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Moving Walls

PROVACATIVE ‘MOVING WALLS’ PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT COMES TO BALTIMORE from MAY 4-29, 2004

Photographs Explore Issues Ranging from Views Faced by Individuals Living Through Wars, a Glimpse into Muslim Life in America, and an Exploration into Teen Culture and Identity

***Note to Editors: OSI-Baltimore, MAP, and WYPR are sponsoring a free educational forum to discuss issues evoked by the exhibit on Wednesday, May 5th from 3 pm to 5 pm at Maryland Art Place, 8 Market Place, Suite 100, Baltimore, MD.  Please call Dawn Williams at (410) 234-1091 x 206 to register for the event.***

BALTIMORE —Maryland Art Place will host Moving Walls 2004, a traveling photography exhibit sponsored by the Open Society Institute (OSI), from May 4th to May 29th, 2004. The exhibition highlights the work of two photographers: Edward Grazda, who examines the dynamic impact of Muslim communities living in the New York borough of Queens; and Lori Grinker, who explores post-war experiences recalled by the men, women, and children who have suffered and survived the plight of wars across the world, often with damaged bodies and scarred lives. In addition, young Baltimore photographers from The Youthlight Identity Project worked with OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, Marshall Clarke, in a specially-commissioned project to create the works for “Invoking Identity: Dreaming With Eyes Open.” This group of teens from diverse communities spent several months learning photography while also exploring methods of bridging communities through photography.

The Youthlight Identity Project exhibit is premiering at Maryland Art Place, while the exhibition of work by Grazda and Grinker (first shown in New York and subsequently in Washington DC,) documents and portrays social struggles—from Ethiopia to New York City. Their compelling work reflects OSI's commitment to human rights and justice around the world.

Documentary photography is not purely aesthetic expression, but is also narrative and evocative of deep emotions, forcing one to look closer and consider unfamiliar concepts and realities. At its best, documentary work is profound and gripping, and offers the power to effect political and personal change. To this end, Moving Walls serves as a conversation piece on open societies and the work that lies ahead, challenging us to react to irregular political and social moods, to think outside the box and find answers to the contradictions that we see.

As part of the Moving Walls exhibition, a free Educational Forum has been scheduled for May 5 from 3-5pm, in which civil liberties professionals and photographers from New York and Baltimore will take part in a discussion at Maryland Art Place about issues evoked by the photographs.

The Educational Forum is part of Forging Open Society: Generating Ideas, Partnerships and Solutions, a series of forums convened by OSI-Baltimore to encourage community leaders with diverse perspectives to craft solutions to challenges facing the Baltimore region. The Forum panel will be moderated by Marc Steiner, WYPR Executive Vice President and host of the Marc Steiner Show. Panelists include:

• Leon Faruq, an Open Society Institute—Baltimore, 2003 Community Fellow. Faruq has worked as a consultant and counselor for ex-prisoner populations and has partnered with community-based service providers to assist ex-prisoners to navigate a successful re-entry into the community. He has also worked to encourage service providers to employ cognitive development approaches to offset the effects of incarceration and negative lifestyles.

• Susan Goering, Executive Director, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Maryland, who has longstanding experience representing and supervising numerous civil liberties cases. Goering is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law, 1980. Previous employment includes work as a civil rights attorney in Kansas City, Missouri and as a plaintiffs' attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• Edward Grazda: a photographer who has published a book of his work, New York Masjid: The Mosques of New York. For over two decades, Grazda has explored Afghani and Pakistani communities. Most recently, he has focused closer to home, documenting a dynamic community of Muslims in the New York City area. Focusing on indigenous Muslims as well as converts, a long-standing African American community, and a growing Latino Muslim community, Grazda’s work exposes a feeling that this strong, integral part of the city’s population is strengthening the community with a kind of quiet, unassuming energy.

• Lori Grinker: a photographer who recently published the book, After War: Veterans from A World in Conflict. Since 1989, Grinker has photographed and interviewed veterans who served on the frontlines in conflicts ranging from World War I to Kosovo—men, women, and children who walked the fields and survived, often with damaged bodies and lives. Grinker has traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia to interview ex-combatants from different sides of the region's conflicts. Grinker spent a decade traveling from Eritrea to El Salvador and from Pakistan to Russia, seeking veterans' personal stories, to capture images of their wartime experiences well after the wars had ended.

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The Open Society Institute is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open society around the world. OSI’s U.S. Programs seek to strengthen democracy in the United States by addressing barriers to opportunity and justice, broadening public discussion about such barriers, and assisting marginalized groups to participate equally in civil society and to make their voices heard.  U.S. Programs challenge over-reliance on the market by advocating appropriate government responsibility for human needs and promoting public interest and service values in law, medicine, and the media. OSI's U.S. Programs support initiatives in a range of areas, including access to justice for low and moderate income people; independence of the judiciary; ending the death penalty; reducing gun violence and over-reliance on incarceration; drug policy reform; inner-city education and youth programs; fair treatment of immigrants; reproductive health and choice; campaign finance reform; and improved care of the dying. OSI is part of the network of foundations, created and funded by George Soros, active in more than 50 countries around the world.

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Maryland Art Place (MAP) is a center for contemporary art established in 1981 to develop and maintain a dynamic environment for artists to exhibit their work, nurture and promote new ideas and new forms, and facilitate rewarding exchanges between artists and the public through educational leadership.