Here is a partial archive of the wonderful exhibitions that we’ve hosted at FiftyCrows Gallery over the past few years.

Women of Clay
By photographer Marcela Taboada, Mexico

Currently showing at the San Francisco International Airport Museums
September 1, 2005 through December 15th, 2005

This is a beautiful essay which examines the faith and lives of the women from a small Indian village in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico. It belongs to the Mixteca Baja, and hides high up in the mountains of the Sierra Madre where the drinking water does not last any longer than four months a year. The soil is dry, hard and bare; there are neither beans nor cornfields in sight: water must be carried from many miles in order to drink, eat, wash and make those indestructible clay bricks from which they build their homes.

In order to support themselves and the rest of the family, they sew footballs and receive seven pesos apiece for this work: they can make two balls per day if they sew from sunrise to sunset. Old people also make palm hats and are paid two and a half pesos for each. They have to make four hats to buy a litter of milk. Yet, these very same hands never stopped creating the finest dresses for their daughters or ironing a man’s shirt, never forgot how to give a caress to a young child or console a grief. They have always found the time to put flowers in the church: these women believe in Mother Earth because it is inside their fingernails.

This exhibition is available to rent from FiftyCrows. Inquire by calling FiftyCrows at 415-391-6300.

The All Roads Indigenous Photographer Awards
Photographs by Fanie Jason, Ahikam Seri and Tenzin Dorjee

Opening October 22 in Los Angeles
Opening October 28th in Washington D.C.

This exhibition is a selection of exciting works by indigenous and under-represented minority-culture storytellers from around the world will be showcased at the first National Geographic All Roads Film Festival, a multimedia event with cutting-edge film, videos, photography, live music and crafts from cultures around the globe. It will be held at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles Oct. 22-24 and at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28-30.

FiftyCrows has partnered with National Geographic for the documentary photographic essays portion of the Festival. In keeping with the spirit of supporting indigenous storytellers, three past award winners of the FiftyCrows International Fund for Documentary Photography were selected. Fanie Jason from South Africa, Ahikam Seri from Israel and Tenzin Dorjee from India’s exiled Tibetan community will have exhibitions at both the Los Angeles and Washington D.C. venues. All three photographers will be attending both events and will receive a grant to further their important work documenting their own culture.

Aging in America
By photographer Ed Kashi, US

See Ed Kashi’s entire essay on Aging at MSNBC.com
See Ed’s other essays at EdKashi.com

In November 2003, FiftyCrows Gallery proudly presented AGING IN AMERICA, an in-depth documentation of the critical issues facing our elders and their caregivers. The result of eight years of field work by photographer Ed Kashi and writer/ filmmaker Julie Winokur, this highly charged body of work confronts our existing attitudes about growing old and asks whether society is prepared to handle an aging population. It is truly one of the best and most important photo essays of our time.

Ed and Julie's award-winning book is a must have and can be purchased here

Julie and Ed have also created an hour-long film called Aging in America: The Years Ahead. This film traverses the experience of our elders from the wellderly to the elderly, as told through a series of intimate vignettes of people who are living the new old age. Through their stories, we laugh and cry as they celebrate their freedom, apply their wisdom and suffer the consequences of their bodies' limitations. They traveled across the country, collecting scores of personal histories that when taken collectively challenge the culture of aging in America. You can read all about the film and purchase a copy at Talking Eyes Media.

Evidence
By the 2003 Winners of the FiftyCrows Photo Fund competition

This exhibit is of the six award-winning essays from the 2003 International Fund for Documentary Photography. The exhibition explores the language of documentary work that challenges and questions contemporary issues and choices from around the world. The title wall to the exhibition read:

FiftyCrows invites you to come explore. On these walls hang windows that, once traveled, become narrative portals. You will enter and emerge from them in unexpected, personal ways. Think: What did you know when you walked through the door? How did you know? How far could you see? Experience these photographs; they deliver us evidence through our own eyes.

Real life, real reactions, real change.
This is documentary photography.

The Spirit of Tibet
By photographer Alison Wright, US

The Spirit of Tibet is a visually stunning exhibition of fifty-four color photographs. Documenting the Tibetan life in exile throughout India and Nepal, the show captures the spirit of the Tibetan people as they work to preserve their unique culture and identity in exile. Since 1959, over 100,000 Tibetans have escaped Chinese occupied Tibet and have continued to bring attention to Tibet's nonviolent struggle for freedom.

Recalling the Vote
By photographer Dan Budnik, US

Recalling the Vote is a collection of over 60 photographs documenting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The march captured the nation’s attention, enabling President Lyndon Johnson to get the Voting Rights Act through Congress and signed into law within four months. This exhibition includes two educational panels: the timeline of the Civil Rights Movement and the Selma march, and an overview of the controversial 2000 election and voting technology. Created by Lillian Sizemore, with researcher Naomi Brookner, the 7 ft x 4 ft banners add to a better understanding of the struggle for voting rights as depicted in Budnik’s photographs.

RFK Funeral Train
By photographer Paul Fusco, US

A uniquely profound record of one of the defining events of the twentieth-century, these emotional color photographs, many never seen before, remember the tragedy and trauma of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. In tribute to RFK's raw empathy, his determination to make our lives better, and his insistence that the government is answerable to all–black and white, rich and poor–hundreds of people stood patiently in the searing heat to watch his funeral train travel slowly from New York to Washington, D.C., just as Abraham Lincoln's had, 103 years before.

Paul’s amazing book is available at FiftyCrows’ strategic partner Photo Eye.

Defining Moments
By various award-winning photographers

Curated by design director Rhonda Rubinstein with Melissa Angio, this exhibition offers the photograph as the quintessential moment in both personal and collective history. From Charles Moore's Birmingham image that changed the way America saw civil rights to Andreas Feininger's image of a New York experience long lost, this exhibition includes significant images from our permanent archive and Fine Print Program by more than 40 of the most important documentary photographers. Says Rubinstein, "The moment may be gone but the photograph defiantly remains, transcending that particular juncture in time."

Youth Enduring
By various award-winning photographers

The images in this exhibition are winning essays selected from the International Fund for Documentary Photography Archive. FiftyCrows invited student interns Theo Rigby and Erin Ashford to create this exhibition as a tribute to young people from around the world. These stories reveal a world of broken dreams and lost adolescence. With limited or no education, children ravaged by the evils of humanity, find a will to survive. The exhibition includes a “question graffiti wall” were participants can respond to challenging questions by writing their observations directly on the wall, thereby creating an ongoing and growing document of emotion and ideas.