Watch (Vides)

Race is in Place: Photography, Land and Climate Change in the Work of Santu Mofokeng with Patricia Hayes

Photography, Civic Action, and the Struggle For Justice in Latin America with Ileana Selejan

Civil Rights Struggle as “Democracy in Action” in U.S. Information Agency Photography with Darren Newbury

Photographic Acts of Refugee Citizenship with Thy Phu

African Americans and the Photographic Seat of Honor with Brenna Wynn Greer

Photographic Returns: Carrie Mae Weems’s Constructing History with Shawn Michelle Smith

By/For connects global voices through public programs, essays, and collaborative dialogue.

We ask: How does photography function in relation to democracy, and in what ways does the medium shape our understanding and practice of democratic citizenship?

Inaugural Season

In our 2024/2025 season, Shawn Michelle Smith, Brenna Wynn Greer, Thy Phu, Darren Newbury, Ileana L. Selejan, and Patricia Hayes explored these questions through their research, offering diverse perspectives on photography’s civic role.

Watch Season One

Critical Conversations

At the season’s conclusion, we convened a reflective roundtable conversation. The contributors discussed the stakes of photography in our current world and the complexity of its operations in relation to power structures and systemic injustices.