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[Click any image to go to the Gallery]
Picturing Race
is a photographic journey from Los Angeles to South Africa—and back again—as captured
through the eyes of young people enrolled in Venice Arts’ Social Arts Initiatives
program of Venice, California. It was launched August 20, 2001, when six of the twenty-two youth
involved in Picturing Race traveled with their Venice Arts mentors to Durban, South Africa,
to attend the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance.
They went as United Nations-accredited delegates representing the City of Los Angeles and were
joined in South Africa by two youths from the Washington, D.C., area whose parents were key participants
in the conference. With camera always in hand, these young people, some of whom had never before
traveled outside of Los Angeles, made friends and met people from all over the world: Dalits (“untouchables”)
from India, indigenous people from South America, and Romas (“gypsies”) from Europe—among
many others.
While this important body of work stands on its own, the photographs are made even more relevant
by the events of September 11. They serve to bracket this terrible tragedy, providing one context
for it in some of the images from Durban, and a response to it in some of the images from Los
Angeles.
Some will feel provoked by these photographs: they document a very controversial
conference where anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment took center stage. It is important for
the viewer to remember that we are seeing what the youth saw: people from around the world
demonstrating in the streets of Durban or a heated debate between a Jewish Holocaust survivor
and a Palestinian, witnessed by an Orthodox Jew opposed to Zionism. Powerful images, but only
part of the story the youth tell
From South Africa,
we also see the evocative image of sugar cane being burned by children before the harvest in Mtubatuba;
exuberant Zulu dancers; the beautiful portrait of young boys whose parents had died from AIDS;
children at The Ark, a shelter for homeless individuals and families; and cows’ heads being
butchered in an open-air market in Kwa-Mashu township, juxtaposed against contemporary grocery
stores and fast food chains. We are seeing what the youth saw: people living in communities
both very different from, and very much like, their own. As 16-year-old Justin Hill said: “Kwa-Mashu,
Section P—Little Inglewood [California].”
From Los Angeles, we see people demonstrating in Venice in support of low-income
housing; a march against youth-on-youth violence; one community's response to September 11; homeless
people living on the streets in Los Angeles’ Skid Row; images of Muslims going to their Mosque
during Ramadan in Culver City, California; and the joyful multi-ethnic celebrants at the Los Angeles
Chinese New Year’s parade and a Martin Luther King Day celebration.
From both South Africa
and Los Angeles, these images show controversy and reconciliation, pain and celebration. Surely,
these beautiful photographs represent the best of the social documentary tradition.
In addition to Picturing Race having been published as a book, these photos are being traveled
in exhibitions and form the core of a slide presentation and discussion developed by youth, for
youth, for schools and community venues. What better way to help young people explore racism and
diversity, and begin to answer the questions asked by so many Americans since September 11: Why
us?
Lynn Warshafsky •
Executive Director • Co-Founder, Venice Arts
Click
for group photo
Mission
Statement • Acknowledgements
Venice
Arts
610 California Ave • Venice Ca 90291 USA
Tel (310) 578-1745 • Fax (310) 578-1525
e-mail: info@venice-arts.org
website: www.venice-arts.org
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