Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment will open at Carnegie Museum of Natural History on September 24, 2016. Highlighting the influential photography of 11 award-winning female photojournalists, the traveling exhibition is sponsored by The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) and will be in Pittsburgh until January 8, 2017. Women of Vision features nearly 100 photographs, including moving depictions of far-flung cultures, compelling illustrations of conceptual topics such as memory and teenage brain chemistry, and poignant images of social issues like child marriage and 21st-century slavery. In addition to the photographs, visitors will have an opportunity to learn how National Geographic magazine picture editors work closely with the photographers to select images and tell a story. Video vignettes will present first-person accounts that reveal the photographers’ individual styles, passions, and approaches to their craft.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History will host a free panel discussion with photographers featured in the exhibition on September 22 at 6 p.m. at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall. Registration is required. Members of the public can register for the event online.
“For the last decade, some of our most powerful stories have been produced by a new generation of photojournalists who are women. These women are as different as the places and the subjects they have covered, but they all share the same passion and commitment to storytelling that has come to define National Geographic,” said Kathryn Keane, vice president of National Geographic Exhibitions. “The exhibition reaffirms the Society’s position as a respected leader in the field of photography.”
“Women of Vision is an incredibly inspiring exhibition that captures a wide range of emotions, experiences, and cultures,” said Scott Cunningham, regional managing director of PNC Wealth Management. “It celebrates the courage, talent, and commitment of these 11 photojournalists, who recognize and demonstrate the importance and power of art to educate, create awareness, and drive change.”
The exhibition underscores National Geographic’s history of documenting the world through photography and its ongoing commitment to supporting photographers as important and innovative storytellers who can make a difference with their work.
“Women of Vision” was curated by then-National Geographic Senior Photo Editor Elizabeth Krist, who had the challenging task of choosing a selection of images to best represent the broad portfolios of the 11 extraordinary photographers:
- Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Lynsey Addario is widely admired for her conflict coverage in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, and the Congo. Featured assignment work includes images that document human rights issues, particularly the plight of women and families in conflict zones.
- Kitra Cahana explores important social, anthropological, and spiritual themes. Born in Miami, but raised in Canada and Sweden, Kitra earned her BA in Philosophy from McGill University and her MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from the Freie Universitat in Berlin. She has won a first prize from World Press Photo, a TED Fellowship, and the ICP Infinity Award. Her work includes images taken on assignment for NGM’s important feature on the teenage brain and culture in the United States.
- Jodi Cobb has worked in over 65 countries and produced 30 NGM stories, including “21st -Century Slaves,” which was among the most popular stories in the magazine’s history. Cobb was the only photographer to penetrate the geisha world, which resulted in her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, “Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art.” She was also the first photographer to document the hidden lives of the women of Saudi Arabia and among the first to travel across China when it reopened to the West. She has received numerous accolades, including repeated honors from the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year, and World Press Photo, as well as receiving the 2012 Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. Cobb was also the first woman to be named White House Photographer of the Year.
- Diane Cook is a leading landscape photographer whose work is in numerous collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, and the L.A. County Museum in Los Angeles. Cook often works collaboratively with her husband Len Jenshel. Their NGM stories have covered New York’s elevated park the High Line, Mount St. Helens, Green Roofs, the Na’Pali Coast of Hawaii, the US-Mexico border, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
- Carolyn Drake is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Lange Taylor Documentary Prize, a World Press Photo award, and was a finalist for the Santa Fe Prize. She has spent years documenting the cultures of Central Asia and life in western China’s Uygur region.
- A Knight Fellow and passionate advocate for visual arts education, Lynn Johnson has covered a wide range of assignments for NGM, producing images for 21 stories on subjects including vanishing languages and challenges facing human populations in Africa and Asia. Johnson has also participated in photo camps in Chad, Botswana, and at the Pine Ridge reservation. She has received several awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Coverage of the Disadvantaged.
- Beverly Joubert is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, filmmaker, photographer, and co-founder of the Big Cat Initiative. Together with her husband, Dereck Joubert, they have been documenting the plight of African wildlife for over 30 years. Her images have appeared in more than 100 magazines worldwide (including NGM), and the Jouberts have co-authored several books and scientific papers. The Jouberts have produced over 25 television documentaries and a feature film, “The Last Lions” (2011), which has reached over 350 million people worldwide. These films have received many awards from around the globe including seven Emmys, a Peabody, Panda Awards, and conservation accolades including the World Ecology Award, an induction into the American Academy of Achievement, and the Presidential Order of Meritorious for their conservation work in Botswana. In 2011 ’60 Minutes’ (CBS) did a profile on their lives, documenting their film and conservation work in Africa.
- Erika Larsen studies cultures with strong ties to nature. She published a 2009 story in NGM on the Sami reindeer herders of Scandinavia, an assignment which grew out of her own documentary work for which she lived and worked within the culture for over four years. Larsen received a BFA and MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowship. Erika’s photography has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and the Sami Ájtte Museum in Sweden.
- Stephanie Sinclair’s decade-long project on child marriage has earned global recognition, including three World Press Photo awards and prestigious exhibitions on Capitol Hill, at the United Nations, and at the Whitney Biennial in New York. Scenes from Yemen and from polygamist families in the Fundamentalist Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will also be displayed.
- A celebrated figure in the photographic community, Maggie Steber has worked in over 62 countries and her images have earned several prestigious honors, including the Leica Medal of Excellence and World Press Photo awards. NGM has published her essays on Miami, the African slave trade, the Cherokee Nation, sleep, soldiers’ letters, Dubai, and a story on the science of memory that featured a touching sidebar on Steber’s mother Madje and her struggle with dementia.
- Amy Toensing began her prolific career covering the White House and Congress for the New York Times. She has created portraits of unforgettable people around the world while shooting NGM stories in Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, the Jersey Shore, and Tonga. For the three years, she documented Aboriginal Australia for a story that was published in the June 2013 issue of NGM. Toensing is also committed to teaching photography to kids in underserved communities. She has worked with Somali and Sudanese refugees in Maine and Burmese refugees in Baltimore and recently traveled to Islamabad to teach young Pakistanis.
Women of Vision is organized and traveled by the National Geographic Society. PNC Financial Services is the Presenting National Tour Sponsor for Women of Vision. Major local support has been provided by Highmark with additional support by Point Park University.
Full details on the exhibition, including photo galleries and links to related National Geographic magazine content, are available at wovexhibition.org
About the National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society is a global nonprofit membership organization driven by a passionate belief in the power of science, exploration, and storytelling to change the world. It funds hundreds of research and conservation projects around the globe each year. With the support of our members and donors, it works to inspire, illuminate, and teach through scientific expeditions, award-winning journalism, education initiatives, and more. For more information, visit www.nationalgeographic.com
About PNC
This exhibition is supported by PNC and The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking; residential mortgage banking; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management; and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com.
