Donna DeCesare
Photo by Eli Reed
Associate Professor
Contact Information:
CMA A5.150E
512-471-1980
donna.decesare@austin.utexas.edu
Upcoming Exhibitions, Publications and Events:
In September 2009 Donna DeCesare will publish her story about a former gang member—Carlos Perez from Guatemala-- who is graduating from The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria in the Indelible Image section of SMITHSONIAN magazine.
DeCesare will spend the months of July and August in El Salvador completing research for her website and her book Destiny’s Children with the generous support of a Mellon Faculty Summer Research grant from the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Current Exhibitions and Events:
Hijos del Destino [Destiny’s Children]: Youth Violence in the Americas, Guangdong Museum of Contemporary Art, Guangzhou China Opening May 19, 2009-July 20, 2009
"Sharing Secrets" is currently on exhibition at the offices of the Public Health Program of the Open Society Institute in NY through August 2009. (Fuller description of this travelling exhibition below )
Donna DeCesare is the Curator for Dart Media and coordinates Latin American outreach for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University School of Journalism [read her curator’s statement]
Recent Exhibitions, Publications and Events:
In addition to museum lectures at the Guangdong Museum of Fine Art in Guangzhou, China, DeCesare did two workshops in China during May 2009: One with undergraduate journalism students at Shantou University [view a report on her lecture here]
The other workshop was in Mian Zhu, Sichuan with teenagers who survived the 2008 Earthquake in Sichuan China.
On April 28th, 2009 DeCesare gave a lecture about her work at Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. [See her talk by downloading a quicktime video here]
DeCesare presented her documentary work at a conference hosted by Harvard University's Nieman Foundation--AFTERMATH: Journalism, storytelling and the impact of violence and tragedy
DeCesare's exhibition "Carlos and Ivonne" was featured in the multi artist show GUNS N' US at The Darkroom, New Orleans, LA December 6, 2008 – February 5, 2009
DeCesare's work was featured in a photoessay for the NPR program ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on December 22, 2008
DeCesare presented work at a panel discussion at Columbia University in NY, "Witness: Photographers, Journalists, and Social Workers Respond to Tragedy" on December 3, 2008.
DeCesare also presented her documentary work on victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia at a Conference on the Colombian Peace and Justice Law and Paramiliary Demobilizations at the University of Miami December 4-6th 2008.
An award-winning photojournalist with a focus on Latin America, Donna DeCesare is widely known for her groundbreaking reportage on the spread of Los Angeles gangs in Central America. A selection of this work "El Salvador Inside Out" was exhibited at the Harry Ransom Center from April 17, 2008 to August 3 2008. DeCesare's photographs from this series are currently in the permanent photographic collections at the Harry Ransom Center.
View an interview at the HRC with Professor DeCesare
See interview with Professor DeCesare on New York's Grit TV
Download profile of Professor DeCesare in the July 2008 issue of Austin Woman
Her recognitions for this work include: an Alfred Eistendstadt magazine photography award (2000), a Canon photo essay award in Pictures of the Year (2000), and an award for reporting on criminal justice from the National Center on Crime and Delinquency.
Many news and arts publications have featured DeCesare’s photographs including: The New York Times Magazine, Life, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, DoubleTake, and Aperture. Since 1995, she also has worked as a video journalist and producer on numerous documentaries for The Learning Channel. “Killer Virus,” her first collaboration with TLC won an Emmy Award in 1996.
DeCesare's internationally competitive grants and fellowships include the Dorothea Lange Prize, an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, the Mother Jones International Photo Fund grant,a George Soros Independent Project Fellowship and most recently a Fulbright Fellowship in Colombia.
Her 2006 exhibition, “Sharing Secrets: Children’s Portraits Exposing Stigma” has traveled to New York, Washington DC, Korea, Poland and China.It was on view at the Columbia University School of Social Work until December 2008. These photographs and testimonies from children in Guatemala and Colombia who are former child soldiers, survivors of sexual abuse, or who live with the stigma of HIV aided UNICEF in developing protocols for photographing children at risk.
Hear her speak about her work with the Director of Photography for UNICEF.
DeCesare’s most recent project documents narratives of loss and survival among those who have suffered paramilitary violence in Colombia. Some of these photographs have been published on the Web site “Crimes of War.” View her award-winning images here.
Donna DeCesare has an M.Phil in Literature and Comparative Studies from the University of Essex in England. When she is not teaching at the University of Texas she continues to photograph and to conduct photography workshops for at-risk youth, journalism students and professional photojournalists in the US, Spain and in Latin America.
Recent Courses: J370K Documentary Visual Projects: from soundslides to video, J380M Advanced Documentary Projects in Photography, J388 Seminar in Contemporary Photographic Criticism, J395.3 Documentary Video and J395.4 The Documentary Tradition in Latin America.
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