EDITOR ’ S LETTER by Andrea Blanch
Humanity is not individualistic . It represents everything that we share fundamentally as humans , stripped of the myriad of boundaries and idiosyncrasies that divide us . At NeueHouse a few months ago , Magnum had a small exhibition called 70 at 70 . There was one photograph in particular that caught my eye . Ian Berry ’ s “ young black girl scarcely more then a child herself looks after a baby girl for a white family ” shot in 1969 reminded me of the power of images , their capacity to move people , to tell a story , to change perceptions , to change the world . As the editorial director at Musée I look at images from 6 am to 6 pm daily . I must admit that the images that have inspired me lately are conceptual . For the first time in a while , the Magnum image by Ian Berry filled me with emotion . At that moment , the theme of this issue was determined and my appreciation for photojournalism was reinvigorated . These images have the capacity to advance society , to awaken us , to challenge justice , to provide new perspectives , to fight for human rights . They help us to see the humanity in our world and encourage us to fill the gaps in which it is lacking . All of the artists in this issue are humanists in different ways . Their different approaches to representing humans --- human suffering , human joy , and human nature --- help us to recognize our fundamental sameness , a recognition that leads inevitably to outrage at the gross inequality between our lives , environments , and experiences . Bruce Gilden takes pictures of societal outcasts from the perspective of an insider . Due to his own turbulent past , he has the unique capacity to photograph --- intimately and with consent --- some of the most dehumanized and misunderstood groups of people . Gilden takes close-up and well-lit photographs of the street people that most of us side-step on a daily basis . He forces us to look at the faces and into the eyes that we evade , to acknowledge the humanity of the individuals who are most often stripped of it . Letizia Battaglia --- a human rights , women ’ s rights , and environmental activists --- is featured in this edition for her photojournalistic documentation of the barbarous effects of the Sicilian mafia on her hometown . Battaglia put her life on the line for this work , valuing the safety and justice of her community over her own security . Her work documents the senseless violence that humans enact on one another in the name of power and greed . Taryn Simon ’ s work takes a different approach to the fight against human injustice . Unlike many of the artists featured in this magazine , Simon ’ s work is not photojournalistic , but rather , conceptual and posed . However , her portraits of the recently exonerated and wrongly convicted , taken at the actual sites of their alleged crimes , are exceedingly raw and authentic . This work represents the vulnerability of the human lives that are manipulated and extinguished by a biased criminal justice system . Harriet Logan --- an award winning photojournalist and now a curator , collector , and patron of photojournalistic works --- documented the women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule from beneath the shroud of a burka . She is yet another example of a photographer who risked her life in order to show the world a necessary perspective , to educate the world with her images of human endurance and suffering . Logan has attempted to memorialize the works of photojournalists who have similarly risked their lives in order to bring necessary humanitarian discourses into the global awareness . Today , in her collaboration with Tristan Lund , she focuses on purchasing and patronizing the work of emerging , humanitarian artists , acting as a benefactor to their work . In a similar vein , Aiden Sullivan works as a facilitator and patron of humanist photojournalism . He has created a logistics platform that links humanist photographers with corporations doing humanist work . Sullivan is one of many who recognized the significant role that photography plays in generating intercultural compassion , as well as interest in and funding for global human aid . Starting a nuclear war is not in the interest of humanity . In our current political climate humanitarian artists have a renewed relevance . We owe these photographers a great amount of gratitude for the work they have done , the risks they have taken , and the eyes they have opened . Their images change and save human lives .
Megan Jacobs , Hidden Mothers : Emily , 2016 .
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