We visited the Steven Kasher Gallery to view the works of Jill Freedman in her installation “Resurrection City” and the works of Debi Cornwall in her installation of “Welcome to Camp America”. Both installations were very interesting and composed mainly of photographs. Freedman’s exhibit included all black and white photographs taken in Washington D.C. in the 1960s of the Poor People’s Campaign. Reading about Freedman and her work was very interesting. The campaign was organized by Martin Luther King Jr., but was conducted after his death. The protest was a call to power for poor people to rise up against this power structure that sought to keep them in their place. The protest consisted of thousands of people setting up camps on the grounds of Washington D.C. mall. Freedman lived among them and photographed them for 6 weeks, expertly and artistically capturing the campaign. Resurrection City was what these camps and shantytowns were the protestors stayed was named.
I found the photographs to be very powerful, fully showing the struggle these people endured and how passionate they were about such a cause to live in a tent for 6 weeks. It really spoke to how dedicated they were and also how wrong the system in place was if it led to people having to this to gain attention. The photographs displayed people living in Resurrection City, protesting, marching, and holding signs. The collection contained about 70 photographs and each were interesting and unique, offering insight into the minds of those who protested.
The second exhibit, “Welcome to Camp America” contained photographs of Guantanamo Bay offering a visual representation of the U.S. naval base located in Cuba. The continued operation of Guantanamo Bay is very controversial as word of unjust holding of people and suspected tortured are rumored. Cornwall had to go through quite a process to be allowed into the base and the photographs were originally classified. The photos were very interesting and kind of eerie in a sense, almost normalizing a place that has such tragedy. Unlike Freedman’s exhibit, this installation was fully in color and the photographs were much larger in size. Going into the exhibition without knowing the subject of the photos, I may not have been able to tell. The photos were of seemingly normal things, such as souvenirs from the base, a giant toy turtle in a pool, and some colorful architecture. I found the exhibit to be very interesting, and spent most of my time looking at the photographs. The subject was very interesting and some of the photos had very interesting color palettes and pleasing compositions. Overall my visit to the Steven Kasher Gallery was very enjoyable. I had never visited this gallery prior and am glad that my first time held such interesting exhibits of photography.
