Ken Light I American Stories: 1969-1995

Ken Light American Stories: 1969-1995

On View: October 10 – November 17, 2024 

Bronx Documentary Center
614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451

My generation had a dream, and it’s possible that our dream was a naïve one. Many of us believed you could live your life and contribute to your world using just two basic precepts: love and peace. We believed we were the generation that would do away with war and do away with greed. We were convinced that in their place we’d create a society based on  compassion, camaraderie and political liberation. Ever since I first picked up a camera as a young 19-year-old kid, my goal has been to shine a light on  the social justice issues that needed to be addressed and on the people who needed to have a voice in our country. My camera became my means of protest and social engagement. 

Exhibition curated by Mike Kamber and Cynthia Rivera

The exhibition is made possible by Open Society Foundations.

At the beginning, in 1969, I worked as a photographer for the underground press, and my photographs appeared in such newspapers as The Great Speckled Bird, L.A. Free Press, The New York Rat, and The Chicago Seed. They also appeared in books, as well as in hundreds of leaflets and posters, many of which were seen pasted onto walls or lampposts, or handed out by folks organizing a demonstration or a political action. 

After the activism and the demonstrations of the 60’s ebbed I continued to make photographs as a freelancer and documentary photographer. I had begun to see the America that had been hidden from our view; I had also begun to have a voice, and I wasn’t about to let that go. I worked in communities like those in the Mississippi Delta, photographing in the darkness of the night along the border, entering factories where workers built the machines that drove our economy and taking pictures in the fields where children picked fruits and vegetables with their families. I hitchhiked and traveled across the U.S. with my camera bag and Tri-x film, shooting as I went and finding stories that I felt were important to witness and share. Photography became a powerful tool for me to witness our country and to share the images and voices of those who are often invisible.

The photographs in this exhibition represent social documentary narratives from the first twenty-five years of my photographic journey. Take a look: these photographs show an America divided and an America that was, at times, unjust; but they also show an America with possibilities and promises, as well as people and communities with hopes and dreams. This is my rough draft of the history of those years, as I stood witness, with my camera and my vision, to both the darkness and the light.

— Ken Light