MOVING WALLS

group photography exhibition

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introduction JAN BANNING Bureaucratics MARI BASTASHEVSKI File 126 (Disappearing in the Caucasus) CHACHIPE: AN EXPLORATION OF ROMA IMAGES AND IDENTITY Selections from the Chachipe Youth Photography Contest

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CHRISTIAN HOLST In the Quiet Land: Life Under the Military Regime of Burma SAIFUL HUQ OMI The Disowned and the Denied: Stateless Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh ARA OSHAGAN Juvies: A Collaborative Portrait of High-Risk Juvenile Offenders in the California Prison System LORI WASELCHUK Grace Before Dying Resource guide

MOVING WALLS

SELECTION COMMITTEE Stuart Alexander, curator Ricardo Castro Pamela Chen Gabi Chojkier Cynthia Eyakuze Indira Goris Claudia Hernandez Phillip Howse Lori McGlinchey Susan Meiselas, curator Anthony Richter Lisa Sangoi Beka Vuco Yukiko Yamagata Amy Yenkin, chair Quito Ziegler

While there is a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. Dorothea Lange
AMERIC AN PHOTOGR APHER 18951965

Introduction
Since 1998, the Moving Walls exhibition series has featured documentary photography that reflects the Open Society Institutes commitment to addressing and overcoming obstacles such as political oppression, economic instability, and racism that hinder or threaten the development of open societies. Moving Walls 17, the 2010 Summer/Fall installment of this series, explores some of these challenges through seven bodies of work that address the relationship between those in power and those who are governed by them. As a whole, the images show how power can be used as an impediment to transparency, a mechanism for social control, andin the worst examplesa tool for oppression, while also acknowledging the strength and defiance of people who suffer as a result. Jan Bannings portraits of civil servants highlight those who stand at the interface between civil administrations and the public. By photographing these government workers sitting stiffly behind their desks, Banning creates a typology of bureaucratic formality and decorum across eight countries and five continents. By using the office desk as a metaphor but also capturing some of the individual characteristics of the civil servant behind it, Bannings images provide an insight on how bureaucracies can work to protect those in power while being operated by ordinary people. Photographs by Mari Bastashevski, Christian Holst, and Saiful Huq Omi depict people who are living in inhospitable social and political environments. Mari Bastashevski documents the people and places left behind by the abduction and murder of citizens in the Northern Caucasus that are believed to be largely the work of military and security forces. A climate of fear and the ambivalence or obstructionism of local officials leave remaining family members with few options for recourse. The still and empty mood of the images recalls the state of isolation and limbo that result. Christian Holst provides a glimpse into daily life in Burma under its military regime. These color-saturated images allude to a culture of neglect, censorship, and repression, while honoring the graceful resilience of the Burmese people. Saiful Huq Omi addresses the double victimization of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group from western Burma. Having suffered persecution, discrimination, and denial of citizenship at the hands of Burmas military junta, many Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh. Omi documents the additional hardship they face thereboth in and out of refugee camps. In Europe, the Roma have suffered persecution, discrimination, and social exclusion throughout their history. Yet the photographs included in Chachipe: An Exploration of Roma Images and Identity, aim to challenge negative stereotypes of Roma as mere victims. Created in the context of a youth photography competition, these photographs show vibrant and playful depictions of daily life and aim to inspire a positive sense of Roma identity. In the United States, the criminal justice system aims to uphold the law and protect civilians, but too often, over-reliance on incarceration and excessively harsh punishment have devastating consequences for individuals, families, and communities. Ara Oshagan explores this from the perspective of young people placed in youth detention facilities and adult prisons across California. He combines photographs of these young men and women with their own writings and drawings, in order to create a multilayered narrative about their experiences transitioning into adulthood within the criminal justice system. In contrast, Lori Waselchuk focuses on people facing the end of their lives at Angola, Louisianas state penitentiary. In documenting the prisons hospice program, which is run by incarcerated volunteers, Waselchuk not only shows a culture of caring and compassion that challenges stereotypes of incarcerated people, but also provides an intimate and personal perspective on what long-term and life sentences signify for those inside.

