5/30/16
Finishing Stockton/San Joaquin and Folger-Shakespeare projects.
Launching the new Lens of Literacy: The Global Library Project!
Was it John Lennon that said “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”? We have been making lots of plans for the launch of our upcoming Global Library Project. But all the things that make life happen have continued along as well. Here are a few of the highlights:
Every year in late Fall our friend the photographer extraordinaire Linda Connor throws a big birthday party up in the little Sierra Foothill town of Sheep Ranch, CA. It is always an amazing event and was doubly memorable as it was the last one for our dear friend Doug Muir who died last month. He will be missed!
I continued to give many lectures around the state on the Public Library Project. Here is a photo by Brian Taylor of me at the Center For Photographic Arts in Carmel last January.
The Public Library Project was the cover story of the Library of Congress magazine this month after their purchase last year of the entire project. Here is a link to the issue: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-190.html
Also, my photo “Rifle lesson, West Wendover branch library, West Wendover, Nevada” is in the opening exhibit at the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was great to be in there with the Blue Chips! It was even better to have it hang on the same wall as a photograph by our late friend Doug Muir. Here is a photo of Ellen and me by our friend Janet Delaney at the big event.
Speaking of Blue Chips, here is a photo of Walker and his friend Nick Neumann with the great photographer Sabastião Salgado who gave a recent lecture at Stanford. What an honor to meet him!
To prove that we are not “all work all the time” I’ve attached a few photos of Walker, Ellen and me at Camp Richardson at Lake Tahoe during the Winter, early Spring and late Spring. We can have fun, occasionally….
To finish our project on literacy efforts in Stockton and San Joaquin County we will have an exhibit coming up this November 10th through December 9th at Delta College in Stockton. This will primarily focus on literacy in Stockton and San Joaquin County. A year later we will have a larger exhibit at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. We will send out announcements as we get closer to those dates. We hope to produce a few publications associated with both exhibits. Here are some of the latest images from the project.
The Folger Shakespeare Library project book is also currently being developed. We will have more information as we get nearer to completion. Ellen and I are hoping to travel to Washington, DC in September to finish up the last of the photography. We can’t wait!
Finally, this summer we begin a new project based on my many years of work on libraries and literacy in the United States. Ellen, Walker and I will start our new Lens of Literacy: The Global Library Project by traveling for eight weeks this summer in Europe looking at the importance of libraries in that part of the world. We will photograph in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Moscow. We are especially interested in the role libraries play in assimilating the vast number of refugees in Europe. In Ukraine we will look at how libraries are helping veterans to reintegrate back into their culture. We will also look at the role of history and European libraries such as synagogues being made into libraries after the Holocaust in Poland. In the future the project will explore other regions of Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceana, South and Central America, and Canada.
Lens of Literacy: The Global Library Project is an Affiliate Project of Independent Arts and Media—a 501(c)(3) non profit fiscal sponsor for artists, journalists and media producers who are producing non-commercial work in the public interest. Follow our adventures here and on The Global Library Project Facebook page. And please make a tax-deductible contribution to our crowd-funded campaign.
Here is the link to our Campaign through Independent Arts & Media.
Lens of Literacy at Independent Arts and Media
Photo by Walker Dawson, Monte Azul favela, São Paulo, Brazil
Library Road Trip 