Worker Photography Project

This was an innovative joint project of the UMassD Labor Education Center and the Zeiterian Theater of New Bedford.  Spearheaded by UMassD Labor Education Center,  labor union participants created this labor art initiative.  We learned about the skills of photography by taking pictures of our lives and reflecting the dignity of work.  Peter Pereira of the New Bedford Standard-Times was the facilitator of the group and we presented multiple showings of our work. 

This project grew out of the America Project series of discussions led by the Zeiterian Theater.  We are grateful to the former director of the Zeiterian, Katherine Knowles, for her inspiration and generous support to create this project.

Photojournalist guides labor project By Alexis Hauk

A hand that hovers above a field of ice, ready to plunge in; a slight smile plays on a fishworker's face amid mounds of fillets; a cat lies frozen, seemingly mummified before an operation. These kinds of photographic moments, part of a new exhibit at the Zeiterion, demonstrate what Henri Cartier-Bresson described as "the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression."