a global network of artists, photographers, filmmakers, scholars, curators, cultural specialists, social activists, historians, folklorists, archivists, teachers, and community educators.

WHAT: Documentary Arts’ “Truth in Photography” Interactive Website Launch
WHEN: Friday, February 19, 2021 at 9:00 am EST
WHERE: www.truthinphotography.org
ADMISSION: Free world-wide access for Winter 2021 exhibitions “Looking for Truth in a Digital Age,” “The Ethics of Truth,” and “Community and Cultural Identity”
FOR MORE INFO: info@truthinphotography



Photo Credits:
1) Truth in Photography_Photograph by Todd R. Darling.jpg
Mike and Bonnie get high on the train tracks. Pete injects Bonnie. 2016-2017. ©Todd R. Darling
2) Truth in Photography_Photograph by Nanna Heitmann.jpg
In the flat of Ludmilla Alexandrovna. Sister Natalia Georgivna comes to her three times a week when her son is at work for 48 hours and not able to look after her. Natalia works for the Russian orthodox charity Miloserdi as a patronage. She cares for the old and sick who otherwise wouldn’t get any help. Moscow, Russia, April 24 2020.
©Nanna Heitmann / Magnum Photos
3) Truth in Photography_ Photograph by Guillermo Arias.jpg
Honduran migrants taking part in a caravan heading to the US, get a ride on a truck near Pijijiapan, southern Mexico on October 26, 2018©Guillermo Arias
4) Truth in Photography_Photograph by Mary Kang.jpg, 
Austin, Texas, September 1, 2011. ©Mary Kang

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