Wendy Ewald – Collaborative Projects with Children 1969–1999

Wendy Ewald, an American, has been working with children throughout the world for the last 30 years – in the USA, in Canada, Columbia, Mexico, South Africa, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Holland and India. She teaches her students the basics of photography and provides them with cameras so that they can capture their own world, their surroundings, their friends, their dreams, fears and fantasies in images; that is, they learn to visualize their own images, to find their own voice. She, for her part, portrays these children, writes texts with them, asks them questions, and puts together the results in exhibitions and books.

The intensive, project-related work and the considerable freedom the children are granted to explore their own realm of images lead to surprising photographs of professional quality. More significant, however, is that arising out of this project – educational, socialising as well as artistic – is an exceptional, multi-cultural body of work presenting the widest range of individual and cultural imagery.

The exhibition was curated by Urs Stahel and Adam Weinberg. A cooperation with the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, the Stills Gallery, London, and the Museet for Fotokunst, Odense.

Main sponsors: SAM Sustainability Group, Volkart Foundation