DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT 2016-19 STRATEGY

I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Documentary Photography Project (DPP) advances socially engaged photography and its potential to drive change. We are at a major inflection point in our program. Over the next four years we will redesign our program and shift from supporting this work broadly, to targeting the following specific goals: 1. Amplify a greater diversity of global voices; 2. Support ambitious work in physical and online spaces that sustains attention and engagement on critical issues; and 3. Leverage our position within OSF’s network to connect individuals and organizations across and outside the field.

Why? Democratic societies rely on a plurality of perspectives and ideas. DPP has supported individuals and organizations in every major OSF region, but due to our limited network, our funding has been weighted towards artists from the US and Europe doing projects there and elsewhere. By identifying and investing in a more globally representative network of grantees who are using a range of approaches, we can be more effective in engaging diverse publics. In bridging disconnected communities of practitioners, we encourage a cross pollination of ideas and skills, and create opportunities for new alliances.

Why Now? Traditional media are no longer the primary gatekeepers for the production and distribution of photography. As communication and information sharing platforms continue to evolve, there are new opportunities for visual media to play an influential role in engaging people on pressing issues in diverse communities globally. Voices that had been at the margins can connect directly with audiences on their own terms. However, networked societies have their own structural inequities, such as language, education, connectivity, and censorship, which create barriers to access and participation. This presents an opportune moment to intervene and strengthen the potential for local and underrepresented voices to assert their own power in determining how they can and want to be heard. 1

Alongside a proliferation of digital platforms, the aesthetic boundaries between photography, film/video, and image-based art are breaking down. This allows new forms of image-based stories to emerge and be shared in innovative ways.

Our Response We are aligning our activities and programs with our three goals.

We will expand our exhibition program beyond the Moving Walls group show and adapt our curatorial process to be more inclusive of global practitioners. We will partner with other venues and curators in order to engage non-OSF audiences.

We will continue supporting both organizations and individuals. The Magnum Foundation has been a key ally, but we are seeking additional partners who are also taking advantage of the evolving media and arts ecology. We are committing time and resources to broaden our network and better understand the landscape of our field in different global contexts. We are looking at individuals and organizations using photography, art, and visual media to advance social justice: artists, documentarians, collectives, educators, curators, socially engaged arts non-profits, activists, media outlets, and funders. We will determine where we can be most influential and then establish priorities, identify grantees, partners, and advisors, and leverage our relationships to connect conversations happening across geographies and sectors.

II. NOTABLE CHANGES What Is New? We have identified three interconnected goals for all grantmaking and operational activities.

What Has Changed? We will broaden our exhibition program beyond our offices, in both digital and physical spaces. We will use our expanded network (see above) to identify partners to bring Moving Walls to a larger audience, e.g., surveillance exhibition touring in Europe in 2015-16. In addition to organizing the OSF-curated Moving Walls, we will fund and exhibit shows that are organized by external curators and institutions. These exhibitions may include public installations, digital exhibitions, traveling shows, and other variations. 2

Although the Audience Engagement Grant is ending (see “What Have We Dropped” below), we will continue supporting individuals to produce and distribute socially relevant work, either directly or through organizational partners.

We will continue to invest in innovation but are shifting an element of that strategy, “Photography, Expanded,” from Concept to Field. The Magnum Foundation, our co-development partner, will continue to offer labs, grants, and symposia for photographers who are developing collaborative digital practices but we are no longer playing an active role in it.

We will participate in the robust discussion on impact taking place in journalism and media arts, especially documentary film. We will not, though, develop separate measurement tools for documentary photography.

What Have We Dropped? We are ending the Audience Engagement Grant after 10 years. Based on reviews at the staff and Advisory Board levels, this grant model no longer adequately responds to current needs.

III. FIELD ANALYSIS We have traditionally defined our field as the community that produces, distributes, and funds socially engaged documentary photography. While their careers are often in journalism, many of the photographers we support sustain long-term independent projects through self- or crowd-funding, or grants offered by organizations such as the Guggenheim, W. Eugene Smith Fund, Alexia Foundation, Getty Images, Magnum Foundation, and Prince Claus Fund.

We also support artists using photography who operate in the realm of socially engaged art rather than journalism. Much of this work is grant-supported and created outside the art market. Funders include DOEN, Goethe Institute, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, A Blade of Grass, and Creative Time.

The context in which we work is shaped by the fact that technology has shifted how projects are funded, created, seen, and shared. Photographers are often bypassing gatekeepers and mainstream media 3

outlets, promoting their own work, and engaging directly with audiences. They must be increasingly strategic and savvy as to whom they want their work to reach and how. Photographers are utilizing new technologies; finding partners with skills in coding, design, and social media engagement; and banding together to create collectives and new business models. Grantee Karim Ben Khelifa and his partners, for example, are developing a virtual reality installation that allows users to engage with soldiers from across enemy lines. While we see a greater diversity of artists and citizen journalists who assert their voices on their own terms, access, social capital, and funding still determine the success of many projects.

As aesthetic genres (e.g., photography, new media, interactive technology, design, and the arts) break down and allow a more porous, cross-pollinating “field,” donors are aligning their work to be responsive to emergent trends and needs. Supporters of interactive documentary and related media include Ford, Sundance, Tribeca Interactive, PBS’ POV, IDFA, the National Film Board of Canada’s interactive productions, and numerous museums and festivals around the world. Academic programs and research centers include NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and MIT’s Open Documentary Lab and Center for Civic Media.

While advances in online technologies have transformed our field, physical spaces continue to be very relevant. For example, Greg Constantine, a grantee of DPP and the Justice Initiative, partners with UNHCR to successfully target policy makers on the issue of statelessness. His work has been exhibited at venues such as the 1st World Forum on Statelessness at The Hague, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and BBVA Bank in Madrid.

We are also witnessing an increase in geographically focused training programs and festivals in regions outside the U.S. and Europe. Grantee Market Photo Workshop has been training South African photographers for over 25 years. Newer players include the Arab Documentary Photography Program and 4Plus (Armenia). Established festivals such as Bamako Encounters (Mali), Pingyao International Photography Festival (China), and Chobi Mela (Bangladesh) are now joined by newer ventures such as LagosPhoto (Nigeria) and Tbilisi Photo Festival (Georgia). While these efforts provide greater opportunities for local funding, training, and exposure, they are often disconnected from each other.

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IV. PROGRAM POSITIONING We are one of the most credible and influential donors of issue-based and innovative photographic work. We are unique in that we offer direct links to OSF staff expertise and knowledge. We are well positioned to identify and engage with a broad range of artists and practitioners and have the ability to connect likeminded stakeholders, bridge gaps in resources, and leverage our efforts through partnerships and networking.

Though our mandate is global, we are most present in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Europe. Our influence in other places has relied upon partnerships—past and current—with other OSF programs: a touring exhibition developed with the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia Program; a production grant and mentorship program in Central Asia and the South Caucasus co-funded by the Arts and Culture Program; and organizational grantees in sub-Saharan Africa, Market Photo Workshop (Johannesburg) and Pawa254 (Nairobi), introduced to us by OSF-SA and OSIEA. In Haiti we have cofunded work with FOKAL. We have knowledge gaps in Latin America and in Asia that we plan to address.

With our decision to shift our strategy and place emphasis on expanding our global network, we have one staff person whose time will go toward researching and mapping the landscape of existing networks, individuals, and organizations; recommending priority regions and potential partners; and proposing a plan for work starting in 2016.

V. CATEGORY OF WORK: FIELD DPP will re-design our approach to supporting the field in a way that aligns with the three main goals of our 2016-19 strategy: 1. Amplify a greater diversity of global voices; 2. Support ambitious work in physical and online spaces that sustains attention and engagement on critical issues; and 3. Leverage our position within OSF’s network to connect individuals and organizations across and outside the field.

In the 2016-19 strategy period we plan to support: 1) production; 2) exhibitions, distribution, and public engagement; 3) and knowledge sharing. Our goal is to build a more cohesive program with a priority on 5

diversifying our grantees, bringing more exposure to Moving Walls, funding other exhibitions in physical and digital spaces, and experimenting with how we provide support and to whom as a way to learn where we can be most effective.

In preparation, we will spend the remainder of 2015 considering new approaches to curating and supporting exhibitions, evaluating our current grantmaking, deepening our knowledge of established and emergent actors in the field, and formulating a vision for our potential network of advisors, nominators, and grantees. In identifying potential grantees and experimenting with different formats for Moving Walls, we are seeking to support those who are using images and visual storytelling as a way to assert their own power and rights, as well as those who are using photography as a mechanism to highlight the abuse of power by others. We will: 1. Assess our roster of current organizational grantees and decide which continue to align with our three goals and, if not, implement tie-offs; 2. Map the landscape of key organizations, collectives, curators, and potential grantees within and outside our documentary photo community, especially in regions where we do not have strong contacts; 3. Research how both funders and practitioners theorize, formalize, visualize, and utilize their networks, with special consideration given to networks that work globally, across multiple fields, and include both local and international contexts; 4. Based on this mapping exercise, further investigate and begin to experiment with different models for supporting individuals and organizations working at the intersection of arts, visual media, and social justice. Models include: grantmaking, curating and exhibiting, capacity building, building/leveraging leadership, peer-to-peer learning, and networking; 5. Bring initial recommendations to the DPP Advisory Board for review in the fall.

