Occupy the World: A Photographic Journey

Driven by the failure of the Obama Administration to address the causes and prosecute the perpetrators of the great Crash of 2008, and inspired by the liberation movements that swept the Arab world the previous winter and spring, the Occupy Wall Street and its sister and daughter movements of Occupation around the country and around the world succeeded at shifting the political debate in the US and other Western democracies, to spotlight the grotesque extremes of wealth amassed by those who have been pushing our countries to the right for the past 40 years. Noteworthy, also was the massive uprising in Israel during the summer, which revealed deep economic fissures in Israeli social structure similar to those in the US and Europe, and apart from any overt connection to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians or to the religious-secular antagonisms which perturb Israeli society. Joel Simpson’s annual panel on political photography this year celebrates the successes of the Occupy Movement in shifting and opening the national political conversation. The panel will feature images from Occupy Wall Street, Occupy La Défense (Paris), Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Boston, and the Israeli uprising last summer, with narration by the photographers.