SANTA FE, NM.- Monroe Gallery of Photography presents a important exhibition of photographs covering 21st Century events documented by the new-wave of fearless frontline photojournalists. “Living In History” opens Friday, July 5, with a reception from 5-7 pm with several of the photojournalists present. The exhibit will continue through September 22, 2019.
Generation Z, born in 1995 or later, will soon become the largest living population in the United States, “Gen Z” already makes up 32 percent of the world’s population and 40 percent of consumers. Growing up post-9/11, its population has a very different view of the world: one that is dangerous with many natural, human-caused, and technological disasters: terrorist attacks, school shootings, hurricanes, epidemics, cyber threats, climate change, and environmental damage. With the proliferation of instant news and social media they did not have to be at ground zero to watch live and recorded images of the 9/11 attacks, Superstorm hurricanes and tsunamis, disease outbreaks, racial tensions and violence, school and workplace shootings, refugee and migrant crises, and the list goes on. This exhibit covers many of the most significant events of post 9/11 history.
Some of the events and subjects covered in the exhibit “Living in History” include: The Occupy Wall Street protests, Standing Rock protests, Black Lives Matter/ Ferguson/KKK protests, Syrian Refugee crisis and the US/Mexico border immigration and refugee crisis, Super-Hurricanes Sandy and Florence, the environmental legacy of the American military and the war economy on the New Mexican landscape, the rise of militarism in the United States post 9/11 and visual documentation of the human toll of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Arab Spring.
Although the glory days of publishing history-making events in LIFE magazine are long gone, there is a new generation of photojournalists dedicated to recording history as we live it. At its peak, LIFE magazine sold more than 13.5 million copies a week, by contrast, through social media alone and with no mainstream media support Ryan Vizzions’ documentation of the protests at Standing Rock reached more than half a billion people.
Remarkably, at the same time the press is under attack as never before in history. Since announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections to the end of his second year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump has sent 1,339 tweets about the media that were critical, insinuating, condemning, or threatening. Reporters Sans Frontières, or Reporters Without Borders, dropped the U.S. to No. 48 out of 180 on its 2019 annual World Press Freedom Index, three notches lower than its place last year. The move downgrades the country from a "satisfactory" place to work freely to a "problematic" one for journalists. "Never before have US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to private security firms for protection," the report stated.
Looking at the pictorial documentation of such extraordinary events we often get the impression that we are feeling the pulse of history more intensively than at other times. Although often not beautiful, or easy, they are images that shake and disquiet us; and will form the history of the time we are living in.
