Unseen America: Photos & Stories by Workers, Immigrants & Refugees

May 30, 2007                                                                                             518.272.3500 x107 office

518.269.2233 cell

Photos & Stories by Workers, Immigrants & Refugees

New and unexpected exhibition to open in June at the NYS Museum

Opening reception Thursday June 14, 2007 6-8 PM

(Albany, NY) – The Workforce Development Institute (WDI) & NYS AFL-CIO announce the opening reception for a new show at the State Museum: “unseenamerica New York State, Pictures of Working Lives Taken by Working Hands.”, developed in partnership with Bread and Roses, Cultural Arm of 1199SEIU.

For three years, WDI has offered free instruction, cameras, film, developing and regional exhibits to working families in 20 towns and cities across New York. The NYS Museum found this work important enough to host a major exhibition from June 2 – October 21, 2007 at the State Museum. The exhibit will then travel back across the state.

A reception for the exhibit will take place at the NYS Museum, in Albany, Thursday, June 14^th, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. The reception is free and open to the public.

“They sew our clothes, clean our offices, open our doors, bag our groceries, and wash our dishes when we dine out,” says Esther Cohen, Executive Director of the Bread & Roses Cultural Project of 1199SEIU and founder of the unseenamerica project. They’re first, second or third generation Americans who have worked as truck drivers, health care assistants, janitors, and food service workers. We depend on them for so much that we take for granted, but we rarely see their world. Thanks to WDI and the New York State Museum, we can see their lives in these photos.”

In 2004, WDI in partnership with the NYS AFL-CIO began the unseenamerica NYS program in Albany. It has now successfully completed over 20 projects and 50 exhibits in communities from Long Island to Buffalo, with new classes planned around the state.

“I fell in love with the unseenamerica program the first time I met Esther Cohen,” recalls WDI’s unseenamerica New York State program director Zoeann Murphy. “She handed me photographs taken by Chinese garment workers, Lakota Native Americans, former prisoners chronicling their first 12 weeks of freedom, and Afghan women living in Queens. I immediately wanted to be a part of unseenamerica and to bring the project to upstate New York, to the working class America where I was raised.”

“We begin each unseenamerica NYS project by building partnerships with unions and community organizations,” Murphy explains. “With the help of these local groups we reach out to potential participants. Workers hear about the photography project and sign up. In each site we hold free 12-week workshops. Participants gain hands-on photography instruction about lighting, perspective, and composition while engaging in conversations about what it means to see and be seen. Each week I ask a question: What does your community look like? Who are your loved ones? Where do you work? What do you see everyday?  Participants answer these questions with their photographs.”

Exhibits have been hung in galleries, libraries, churches, union halls, city halls, schools, street fairs and many other venues. Those that come to unseenamerica NYS shows see a compelling portrait of life in New York State through the eyes of construction and healthcare workers, public employees, janitors, tractor trailer drivers, security guards, lesbian and gay workers, recent immigrants, refugees, and scores of others. The photos that will hang in the State Museum have been selected from these exhibits.

WDI is proud of our partners and proud to sponsor this new exhibit at the State Museum. We have all been touched by what we have seen in these photos and what we have learned about the lives of working New Yorkers. We invite you to join us as we celebrate this great achievement and share these wonderful stories.

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