Based on what we learn, recommend, and determine at the Advisory Board meeting later this year, we will develop a new grantmaking approach, redesign the Moving Walls exhibition program, and phase our work in a way that allows us to test and learn along the way (see Appendix). While our specific activities will evolve, we anticipate committing our entire program budget ($1,000,000) to supporting the field. A third of this budget will go towards creating, exhibiting, and touring Moving Walls. The remainder will be for grantmaking, including grants for individuals and organizations, as well as those made in connection with our exhibition program. 6

We see the 2016-19 strategy as a period of significant transition. Therefore, we currently do not anticipate advancing any new Concepts. That said, we will be responsive to opportunities for intervention that may arise during the discovery period and leading up to the revision of our strategy in two years. All of our work is categorized under the theme/subtheme “Art: Documentary Photography.”

Grantmaking – Organizational & Individual Currently, our primary organizational grantee in supporting the field and furthering DPP’s strategy is the Magnum Foundation (MF). They train international photographers who are working in their home countries in human rights reporting, provide production support to photographers globally working on long term projects, and organize labs and symposia in interactive digital storytelling. They are growing as an organization and gaining new partners, but MF needs to continue to expand their funding sources, especially core support. DPP funding represents less than 1/3 of their budget but roughly half of our grant is for general support. We will work with MF to set achievable targets in order to give them the resources to develop themselves as an organization. Over time we will shift our support to make funds available to other organizations and/or individual artists. This will happen as part of the overall transition DPP is undergoing as we broaden our network and diversify our roster of grantees. We anticipate that the Magnum Foundation will continue to be an important ally advancing our values and the field even as we identify and support other key partners.

In researching other global organizations to fund or that may partner with us in other ways, we will consider a range of ways that image based artists are supported, trained, and exhibited: 

Production: e.g., 4Plus Collective (Armenia); Invisible Borders (Nigeria)

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Innovative/Responsive Approaches to Distribution & Engagement: e.g., Everyday Africa/Instagram; Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award

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Training: e.g., Market Photo Workshop (South Africa); PAWA254 (Kenya)

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Festivals and Convenings: e.g., Addis Foto Fest (Ethiopia); Bamako Encounters (Mali); Chobi Mela (Bangladesh)

These and other organizations are possible grantees, and we will also explore how their leaders might help inform our work through selection and nominating committees or as guest curators. Our first phase of support for new organizational grantees will be small project grants. Through these grants, we will

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gain a better understanding of these organizations, and identify key players who might shift to general support in the future.

We will continue to support individual artists though Moving Walls and indirectly through organizations which re-grant our funds. As part of our mapping and discovery work described above, though, we will examine needs and assess how best to support individual artists directly.

We will also set aside funds so that we can respond to emerging or time-sensitive projects at key moments in their development and implementation. Work supported by discretionary grants might include projects made in response to natural disasters or unanticipated global events such as major protests and uprisings, as well as small-scale, experimental projects that test out new ideas or approaches.

Finally, as part of our strategy for building the field, we will also consider the role that DPP can play in bridging cross-regional and cross-sector conversations and encouraging peer-to-peer learning. It is partly through this connector role that we aim to assert our leadership and influence the field.

Exhibition Program OSF-NY is one of the few spaces in New York City that exclusively features photography on social justice and human rights. We recognize, however, the limitations of a gallery that is located in a working office and open only during business hours. Our most successful exhibition to date is the current one on surveillance, with 700 visitors per month, including guests at OSF events. We want to make future investments, though, that can yield greater exposure beyond the OSF audience.

With this in mind, we plan to expand the exhibition program beyond Moving Walls and OSF-NY. We will continue to organize DPP-curated thematic exhibitions and tour them to other venues, but also invite leading curators and institutions to submit exhibition proposals for our space. In addition, we will fund exhibitions at other on- and off-line venues that enable us to engage diverse publics in fresh ways. For example, FOKAL and DPP supported a public exhibition of Paolo Woods’ project on Haitian national identity and the state, which was wheat-pasted on the walls of a public square in Port-au-Prince, seen by thousands, and prompted intense discussion during the installation and exhibition period.