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Bureaucratics
J A N B A NNING
Bureaucratics is a book and exhibition that explores the culture, rituals, and symbols of state civil administrations and the people who work within them in eight countries across five continents. I aimed to bring the heart of an anarchist, the mind of a historian, and the eye of an artist to my portrayals of civil servants at work in Bolivia, China, France, India, Liberia, Russia, the United States, and Yemen. I visited hundreds of offices of functionaries in different agencies and at different levels. My visits were unannounced and I was accompanied by the writer Will Tinnemans who interviewed each subject and kept them from tidying up or changing the office from its natural state. This technique allowed me to pose each subject behind his or her desk and create photos showing what a local citizen would be confronted with when they called upon their government. The photography has a conceptual, typological approach reminiscent of August Sanders Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts (People of the Twentieth Century). The photos all have a square format (fitting the subject), are shot from the same height (that of the client), with the deskits front or side photographed parallel to the horizontal edges of the frameserving as a bulwark insulating the representative of rule and regulation against the individual citizen. The images are accompanied by information such as the subjects name, age, function, and salary. Some of the images reveal the way the state proclaims its power or the bureaucrats rank. Others contain details of a more private nature that provide clues about the individual behind the desk. While these photos often highlight the humor and absurdity of bureaucracies, they also seek to demonstrate compassion toward those who work within the states paper labyrinth. ______________________
After studying social and economic history, Jan Banning went on to pursue photography, with the book and exhibition Bureaucratics as one of his most recent projects. His main themes are matters of state power and the long-term consequences of conflict. Bannings other work includes Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways (2005), a book and exhibition about the experiences and aftermath of forced laborers during World War II; Vietnam; Doi Moi (1993), a photobook about post-war social and economic changes; and Burma Behind the Mask (1997), a book featuring Bannings photography, with texts by Jan Donkers and Minka Nijhuis, and an introduction by Aung San Suu Kyi. In 2010, Banning completed Comfort Women, a book and exhibition featuring portraits of Asian women forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during World War II. Bannings work has been widely published in magazines and books, exhibited in four continents, and is included in a number of public and private art collections in Europe and the United States. While most of his projects are self-initiated, Banning has also worked on assignment for clients such as the Rijksmuseum (the Dutch national museum in Amsterdam). Bannings photography has received many prizes, including a World Press Photo Award in 2004.

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File 126 (Disappearing in the Caucasus)

M ARI B A STA SHEVSK I
File 126 (Disappearing in the Caucasus) is a visual documentation of a decade of abductions that have taken place in Chechnya and have now spread to the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan. Usually the relatives of suspected abduction victims submit an investigation request and the authorities file it under article 126, which defines the crime of abduction in the Russian Federation criminal code. The majority of file 126 abductions during the last decade have yet to be thoroughly investigated. Abduction as a concealment tactic, now most commonly referred to as no body, no problem, became prevalent in 2000 during the second Russian-Chechen conflict. The practice continues today, and it was the signature of the earlier Russian counterinsurgency regime. Although some high profile reconstruction work has been completed, most civilians continue to live in a state of fear brought on by the frequent abductions and executions that plague the region. Due to the relatively small size of the nations composing the republics of the Northern Caucasus, the abductions have touched the lives of nearly every family in this region. Before the abduction and murder of staff member Natalia Estemirova prompted it to cease activities in July 2009, the human rights organization Memorial Grozny released daily reports that succinctly documented all the human rights violations that they could uncover in Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia. The detailed accounts of these incidents gave people ample reason to suspect that military and security forces have been responsible for thousands of abductions, and subsequent torture, of civilians. The legal vacuum surrounding the disappearances places most of the civilians in the Northern Caucasus squarely outside the system. Officials apply the law in such a way as to actively discourage the families of victims from seeking state assistance in solving abductions. Although families continue to file lawsuits with the police, both sides understand that the process merely serves to create more paperwork, which is buried in files as soon as it is signed. In their current context, the abducted are incorporeal, as if they never existed. They are no longer with the living, but they are not listed among the dead. This project serves as both a historical document that may prompt action and new calls for justice, and as an acknowledgment of these atrocities and those who have suffered in their wake. ______________________
Mari Bastashevski is a documentary photographer from a family of musicians in St. Petersburg. Since leaving Russia in 1997, she has spent the last decade traveling and studying across Asia and Europe. Bastashevski has a dual degree in political science and art history and has done coursework in genocide studies at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen. She arrived at photography gradually, and completed an advanced visual studies program in 2009 at the Danish School of Media and Journalism. Bastashevski is based in Denmark but spends the majority of her time working abroad, primarily in Eastern Europe.

