The opinions expressed in this essay are the author’s own.
by Sarah Perlmutter, Magnum Foundation
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“So what are these dispatches? They are in the classic way the first draft of history. But what history is being told, and what the outcome of that history is, remains to be seen, and I think each person that looks at them will take away something personal and specific in relation to that work, and that will be the measure of its success.”
~Nicholas Mirzoeff |
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In the fall of 2020, the United States faced a crossroads. Looming elections, urgent calls for racial justice, and the devastating and inequitable tolls of Covid-19 were laying bare the nation’s shaky foundation. Recognizing the importance of expanded perspectives on this critical moment in US history, the Magnum Foundation launched US Dispatches, an open call initiative supporting independent imagemakers working in communities across the country. The result was eighteen, locally-driven stories that spotlight diverse experiences of a year of unprecedented national crises.
These dispatches marked a culmination of nearly fifteen years of Magnum Foundation’s work building a global network of socially-engaged photographers. When the pandemic struck, and this country's intense polarization appeared to be reaching an inflection point, national news coverage highlighted the need for more nuanced storytelling. We knew the photographers able to do so—already on the ground, documenting the critical stories that they were seeing in their own communities. Through direct support of practitioners’ proposed projects, and partnership with publications such as The Nation and The New York Times to amplify the stories, we set out to reveal the uneven effects and diverse experiences of intertwined national catastrophes in local contexts.
“The photographers we work with are freelancers, and they have been struggling since shutdown,” said Kristen Lubben, director of the foundation. “Most of them have been unable to travel for assignments, and their long-term personal projects have been disrupted as well. By distributing as much support as we could to as many imagemakers as possible and then getting media placement for their stories, the goal was to keep people working—while also ensuring that the multiple crises were covered from as many perspectives as possible. These twin goals—sustaining storytellers and adding to the historical record of this time through the accumulation of individual local stories—were foremost for us. I thought a lot during this time about the Depression-era WPA projects, and the importance of keeping artists employed during times of national crisis.”
Furthermore, the open call model—inviting photographers to propose their own projects—allowed us to support stories from across the country that might otherwise have gone untold. Instead of our New York City-based organization and publication partners assigning stories while removed from specific contexts, photographers based in localities across the country were able to pitch to us the stories they were seeing in their own communities.
These dispatches marked a culmination of nearly fifteen years of Magnum Foundation’s work building a global network of socially-engaged photographers. When the pandemic struck, and this country's intense polarization appeared to be reaching an inflection point, national news coverage highlighted the need for more nuanced storytelling. We knew the photographers able to do so—already on the ground, documenting the critical stories that they were seeing in their own communities. Through direct support of practitioners’ proposed projects, and partnership with publications such as The Nation and The New York Times to amplify the stories, we set out to reveal the uneven effects and diverse experiences of intertwined national catastrophes in local contexts.
“The photographers we work with are freelancers, and they have been struggling since shutdown,” said Kristen Lubben, director of the foundation. “Most of them have been unable to travel for assignments, and their long-term personal projects have been disrupted as well. By distributing as much support as we could to as many imagemakers as possible and then getting media placement for their stories, the goal was to keep people working—while also ensuring that the multiple crises were covered from as many perspectives as possible. These twin goals—sustaining storytellers and adding to the historical record of this time through the accumulation of individual local stories—were foremost for us. I thought a lot during this time about the Depression-era WPA projects, and the importance of keeping artists employed during times of national crisis.”
Furthermore, the open call model—inviting photographers to propose their own projects—allowed us to support stories from across the country that might otherwise have gone untold. Instead of our New York City-based organization and publication partners assigning stories while removed from specific contexts, photographers based in localities across the country were able to pitch to us the stories they were seeing in their own communities.
The value of this locally-driven mode of working became immediately clear. In contrast to national, headline news, the stories these projects tell are of resilience as much as pain, of longer and deeper histories that provide context for what we are seeing—and not seeing—in the pandemic’s coverage.