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We are currently consulting with other exhibition spaces and curatorial hubs and exploring different exhibition formats and models for support. A few initial ideas that will continue to be refined include: 

Thematic Moving Walls exhibitions: Concept-driven exhibits developed in consultation with OSF programs and grantees that address a globally-relevant theme, as we did with the current Moving Walls exhibition on surveillance (e.g., urbanization and the future of the city; archives and memory). We will consider themes that emerge from compelling work we see in the field, as well as topics that are inspired by OSF programs and collaborations (e.g., shared frameworks, reserve fund). As part of the mapping we will do for our program broadly, we plan to identify partners that can serve as future venues for the exhibition tour.

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Solo/duo exhibitions (NEW): Exhibitions that recognize excellence, creativity, and commitment to using photography to activate conversations about social and political issues. Curators from global photography/art festivals or hubs will be asked to nominate artists.

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Grants for exhibitions (NEW): Project support for curators or institutions to organize their own exhibitions that use photography to prompt critical thinking and conversation. Exhibits may originate at OSF-NY, launch elsewhere and exhibit at OSF-NY later during the exhibition tour, or exist solely off-site or in a digital space.

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Curator/Artist-in-residence (NEW): Annual fellowship for a curator and/or artist to develop an exhibition that uses photography to advance social change. Fellows will be selected based on the relevance of their topic to OSF’s work and their interest in utilizing OSF’s network for research, content development, and engagement. Resulting exhibition may launch either at an OSF-affiliated venue, at another formal or alternative exhibition space, or be distributed digitally.

Each of these options requires different levels of investment, both in terms of budget and staff time. We will therefore design an exhibition program that cycles through different formats in a way that allows us to distribute our resources most efficiently.

At the end of the strategy period we hope that these efforts will broaden the range of global perspectives we feature in our space, enable us to respond to and support compelling projects initiated by others, balance our work so we are supporting exhibitions both at OSF-NY and outside the OSF context, and broaden our network of partners for thematic Moving Walls exhibitions.

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VI. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS Alongside our programming, we will develop a communications plan to deepen our reach and better understand and make use of our physical and online audiences via exhibition openings and programs, the Open Society website, Voices blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Internally, we will align our work with a larger trend at OSF. Other programs such as the Public Health Program, Human Rights Initiative, Information Program, Global Drug Policy Program, Program on Independent Journalism, FOKAL, OSIWA, and the Arts Exchange, among others, have voiced the importance of using art and/or media to broaden narratives on certain issues. This is work we’ve been doing for years and we feel we can be a resource and also learn from our colleagues, as well as identify potential areas for collaboration.

Finally, we’re continuing to develop our Advisory Board. As we contemplate some changes in the next year, we will be adding members who represent new perspectives and the global diversity we are working to reflect in our funding.

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APPENDIX – Phasing Our Work Activity

2015

2016 (Year 1)

Transition to new strategy & expanding our network

 Mapping the field and our potential network

 By mid-year: Complete mapping & assess our niche

Grantmaking

Organizations:  Renew or tie off current organizational grantees

Moving Walls

Summer:  Identify & approach global nominators for 1st solo/duo show October:  Moving Walls 23 opens at OSF-NY  Moving Walls 22 opens at Open Society Archives (Budapest)

2017 (Year 2)

2018 (Year 3)

2019 (Year 4)

 Continue building our network (ongoing)  Review & revise strategy

 Continue building our network (ongoing)  Initiate new changes to strategy

Organizations:  Develop guidelines for organizational grants  Issue 1st round of project grants for organizations

 Convene select organizational and individual grantees to share knowledge & build network Organizations: Organizations: Organizations:  Continue project grants  Continue project grants  Continue project for organizations for organizations grants and general support for  Identify which grantees  Issue 1st round of organizations should shift to general general support for support in 2018 organizations

Individuals:  Release guidelines for individual grants

Individuals:  Issue 1st round of new individual grants

Individuals:  Continue

Individuals:  Continue

Discretionary grants:  Launch program for emergent, timesensitive needs Spring:  Moving Walls 22 opens at Sammlung Fotografie (Berlin) and other venues in Europe

Discretionary grants:  Continue

Discretionary grants:  Continue

Discretionary grants:  Continue

2017  February: Moving Walls 24 thematic show opens at OSF-NY  Inaugural curator/artist-in-residence program begins

2017-19: Experiment with supporting and showing a range of exhibition formats, such as: Summer:  Thematic exhibits curated by DPP st  June: 1 solo/duo show  Thematic exhibits curated by external curators/institutions (these can opens at OSF-NY originate at OSF-NY or elsewhere)  Develop/release  Thematic exhibits resulting from curator/artist-in-residence program guidelines for  Solo/duo exhibition (artists nominated by a global network of curators) curator/artist-in Exhibitions in public/outdoor, alternative, and online spaces residence program