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Selections from the Chachipe Youth Photography Contest

CH ACH IP E: A N EXPL OR ATION OF RO MA I M AGES A ND IDE NTIT Y
In 2007, the Open Society Institutes Roma Initiatives and the Open Society Archives announced an international amateur photography contest under the auspices of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 20052015, an international initiative that brings together governments, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and Roma civil society to accelerate progress toward improving the welfare of Roma and to review these efforts in a transparent and quantifiable way. The title of the photography contest was Chachipe (which means truth or reality in Romanes), and the aim was to break from prejudiced portrayals of Roma, and call attention to Roma as equal and active members of their society. The following year, the organizers announced a follow-up to the Chachipe photography contest, this time titled Chachipe Youth. In this second competition, young people ranging from 12 to 25 years old were invited to submit photography on Roma daily life in one or more of the countries participating in the Decade of Roma Inclusion: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain. Youth were asked to contribute photography based on three themes: My Street, My Neighborhood, My Colorful Life, and What Is Wrong? The winning photographs, along with some 100 other photos selected from the contest submissions, were organized into an exhibition and online gallery (www.photo.romadecade.org). The photographs included in Moving Walls 17 represent a small selection of images from the larger exhibition. As a whole, the photographs sensitively and artistically present the everyday lives of Roma in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. They aspire to balance artistic values against stereotypical thinking, although the task of the curators was not easy as these two are often combined and reinforce each other. Since one of the overall goals of Chachipe Youth was to contribute to the Decade of Roma Inclusion by generating public discourse and raising public awareness, the exhibited photos do not attempt to manipulate reality and they do not hide the inevitable truth about Roma exclusion and the social injustice that Roma face. The photos help give a portrait of Roma that is more nuanced, colorful, and complex than the usual Roma images found in the media and art world. The images help present the linguistically and culturally diverse communities of the 12 countries participating in the Decade of Roma Inclusion. By relying on the ubiquitous nature of digital photography and the accessibility of the Internet, the Chachipe Youth contest has engaged both Roma and non-Roma photographers in a broad, participatory process of breaking down negative stereotypes and strengthening Roma identity.

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______________________
The Open Society Institutes Roma Initiatives builds upon the institutes many years of support for Roma communities that seek to challenge prejudice and discrimination and to pursue policy change. Roma Initiatives guides all Open Society Institute program and grantmaking activity related to the Decade of Roma Inclusion 20052015, a commitment by 12 European governments to improve the social and economic status of Roma. Roma Initiatives works to increase the ability of Roma to participate in public life, advocate for systemic policy change, challenge anti-Roma prejudice and negative stereotypes, and increase Roma participation in the Decade to make it an enduring success. The Open Society Archives at Central European University is an archival laboratory that actively collects and preserves documents related to human rights and recent history and makes them accessible to the public. At the same time, the archives experiment with new ways to contextualize primary sources, developing innovative tools to explore, represent, or bridge traditional archival collections in a digital environment. The Open Society Archives integrates professional archival work with public programs and uses the Galeria Centralis as the focal point for exhibitions and other public events.

