Lori Grinker will discuss her project, Iraq: Scars and Exile, a photographic journey that captures the physical and emotional wounds inflicted upon a cross section of individual Iraqis and families by the ongoing war in Iraq. When the war in Iraq began in 2003, Grinker was embedded on the USNS Comfort Naval hospital ship where both wounded American soldiers and Iraqi civilians were treated for combat related injuries. At the same time she was completing her 15-year project, AFTERWAR: Veterans From A World In Conflict, published in 2005 (de-MO), with a traveling exhibition.

Both projects led her to begin documenting the plight of Iraqi refugees. While Grinker had heard about Iraqi civilians fleeing the war, she had seen little photo documentation of their plight; in 2007, with sponsorship from the Open Society Institute she was able to begin following their stories in Amman, Jordan, and then in the United States.

She will also present a 10-minute multimedia presentation (produced with MediaStorm) composed of interviews with her subjects conveying their stories to bridge the gap between their personal and private trauma, both here in the United States and abroad.

Despite a 2008 Congressional mandate intended to expedite Iraqi refugee processing times, only a small portion of eligible Iraqis have been granted a safe haven in the United States, and when they arrive they still find many obstacles from issues of health care to finding employment during these tough economic times.

SocialDocumentary.net was launched in October 2008 and today features more than 180 online documentary photography exhibits created by photographers from around the world. The goal of SocialDocumentary.net is to use the power of photography to promote global awareness. SDN members include photographers, NGOs, journalists, editors, and students who create and explore documentary websites. Recent exhibits have explored oil workers in the Niger River Delta, male sex workers in India, Central American immigrant women during their journey north, and Iraqi and Afghan refugees in Greece.

Starting in September, SocialDocumentary.net (SDN) is issuing a Call for Entries, “Crisis & Opportunity: Documenting the Global Recession” for photo essays that provide insight into how ordinary citizens around the world are coping during these new “hard times” and how individuals, companies, industries, family businesses, communities, and governments are responding to the crisis. Competition winners will receive a $1500 prize, an exhibit of their winning work at an exhibition at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, NY in February 2010, and be published in a catalog of the exhibition.

For more information:
www.lorigrinker.com
www.socialdocumentary.net

Photo ©Lori Grinker/All Rights Reserved
Caption: "Zahar," with her mother and sister