May 6, 2021
7 PM EST
After covering countries across the globe, places where the U.S. exports the idea of democracy, Andrea Bruce began to consider democracy in her home country. Bruce perceives a disconnect between US citizens, the government and how people use this often-misunderstood word. Our Democracy is a long-term ethnographic study of democracy in the United States, providing an intimate window into how the country’s citizens see democracy and the role of government in their lives.
Andrea’s work focuses on people living in the aftermath of war. She concentrates on the social issues that are sometimes ignored and often ignited in war’s wake. For almost 15 years she chronicled the world’s most troubled areas, focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2016, she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University where she studied political theory and democracy and held the first “Democracy Dinner” to gain ideas and guidance for this project. For eight years she worked as a staff photographer for The Washington Post, where she originated and authored a weekly column called “Unseen Iraq.” She also worked at The Concord Monitor and The St. Petersburg Times after graduating from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. She is now a member/ owner of the photo agency NOOR. Awards include the 2018 IWMF Anja Niedringhaus award, a 2014 World Press Photo award and the inaugural Chris Hondros Fund Award in 2012 for the “commitment, willingness and sacrifice shown in her work.” She was named Photographer of the Year four times by the WHNPA, received several awards from the Pictures of the Year International contest, including the 2017 Environmental Vision Award for work in National Geographic Magazine, and was awarded the prestigious John Faber Award from the Overseas Press Club in New York. In 2018 she was a CatchLight Fellow for the Our Democracy project and a 2018 National Geographic Explorer.
Support for Thursday Night Photo Talks is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Artist fees for the Thursday Night Photo Talks have been underwritten by The Lillian F. and Jerome L. Sindler Fund for Visual Media.