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In the Quiet Land: Life Under the Military Regime of Burma

CHRI STIA N HO LST
Working in Burma as a photojournalist is difficult on many levels. I often feel like my images may be coming up short. I find it incredibly hard to visually convey the emotions and magnitude of the issues I know the Burmese are facing under Burmas military regime, which has been in power for almost 50 years. It is a rule of harsh physical and psychological oppression. During the 1988 student uprising, more than 3,000 demonstrators were shot dead and thousands more arrested in the streets of Rangoon. In 2007, Burmas generals brutally crushed peaceful demonstrations initiated by monks and students and jailed thousands of demonstrators. Burmas suffering was compounded in 2008 when Cyclone Nargis killed almost 140,000 people. Initially, the countrys paranoid generals responded with complete disregard for the population and made an already horrible situation worse by rejecting foreign aid for weeks. The Burmese people suffer every day under a regime that is as inept as it is repressive. The military governments economic policies have resulted in double digit inflation that devastates wages and salaries. Burma, once dubbed the Rice Bowl of Asia, can now barely feed itself and has gone from one of the regions richest countries to one of the worlds poorest. The country is also on the verge of a potentially devastating health crisis due to the governments inattention to HIV and AIDS, malaria, and TB. Burmas health and education sectors are crippled by neglect and corruption. While the regime has built a number of universities, it does not allocate enough funds to operate them. The generals seem to think that an oppressed, sick, and uneducated citizenry poses less of a threat to their power. Some maintain that the generals behavior is due to their commitment to keep Burma united. But the junta seems incapable of going beyond harsh military rule when attempting to govern Burmas diverse, multiethnic society. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2010, yet they are likely to perpetuate military rule under a facade of legislative formality. The regimes 2008 constitution allows the military to hold 25 percent of the seats in the new parliament and to control an appointed body with veto power over parliamentary decisions. Despite these sad facts, the Burmese people show a quiet resilience to continue with their lives. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won the 1990 elections and who has been under house arrest for 14 of the last 21 years, has tried to help her fellow Burmese acquire courage and prevent fear from dictating their lives. She calls it grace under pressurean ability to conduct oneself with decency and composure in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure. On a basic human level, I am occasionally overwhelmed, sometimes frustrated, but mostly encouraged by what I see when photographing people in Burma. I feel utterly privileged to witness people who are so graceful under such harsh pressures. .

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______________________
Danish photographer Christian Holst came upon photography in 1997, when a photographer friend of his uncles suggested that Holst come work for him. Photography soon became one of Holsts favorite pursuits along with working as a bike messenger and teaching children how to sail. He began his formal training first by working as an assistant at a photographers collective in Denmark, and then taking courses at Fatamorgana, the Danish School of Art Photography in 2000. He followed this the next year with classes at the Danish School of Journalism. Holst was based in Bangkok until recently, when he relocated to Shanghai to work on stories in the region. He devotes most of his time to social issues and human rights stories. He is currently working on a longterm project about daily life under Burmas military regime. Holst has received numerous international awards, and his work has appeared in a range of American, European, and Scandinavian magazines and newspapers.

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The Disowned and the Denied: Stateless Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