Rather than acting as photographs that merely illustrate already dominant narratives playing out in national media, the projects offer personal testimonies, nuanced layers, and critical interventions that support new understandings. For example, Naomieh Jovin’s project sharing her experience as a Haitian American imagemaker, shaped by the resilient women in her family, argues for a fuller narrative of the Haitian experience for her generation. Rian Dundon’s documentation of livestreamers and citizen journalists providing constant footage of Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon stakes a critical intervention into media representations of social movements and the role of citizen surveillance. And Sarah Stacke’s story on The Cheyenne River Reservation’s measures to protect residents from Covid-19 provides a counter-narrative of resilience and autonomy amidst the relentless, intertwined crises of the pandemic and ongoing legacies of government violence. |
Rian Dundon
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Tracing how social movements become fodder for media content and citizen surveillance
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Naomieh Jovin
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Fighting to maintain a sense of Haitian identity as an act of resistance against the pressures to assimilate to the cultures and ideals of white Western society
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Sarah Stacke
Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota
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Documenting the Cheyenne River Tribe’s solutions-oriented approach to the pandemic and protection of their people, culture, and rights
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For NYU Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication Nicholas Mirzoeff, who is the Magnum Foundation scholar in residence and one of the initiative’s jurors, this focus on context and community was key. Looking at Jared Ragland’s project from the dispatches—focused on the intersections of racial and ecological injustice, poverty and marginalization, and politics and public health in Alabama—Mirzoeff remarked, “What we hear out of Alabama is always in national news, tends to be very dramatic, and we’re always told things in Alabama are difficult and different, but we’re never told how or why. And this project seemed to allow you to begin to understand that, of doing that work on that ground, of thinking through those difficult historical legacies in a contested moment […] that’s the sort of work we absolutely need.”
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Jared Ragland
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Addressing Alabama's complex history and identity by looking at the intersections of racial and ecological injustice, poverty and marginalization, and politics and public health during this time of local and national urgency
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The eighteen projects together provide a snapshot of a historic moment in this country, acting much like oral histories that present their own truths through which we may begin to reach a shared understanding. The stories themselves become documents of diverse experiences of and perspectives on this historic time, to serve as references in the years to come. Projects such as Destiny Mata’s portraits of the doorways that serve as canvases for the political views of New York City Housing Authority residents, or Laila Annmarie Stevens’ spotlights on the hopes and concerns of her peers, young first-time voters of color, create a record of individual perspectives within communities whose voices are so often counted out of dominant historical narratives.
And like oral histories, the dispatches’ ultimate contributions towards a shared understanding of this time remain to be fully seen. Attempts to look back at this initiative—conceived of and largely completed prior to the major inflection point of the election—with any sort of clear-sighted retrospect turn out not to be so simple. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of achieving clear perspective while living through a global pandemic and historic global unrest in which so little space is given to collective mourning and reflection; or the reality that our country’s fundamental fractures are not actually much changed from what they were before the election. Or, even more straightforwardly, as Mirzoeff reminded, it’s that reaching such understandings always takes time.
And like oral histories, the dispatches’ ultimate contributions towards a shared understanding of this time remain to be fully seen. Attempts to look back at this initiative—conceived of and largely completed prior to the major inflection point of the election—with any sort of clear-sighted retrospect turn out not to be so simple. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of achieving clear perspective while living through a global pandemic and historic global unrest in which so little space is given to collective mourning and reflection; or the reality that our country’s fundamental fractures are not actually much changed from what they were before the election. Or, even more straightforwardly, as Mirzoeff reminded, it’s that reaching such understandings always takes time.
Destiny Mata
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Presenting the doorways of NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) residents, a community of voters with a critical perspective on politics, racism, equity, and the pandemic
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Laila Annmarie Stevens
New York City
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Spotlighting the hopes and concerns of my peers: young first-time voters of color in and around New York City
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Most fundamentally, Mirzoeff shared, the reckoning of this period—the actual recognition of what our country is, and any widespread dedication to creating fundamental change—has not yet happened. The issues and deeper contexts surfaced by the US Dispatches projects are not in any way resolved, their deeper truths not yet fully confronted on a national level. “I feel like what we’ve got is a tsunami of judgement and mourning and understanding building up at our backs […] And I think this moment in particular is one where we just need as much [storytelling] as we can find to try to bring that kind of understanding to bear,” said Mirzoeff.
The dispatches do just that, offering a breadth of perspectives and experiences and serving as records through which we may begin to understand this time. In a time of social distancing and widening polarization, the importance of these stories, and the deeper contexts they offer, is only magnified. When we are unable to come together to reach some shared understanding of this time, visual storytelling, and the collective truths it can offer, becomes all the more important.
The dispatches do just that, offering a breadth of perspectives and experiences and serving as records through which we may begin to understand this time. In a time of social distancing and widening polarization, the importance of these stories, and the deeper contexts they offer, is only magnified. When we are unable to come together to reach some shared understanding of this time, visual storytelling, and the collective truths it can offer, becomes all the more important.
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The Magnum Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grantmaking and mentorship, Magnum Foundation supports a global network of social justice and human rights-focused photographers and experiments with new models for storytelling. US Dispatches is supported in part by Documentary Arts, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and the Open Society Foundations. |
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Delve deeper
View all the US Dispatches on the Magnum Foundation website
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