Bearing Witness, Evoking Empathy: Photojournalists document conflict
BREAKING NEWS! Vaughn Wallace deputy photo editor for Al Jazeera America will be joining the panel of respondents in Thursday’s discussion.
Join us for a panel discussion presented in connection with the Photography Focus exhibitions at the Vicki Myhren Gallery:
Thursday April 9, 5-7 P.M., Shwayder Art Building
5-5:30 – Informal viewing of the Photography Focus exhibition in the Vicki Myhren Gallery
5:30-7:00 – Presentation and panel discussion in the HyperCube (second floor of the Shwayder Art Building)
Let us know you’re coming! Click here to RSVP on Facebook. (An RSVP is not required to attend the event.)
Presenter David Burnett is a widely honored American photojournalist whose career spans important photo essays from the era of the Vietnam War (where he was the last photographer on assignment with Life magazine), through a series of major world events, including cultural milestones and world leaders from the 1970s to the present. He has covered conflict during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, in Ethiopia, Cambodia, Granada, the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.
Panelist Abbas Hajimohammadi Saniabadi is a young Iranian photographer in residence at DU’s Vicki Myhren Gallery, where his work is featured alongside Burnett’s in a current pair of exhibitions under the title Photography Focus. His recent work on Tehran schizophrenia patients and on Afghan refugees in Iran has been warmly received. His work is published in Time magazine’s online Lightbox and in Newsweek online. He is a 2014 recipient of the Magnum Foundation’s Human Rights Fellowship.
Our respondent for the panel discussion will be Professor Tamra Pearson d’Estrée, co-director of the Conflict Resolution Institute at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, where she teaches on the roles of third-parties, including that of the “Witness.” She offers theoretical perspectives on the constructive roles of third-parties in conflict situations.
The panel discussion is presented by the Vicki Myhren Gallery, the Institute for Conflict Resolution, the Center for Middle East Studies, and the Emergent Digital Practices program, which hosts the panel discussion in its HyperCube space at the Shwayder Art Building. The presentation follows a free viewing, with the photographers, of exhibitions by David Burnett and Abbas Hajimohammadi Saniabadi at the Vicki Myhren Gallery, also located in the Shwayder Art Building on the DU campus. The presentation starts in the HyperCube at 5:30 p.m., Thursday April 9.