For those of you who are local, I want to share information about Ann Curry’s photography exhibition at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre. Yes, she is THAT Ann Curry of Today Show fame. Her exhibition is called “Empathy”. It is made up of a collection of photographs that she took during her travels for work and also include some very personal ones of her father just before and after his death last year. I was able to watch her introductory lecture on our local “West Palm TV” station, and I was struck, as I always am, by her gentleness and candor. All she asks from us as we look at her photographs, she says, is that we care. Between her striking subject matter (rape victims in Pakistan and the Congo, the Dali Lama,, AIDS patients in Iran) and her obvious skill behind a camera (she studied photography while she was in college) it is difficult to view the final work without feeling strong emotions. I walksd through the exhibit with Little D, almost three. She would point at a picture of a girl who had been brutally raped or a Sudanese boy that had seen his family killed by soldiers and she would ask, “Tell me that story, mama.” I had no words for her. All I could say was, “That girl is crying because she was hurt. And the boy saw something that made him very sad.” Sometimes I would point out details in a picture. “Look at those boys sitting on that dirt floor. That is their school. Does it look like your school?”
Go if you can and take someone you love with you. Thank God for the priveliges that we are blessed with in this country.
December 31st, is the last day that the public will be able to view the exhibition free of charge.
http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/arts/content/arts/2009/11/27/curry1129.html
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