Human Rights Watch will present a photography exhibition, “Unreported Stories,” with the award-winning photographer Brent Stirton of Reportage by Getty Images. The exhibition will be from June 14 to 28, 2012, at Lincoln Center during the annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Stirton joined forces with Human Rights Watch to uncover two hidden human rights stories. One showed the impact of a gold mine on the local population in Papua New Guinea’s remote highlands. The other explored the lack of justice for abuses committed during a little-known conflict between a local militia and state security forces in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon region. The joint effort on the Porgera gold mine, published in an online multimedia report, “Gold’s Costly Dividend,”won a Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media in April 2012.
“Stirton’s arresting images gave Human Rights Watch the extraordinary opportunity to show the human faces behind our reports of abuse,” said Veronica Matushaj, director of photography and video at Human Rights Watch. “His powerful and unique approach to visual journalism is transforming how we broadcast human rights stories that often go unreported by the media.”
Stirton was also recognized in 2012 with two World Press Photo Awards. “Rhino Wars,” his long-term investigation for National Geographic, shows the complex links of the illegal trade in rhinoceros horn, tying the rising demand from Asian countries with burgeoning economies to the poaching and killing of a species threatened with extinction in Africa. His work on HIV/AIDS in the Ukraine drew renewed attention to an increasingly neglected crisis.
Stirton’s career history as an investigative photographer, committed to in-depth work on critical issues related to the environment, natural resources, conflict, and health, has made him an exceptional partner for Human Rights Watch. The collaboration has opened a new way to communicate the relationship between global issues and human rights with immediacy and power, Human Rights Watch said.
The exhibit will be in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery in the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, plaza level, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues.
