Portraits 4 People: Reception & Community Discussion

About Portraits 4 People

The history of photography is filled with examples of western photographers using the people of foreign nations as their subjects,   from colonial soldiers and explorers to today’s tourists.  Photographers bring home images of the exotic, the disturbing, the primitive, to western audiences eager to be entertained or moved - even shocked.

Portraits for People, was designed to contrast colonial-era imagery and attitudes, to question how we use photography away from home.  The work involves a series of experiential photography events, followed by exhibitions, designed to challenge assumptions about photography, self-image, portraiture, cultural awareness and western aesthetics.  The work encourages participants and audiences to think about how imagery is tied to cultural sensitivity and/or control, societal expectations and racism.

About the Artist

Margaret L. Frank is an American artist, based outside Chicago.  She uses photography, not simply as a means to produce an image, but as an interaction between photographer and subject: photography as conversation.  Frank created Portraits for People as part of a 2010 Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.