#facingchange

by Luiz Guilherme Alves 

Facing change – Documenting America (facingchange.org) is a website from a non-profit collective of photojournalists and writers who wants to document important issues around the country. Their purpose is to create a visual resource about important themes and discussions. They focus on under-reported aspects of America´s most urgent issues, distributing their work through an online platform.

They´re trying to illustrate great concerns into America´s society like health care, immigration, the war on terror, etc. The FCDA was founded in 2009 by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers Lucian Perkins, who worked as a photographer for the Washington Post, and Anthony Suau, formerly working for Time magazine.

They want to narrow their coverage of vital issues. FCDA is filling the gap between mass media and the communities by humanizing a wide spectrum of neglected issues. For example, even with a well reported subject like the hurricane Sandy in 2012, they try to focus on the images of the consequences for the population, and how their lives had been affected. Moreover, FCDA focus is to follow true stories like the life of veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life; or forgotten corners like Hereford, Texas; Fayette, Mississippi, and Allen, South Dakota; places that rarely draw the nation’s attention. Reporting on everything from the obesity crisis in Upstate New York, through the fallout in Detroit, where the auto industry once thrived, to housing foreclosures in Las Vegas where, every building once sparkled with possibility.

In order to highlight these issues, FCDA has created an online “Public Sphere”, an interactive platform that hosts stories, images and multimedia pieces created by the collective teams. These stories are searchable through a series of issue related US maps linking the public to FCDA photographers and writers, community nonprofits and individuals via active blogs, and comments sections.

The FCDA inspiration was the Farm Security Administration photography project. Under the guidance of Roy Stryker, head of FSA’s Historical Section, the agency sent a handful of then unknown photographers to document the Great Depression in 1935. They were tasked with the assignment of bear witness America. Widely disseminated through newspapers at the time, the photographs lodged themselves in the public consciousness and have remained there. Their images portraited an era and made America aware about what was happening throughout the country.

FCDA want to show people what is happening today. Their images, stories, and multimedia pieces are searchable online for use in both traditional and new media. They claim that in the future the Public Sphere will be expanded in the form of interactive installations traveling to towns and cities throughout the nation to reach audiences beyond the internet. The archive will reside at the Library of Congress.

by Luiz Guilherme Alves 

Facing change – Documenting America (facingchange.org) is a website from a non-profit collective of photojournalists and writers who wants to document important issues around the country. Their purpose is to create a visual resource about important themes and discussions. They focus on under-reported aspects of America´s most urgent issues, distributing their work through an online platform.

They´re trying to illustrate great concerns into America´s society like health care, immigration, the war on terror, etc. The FCDA was founded in 2009 by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers Lucian Perkins, who worked as a photographer for the Washington Post, and Anthony Suau, formerly working for Time magazine.

They want to narrow their coverage of vital issues. FCDA is filling the gap between mass media and the communities by humanizing a wide spectrum of neglected issues. For example, even with a well reported subject like the hurricane Sandy in 2012, they try to focus on the images of the consequences for the population, and how their lives had been affected. Moreover, FCDA focus is to follow true stories like the life of veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life; or forgotten corners like Hereford, Texas; Fayette, Mississippi, and Allen, South Dakota; places that rarely draw the nation’s attention. Reporting on everything from the obesity crisis in Upstate New York, through the fallout in Detroit, where the auto industry once thrived, to housing foreclosures in Las Vegas where, every building once sparkled with possibility.

In order to highlight these issues, FCDA has created an online “Public Sphere”, an interactive platform that hosts stories, images and multimedia pieces created by the collective teams. These stories are searchable through a series of issue related US maps linking the public to FCDA photographers and writers, community nonprofits and individuals via active blogs, and comments sections.

The FCDA inspiration was the Farm Security Administration photography project. Under the guidance of Roy Stryker, head of FSA’s Historical Section, the agency sent a handful of then unknown photographers to document the Great Depression in 1935. They were tasked with the assignment of bear witness America. Widely disseminated through newspapers at the time, the photographs lodged themselves in the public consciousness and have remained there. Their images portraited an era and made America aware about what was happening throughout the country.

FCDA want to show people what is happening today. Their images, stories, and multimedia pieces are searchable online for use in both traditional and new media. They claim that in the future the Public Sphere will be expanded in the form of interactive installations traveling to towns and cities throughout the nation to reach audiences beyond the internet. The archive will reside at the Library of Congress.