S A I F U L HU Q O M I

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For decades, the xenophobic, Burman-led military junta has refused to recognize the Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic minority living in western Burma, as one of the countrys many ethnic nationalities. As a result, Rohingya have suffered human rights violations and a vast majority of them have been denied official recognition of citizenship. Rohingya are subjected to countless forms of discrimination, including extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and destruction of their homes; and restrictions on marriage and movement. Rohingya continue to be used as forced laborers on roads and at military camps. In 1978, a Burmese army campaign of killing, rape, destruction of mosques, and religious persecution drove 167,000 Rohingya across Burmas porous border with Bangladesh. Under intense international pressure, the Burmese government eventually allowed many of the Rohingya who had fled to return. But from 1991 to 1992 a new wave of Burmese repression forced over 250,000 Rohingya to flee back into Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the UNHCR officially recognizes approximately 28,000 Rohingya as refugees. They live in squalid camps where medical care is practically nonexistent, where the majority of children and adults suffer from malnutrition, and where employment within or beyond the camp is forbidden. Access to formal education is rare and women are vulnerable to sexual violence and forced marriage. The great majority of Rohingya in Bangladesh are outside the camps where they barely survive and constantly endure ill-health, abuse, and exploitation, including from recruiters for Muslim fundamentalist groups. Rejected by the Bangladeshi government and fearing persecution in Burma, it is estimated that close to a quarter of a million Rohingya are living illegally in Bangladesh. Despite these vast numbers, international media and most governments have ignored or forgotten the Rohingya for so long that they seem to no longer exist. Disowned by their home country and resented where they seek refuge, the Rohingya are not likely to experience change, until either the Burmese regime takes them back or Bangladesh improves the camps and gives official refugee status to all Rohingya in the country. ______________________
Saiful Huq Omi took up professional photography in 2005 after receiving a diploma from the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography. Omi currently works as a contract photographer for the New York Times and is represented by Polaris Images. His work has been published in Arab News, Asian Photography, Foto File USA, the Guardian, New Internationalist, the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time. Omis first book, Heroes Never Die: Tales of Political Violence in Bangladesh, 19892005, was published in 2006. Omi has presented lectures on his photography at numerous institutions and has exhibited his work in galleries in Bangladesh, Germany, India, Nepal, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States. He has received awards from the National Geographic All Roads Photography Program in 2006, the China International Press Photography Contest in 2009 (silver medal), and the DAYS JAPAN International Photojournalism Awards in 2010 (special jury prize). Omi was selected for the World Press Photos Joop Swart Masterclass in 2010 and was a finalist for the Aftermath Project in 2009 and for the Alexia Grant in 2009 and 2010. Omis ongoing work on Rohingya refugees is supported by the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund.

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Juvies: A Collaborative Portrait of High-Risk Juvenile Offenders in the California Prison System
A R A O S H AG AN
A few years ago, Leslie Neale, a filmmaker-friend, invited me to photograph with her crew at the Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles. Her topic: young people being tried as adults for violent crimes ranging from first-degree murder to assault with a deadly weapon. They were all facing very harsh sentences, some even life in prison. In my mind, they were the worst of the worst. They were unimaginably far from my own life. I braced myself for the trip to the inside. But that trip had little of the menace that I imagined. I did not meet any angry or tattoo-ridden kids decked out in the clothes and accessories that could mark them as members of the citys gang culture. Rather, I found a group of ordinary young men and women who had signed up for a video production class being taught by Leslie. When I spoke to them, they were deferential. For them, candy was the contraband article they had brought to class. Some of the kids were interested in photography and told me about how they strove to learn white balance. Leslie had brought an electronic keyboard with her that day, and later, I listened to one of the kids play Beethovens Moonlight Sonata on it. And somehow I had come full circle: I had played that exact same piece to my own son the night before. Suddenly, the distance between the inside and the outside seemed to vanish into thin air, a vast gulf turned into an imperceptible chimera. It was from this process of realization and growing awareness that my project, Juvies, took shape. I found myself on a fence. I was partially inside and partially outside. And it was disorienting: I was in a privileged place that allowed the perceptions that existed in my head to be confronted by the realities I was witnessing in the closed and misunderstood world of incarceration. What I was seeing was also raising issues that would not give me peace. I can understand why Mayra might get life in prison for shooting her girlfriend from point blank range. But how could a combination of relatively minor charges result in the same life sentence for Duc, an 18-year-old who, despite having no prior convictions, was convicted in a shooting crime that resulted in no injuries and in which he did not pull the trigger? And why did Petera 17-year-old piano prodigy and poetget 12 years in adult prison for a first time assault and breaking and entering offense? Why is the justice system so harsh on kids who clearly have potential? I felt compelled to address these matters. I wanted to trace the physical and psychic contours of the world of these young people to see what they might reveal. For the next couple of years, I tiptoed along this borderline: going in and out of juvenile hall and mens and womens prisons across the state of California photographing the young people and everything about their incarcerationthe walls, the guards, the other incarcerated people, the yards, the bunk beds. I also photographed on the outside: the families and communities left behind as well as the courts and victims.

