"Everyday Africa began with a photograph of a man in an elevator. But it was born of images much older than that." So begins a chapter by Austin Merrill and Peter DiCampo in their recently released book, "Everyday Africa: 30 Photographers Re-Picturing a Continent."
Join the Pulitzer Center on Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7 p.m. for a Talks @ Pulitzer Center when Merrill and DiCampo discuss the genesis of what has become a worldwide photographic phenomena and led to Pulitzer Center-supported "Everyday DC" educational work in Washington, DC inspired by the Everyday Africa project.
They also will share excerpts from their new book and discuss the process of bringing this viral social media project to life as a printed body of work–the 440-page book features 267 photographs by 30 photographers, along with four written essays. Books will be available for purchase, and Merrill and DiCampo will be on hand to sign copies.
Everyday Africa, a collection of images shot on mobile phones across the continent, is an attempt to redirect focus toward a more accurate understanding of what the majority of Africans experience on a day-to-day basis: normal life. The project is a response to the common media portrayal of the African continent as a place consumed by war, poverty, and disease.
The Pulitzer Center and the Everyday Africa team are working hard to explore the project's tremendous education potential in the District of Columbia. What began in 2014 as a series of four "Everyday Africa-Everyday D.C." photography workshops with fifth and sixth-graders from the Inspired Teaching Demonstration Public Charter School in northeast D.C. ultimately led in the 2016-2017 school year to a multi-week photojournalism unit designed by the visual arts department at DC Public Schools (DCPS), DCPS visual arts educators and the Pulitzer Center. This project is now funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The culminating project for 2017: "Everyday DC," a month-long photography exhibition at the Southwest Arts Club that grew out of the classroom workshops, journalist visits and students' explorations of their communities. The exhibition showed the everyday experiences of city youth by visualizing daily life in Washington, D.C., through the eyes of over 100 sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students from eight DC public middle schools that represent all four quadrants of the city.
Learn more:
This academic year, we are expanding the Everyday DC unit to include high schools as well as more middle schools in Washington, DC. Learn more about how to support the Everyday DC program.