Wendy Ewald: Towards A Promised Land

by Wendy Ewald (Photographer), Louise Neri (Editor)

For more than 30 years, Wendy Ewald has put cameras in the hands of children all over the world and helped them record their dreams and realities in images and words. Towards a Promised Land documents her work with 22 children new to the British seaside town of Margate. Some arrived fleeing countries afflicted by war, poverty or political strife, others by following their families from one town to the next. Over 18 months, Ewald photographed her subject-artists and interviewed them about their past and present lives, while teaching them how to make their own photographs. The resulting case studies capture the children at critical turning points in their lives. (Ewald's photographic portraits of the children have appeared as huge, iconic banners around Margate; the children's own projects formed an exhibition at a local gallery.) Through these displaced human beings, Towards a Promised Land touches some of the most salient issues confronting contemporary society. This "book of fragments" brings together Ewald's and the children's work with a host of interviews, writings and commentaries on the contemporary search for a sense of place in a world of constant and turbulent change.

Genres: Photography

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2006

About the author

Wendy Ewald (born in 1951) is an American photographer and educator.

Wendy Ewald was born in Detroit, Michigan, graduated from Abbot Academy in 1969 and attended Antioch College between 1969–74, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied photography with Minor White. She embarked on a career teaching photography to children and young people internationally. In 1969 & 1970, she taught photography to Innu and Mi'kmaq Native-American children in Canada. Between 1976–80 she taught photography and film-making to students in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in association with Appalshop, a media co-op. In 1982, she traveled to Ráquira, Colombia, on a Fulbright fellowship working with children and community groups; spending a further two years in Gujarat, India. Ewald is married to Tom McDonough, a writer and cinematographer. They live in the Hudson Valley of New York with their son, Michael.

(from Wikipedia)