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What emerged from these journeys is Juvies: a layered photographic narrative that merges my photographs of incarcerated young people with their own handwritten texts, giving each their unique voice to speak about their world. Juvies is not only a document, but also a query about perception. Do we know who these young people are and what we are doing to them? ______________________
Born into a family of writers, Ara Oshagan studied literature and physics, but found his true passion in photography. A self-taught photographer, his work revolves around the intertwining themes of identity, community, and aftermath. Aftermath is the main impetus for his first project, iwitness, which combines portraits of survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915 with their oral histories. Issues of aftermath and identity also took Oshagan to the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the South Caucasus, where he documented and explored the post-war state of limbo experienced by Armenians in that mountainous and unrecognized region. This journey resulted in a project that won an award from the Santa Fe Project Competition in 2001, and will be published by powerHouse Books in 2010 as Father Land, a book featuring Oshagans photographs and an essay by his father. Oshagan has also explored his identity as member of the Armenian diaspora community in Los Angeles. This project, Traces of Identity, was supported by the California Council for the Humanities and exhibited at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in 2004 and the Downey Museum of Art in 2005. Oshagans work is in the permanent collections of the Southeast Museum of Photography, the Downey Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in Armenia.

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Grace Before Dying

L ORI WA SEL CH UK
We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. Desmond Tutu
A life sentence at Angola, Louisianas state penitentiary, means life. Because Louisiana has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the United States, about 80 percent of the 5,100 prisoners at Angola are expected to die there. In the past, prisoners died alone and unattended in the prison hospital. But, a hospice program changed that. Incarcerated volunteers, now certified as hospice caregivers, have helped create an environment inside the prison where compassion is unconditional. There are many reasons to tell the story of the Angola hospice program. As our sense of public safety decreases, the American prison population continues to expand. In 2008, 1 in every 99 adults in America was incarcerated. As the number of incarcerated people increases, so do the costs of housing them. States spent more than $49 billion on correctional services in 2007. Spurred on by demands to be tough on convicted criminals, courts continue to deliver longer sentences and parole boards continue to reduce parole and probation programs. A further consequence of Americans call to be tough on crime is that the incarcerated population is growing older. With my photographs, I intend on telling a story about the Angola hospice program that is likely to challenge stereotypes about incarcerated people, and, I hope, inspire solutions to change our criminal justice system. I want to tell a story about the hospices incarcerated volunteers because I see many lessons in their efforts to bring humanity and compassion to an environment designed to isolate and punish. Over the three years Ive documented the program, Ive witnessed how the Angola prison hospice team sparked a movement of empathy that not only spread throughout the prison population, but also influenced the prisons security and medical staffs. Prison officials say that the program has helped to transform one of the most violent maximum-security prisons in the South into one of the least violent in the United States. In doing this work, I have focused on moments of connection between caregiver and patient, which can reveal both love and vulnerability. I am inspired by the hospice volunteers courage to confront their own regrets and fears in order to accept their capacity to love. The people I have met have allowed me to visualize what I believe is at the core of addressing social problems: the recognition of our shared humanity.

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Lori Waselchuk is a documentary photographer and arts activist who seeks to inspire empathy and conversation through her photographs. Waselchuks work has appeared in magazines and newspapers world wide and has been used by several international aid organizations including CARE, Mdecins Sans Frontires, the United Nations World Food Programme, and The Vaccine Fund. Waselchuk is a recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundations 2009 Individual Photographers Fellowship; a 2008 Distribution Grant from the Open Society Institutes Documentary Photography Project; and the 2007 PhotoNOLA Review Prize. Her photo reportage on gender-based violence in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo was awarded the 2004 Southern African Gender and Media Award for photojournalism. Waselchuk was also a nominee for the 2009 Santa Fe Prize for Photography; a finalist in the 2008 Aperture West Book Prize; and a finalist in the 2006 and 2008 Critical Mass review. In 2010, Waselchuk received support from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to continue working on a project about bridges in New Orleans. Waselchuk exhibits her work internationally in solo and group shows. Her photography has been featured in several books, including A Day in the Life of Africa (2002) and Women by Women: 50 Years of Womens Photography in South Africa (2006).

