“Young Men of the Second Ward, El Paso’s Classic “Barrio” near the Mexican Border,” 06/1972. © Danny Lyon

After an awakening in the US during the late 1960s, the Nixon administration set up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 to clean up the nation’s air and water. The following year, the EPA began hiring freelance photographers to document the state of the environment and efforts to improve it. The project, called Documerica, was inspired by the Farm Security Administration’s photography program, for which Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and others were hired to photograph the FSA’s efforts to help poor farmers during the Great Depression.

More than 100 photographers contributed to Documerica, capturing life in America, with particular attention to social and environmental concerns: coal mining, agriculture, urban renewal, smog from factories and automobiles, waste, and other topics. The Corcoran Gallery exhibited a selection of the images in 1978, and afterwards, the project was mostly forgotten. Now, for the 35th anniversary of the project, the National Archives has “rediscovered” its trove of about 25,000 Documerica images, and mounted an exhibition and published a book called “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project.” Together the book and exhibition provide a time-capsule look back on 70s society and culture that seems surreal in some ways. The exhibition, at the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, is free and open to the public, and runs through September 8, 2013. Nearly 16,000 Documerica images are also searchable online by topic, photographer, or location. (more…)

“Man Walking, Tel Aviv, Israel,” 2011 © J Carrier

“Un-drawn,” a group exhibition presenting the work of J Carrier, Richard Mosse, Xaviera Simmons and David Taylor runs through May 17th at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. “Un-drawn” offers 4 distinct perspectives on displacement and immigration from multiple locations across the globe. Collectively, they address how invisible or contested borders are revealed through images of the landscape, it’s inhabitants and the spaces or monuments in between the two. (more…)

“Collisions” (Grid of 9). © Karine Laval, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Bonni Benrubi Gallery.

For her 4th solo exhibition at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery, Brooklyn-based French artist Karine Laval presents a selection of new photographs as well as a video installation. “Altered States” refers to physical transformations, altered states of consciousness and perception and challenges the way we see by combining the elements of photography – light, perspective, chemistry and optics.  A grid of nine photographs, pictured above, is the largest work in the exhibition, and highlights Laval’s experiments with Mylar. “Altered States” opens at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York City on Thursday, April 18th and runs through May 24th.

All Images © 2013 Ziyah Gafić

Bosnian photojournalist, Ziyah Gafić’s project, “Quest for Identity,” contains thousands of photographs of personal belongings and artifacts unearthed from mass graves in the aftermath of the Bosnian War. These items are the remains of their identity, regardless of their simplicity. Gafić’s aim is to create a searchable online database which will not only aid in the ongoing trials of war crimes, but also as a tool for visual identification of the missing 30,000 Bosnians. The accompanying book, “Quest for Identity” (de.Mo Design Limited), will be available in August 2013. PDN began following this project in 2011. Click here for more.

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Provoke No. 2., 1969  All Images © Daido Moriyama, courtesy of the Steven Kasher Gallery.

Steven Kasher Gallery is presenting an exhibition of new and classic photographs by the important Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. This is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Moriyama’s work ever mounted in an American art gallery. Daido Moriyama: Now and Now will be on view from March 28^th through May 4th, 2013. Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm.

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