Photography as Advocacy
THE CENTER FOR
VISUAL ARTS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
50
Bill Ravanesi's work for of The Center for Visual Arts in the Public Interest represents 50 years of capturing the largely unseen stories of human suffering, triumphs, and lives lived in marginalized places/circumstances.
Included are selected still images from The Center's Projects including: Breath Taken: The Landscape and Biography of Asbestos documentary exposing the profound human tragedy of asbestos poisoning; Bay Village/Carved out of Darkness, capturing Boston's Bay Village transgender underworld in 1972; Hidden Holyoke: A Cityscape and Its People, revealing the unseen streets of Holyoke, MA where drugs, gangs, and urban renewal fought for attention; The Manongs of California, the largely untold story of the Filipino farm workers stranded in America; and Bhopal's Toxic Cloud, documenting the longterm effects years after the infamous chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. These images advocate against injustice and indifference, but also capture the indomitable human spirit in the faces that look back at us.
01 PROJECTS
Click Image to View Project
02 TALKING PHOTOGRAPHY
A series of television interviews with documentary and art photographers hosted and produced by Bill Ravanesi and the Center for Visual Arts in the Public Interest, in partnership with the Boston Neighborhood Network Media.
Director of the Dukakis Center at Northeastern
Dr. Ted Landsmark
Dr. Theodore Landsmark is the subject of the Pulitzer Prize photograph featured in Louis P, Masur's 2024 book The Soiling of Old Glory, Second Edition, taken by Boston Herald American photographer, Stanley Forman, depicting a brutal attack during an anti-busing rally in Boston City Hall Plaza on April 5, 1976. The photograph went viral globally and became part of the American narrative and catalyst for social change.
Curator of Photography at the Boston Public Library
Aaron Schmidt
Aaron Schmidt, Curator of Photography, Arts Department in Special Collections at the Boston Public Library, speaks with host Bill Ravanesi discussing the library's vast collection of photographs, containing over a million prints. We take a look at several collections including the Leslie Jones Collection, the Brearley Collection, the Curators Selections and the American West Collection.​
Boston-based Documentary Photographer
Lisa Kessler
Documentary photographer Lisa Kessler is the author of Heart in the Wound, a new publication about her first-hand documentation of the shape of publicity that the survivors and lay people have brought to the Catholic Church’s sexual assault scandals through their voices, demonstrations, survivors’ networks, and court cases since the revelation of the crimes in 2002.
Associate Professor of the Practice, Studio Art
Karl Baden
Karl Baden's photographs have been widely exhibited, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Howard Yezerski Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art, DeCordova Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has taught at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design, Clark University, and Phillips Academy at Andover; and recently retired from Boston College where he taught since 1989.
Founder of the Center of Visual in the Public Interest
Bill Ravanesi
Bill Ravanesi discusses three of his photographic documentaries. First, Bay Village, Carved Out of Darkness: Transgender & Drag Queens, Boston 1970s. The second documentary, The Manongs of California, 1973-77, the last outpost of a vanishing breed of Filipino agricultural migrant field workers. The third documentary, 1980-83, The Hidden Holyoke: A Cityscape And Its People, focused on three Puerto Rican neighborhoods, The Flats ,South Holyoke, and Churchill.