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Moving Walls 17 Resource Guide

Since 1998, Moving Walls has featured the work of more than one hundred photographers whose images address a variety of social justice and human rights issues that coincide with the mission of the Open Society Institute. This resource guide provides links to information about the projects featured in Moving Walls 17 and Open Society Institute programs that are working on some of the issues depicted in the exhibition.

Jan Banning
Bureaucratics
To view more of Jan Bannings photographs of civil servants at work: www.janbanning.nl
The Local Government & Public Service Reform Initiative and the Open Society Justice Initiative are two Open Society Institute programs that help people get involved in governance and making decisions that impact their lives and communities. The Local Government & Public Service Reform Initiative collaborates with civil society partners to support local and regional reform and to make governments more accountable and responsive to the needs of citizens. The Open Society Justice Initiative actively supports the adoption, implementation, and improvement of freedom of information laws so people can access information and use it to challenge corruption and make governance more transparent.

Local Government & Public Service Reform Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/lgi Open Society Justice Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/justice

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Mari Bastashevski
File 126 (Disappearing in the Caucasus)
For more of Mari Bastashevskis photographs on disappearances in the Caucasus: www.maribastashevski.com
The Human Rights and Governance Grants Program, Central Eurasia Project, and Open Society Justice Initiative place a strong emphasis on advancing human rights and helping victims of rights abuses in the Caucasus as well as other parts of the world. The Human Rights and Governance Grants Program makes grants that focus on human rights, accountability, and promotion of the rule of law. The program helps people seek justice by supporting watchdog organizations, public interest strategic litigation, and domestic and international advocacy efforts. The Central Eurasia Project promotes human rights and social progress by helping NGOs engaged in issues such as human and labor rights, export and energy revenue, and budget transparency. The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world. Through advocacy, research, and technical assistance, the initiative holds individuals and groups accountable for international human rights violations, racial discrimination, and statelessness.

Human Rights and Governance Grants Program: www.soros.org/initiatives/hrggp Central Eurasia Project: www.soros.org/initiatives/cep Open Society Justice Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/justice

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Chachipe: An Exploration of Roma Images and Identity

Selections from the Chachipe Youth Photography Contest
Organized by the Open Society Institute Roma Initiatives and Open Society Archives

For more photographs from the 2009 Chachipe Exhibition: www.photo.romadecade.org

The Chachipe Youth Photography Contest is a program of the Roma Initiatives, which seeks to build upon the Open Society Institutes many years of support for Roma communities in their efforts to challenge prejudice and discrimination and to pursue policy change. Roma Initiatives helps Roma participate in public life, confront prejudice and negative stereotypes, and increase Roma participation in the Decade of Roma Inclusion 20052015, an initiative that brings together governments, international organizations, and Roma civil society to improve the welfare of Roma communities in Europe. The Open Society Archives collects, preserves, and provides the public with access to materials that document recent history and the development of human rights in Central and Eastern Europe. The archives also sponsors exhibitions, performances, film screenings, lectures, and seminars that work to promote public access to cultural and historical information.

Roma Initiatives: www.soros.org/initiatives/roma/about Decade of Roma Inclusion 20052015: www.romadecade.org/home Open Society Archives: www.osaarchivum.org

Christian Holst
In the Quiet Land: Life Under the Military Regime of Burma
For more of Christian Holsts photographs of Burma: www.christianholstphotography.com
The Burma Project works to improve the lives of people in Burma and help the transition to an open society by increasing international awareness about conditions inside the country. Project grantees and activists have provided uncensored images and news to people living inside and outside of Burma, and have called public attention to the regimes flawed referendums, illegal constitution, and the repression and imprisonment of political opponents.

Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/bpsai

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Saiful Huq Omi

The Disowned and the Denied: Stateless Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh
For more of Saiful Huq Omis photographs of Rohingya refugees: www.saifulhuq.com
The situation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh documented by Saiful Huq Omi provides one example of the statelessness and citizenship issues that are a major focus of the Open Society Justice Initiative. The initiatives work across the globe on citizenship issues exposes, documents, and challenges the statelessness and discrimination that arise when governments strip people of their citizenship and nationality. The Burma Project works to improve the status of ethnic groups that are repressed and deprived of their rights by increasing international awareness of conditions in Burma and calling public attention to the regimes manipulation of the governance process and repression of political opponents.

Open Society Justice Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/focus/equality_citizenship Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/bpsai To view the Open Society Institutes Stateless website: www.soros.org/indepth/stateless

Ara Oshagan
Juvies: A Collaborative Portrait of High-Risk Juvenile Offenders in the California Prison System
For more of Ara Oshagans photographs of incarcerated youth: www.araoshagan.com
The U.S. Programs Criminal Justice Fund seeks to reduce the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the United States by challenging the overreliance on incarceration and harsh punishment, and ensuring a fair and equitable system of justice.

Open Society Institute U.S. Programs: www.soros.org/regions/united_states

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Lori Waselchuk
Grace Before Dying
For more of Lori Waselchuks photographs of prison hospice caregivers: www.loriwaselchukphotos.com | www.gracebeforedying.org
From 1994 to 2003, the Project on Death in America worked to understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement in the United States. Over the course of nine years, the project and its grantees helped build the growing field of palliative care and place this issue on the public agenda. As part of its grantmaking, the project supported activities and organizations focusing on end-of-life care in prisons. In 1998, the Project on Death in America and the Center on Crime, Communities & Culture produced Angola Prison Hospice: Opening the Door, a documentary by Edgar Barens that chronicles the hospice program featured in Waselchuks photographs. Although the Project on Death in America no longer makes grants, the International Palliative Care Initiative, as part of the Public Health Program, continues the Open Society Institutes commitment to advocating for palliative care as a public health issue. The U.S. Programs Criminal Justice Fund seeks to reduce the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the United States by challenging the overreliance on incarceration and harsh punishment, and ensuring a fair and equitable system of justice.

To view Angola Prison Hospice: Opening the Door: www.soros.org/initiatives/usprograms/ multimedia/angola_20080912 International Palliative Care Initiative: www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/ipci Open Society Institute U.S. Programs: www.soros.org/regions/united_states

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About the Moving Walls Exhibition Series

Moving Walls is an annual documentary photography exhibition produced by the Open Society Institutes Documentary Photography Project. Since its inception in 1998, Moving Walls has featured over 100 photographers whose works address a variety of social justice and human rights issues that coincide with the institutes mission. Moving Walls is exhibited at the Open Society Institutes offices in New York and Washington, D.C. For more information about Moving Walls, or if you are interested in purchasing any of the prints in the exhibition, please visit www.movingwalls.org. The exhibition is open to the public Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM4:30 PM, from June 3, 2010, through February 11, 2011. Groups of five or more must schedule their visit in advance by contacting the Documentary Photography Project at [email protected] or (212) 548-0600.

Open Society Institute 400 West 59th Street New York, NY 10019

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About the Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve its mission, the Open Society Institute seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, the institute implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, the Open Society Institute builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. The institute places high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities. Investor and philanthropist George Soros in 1993 created the Open Society Institute as a private operating and grantmaking foundation to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. The Open Society Institute has worked to expand the activities of the foundations to encompass the United States and more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Each foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.

DESIGN Jeanne Criscola | Criscola Design PRINTING GHP Media, Inc.

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MOVING WALLS

400 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019