FOTOfusion 2011 and New Website Launch of Robert Glenn Ketchum

FOTOfusion®2011 Palm Beach Photographic Center January 11-15, 2011 PHOTOGRAPH, "OCTOBER 24 1983 / 2:10 p.m.", 1983 In 2010, American Photo magazine featured Robert Glenn Ketchum in their Masters series making him only the fifth photographer they have recognized this way in 20-years of publishing. Of the five honored, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and Annie Liebovitz, Ketchum is unique because his imagery is based almost exclusively in the natural world. For 45-years Ketchum's fine prints, and bookmaking, have addressed critical national environmental issues while at the same time helped to define contemporary color photography. His advocate use of photographs and the media has inspired successive generations of artists to work on behalf of social and environmental justice, and led to the creation of the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), of which Ketchum is a Founding Fellow. It has also resulted in Audubon naming Ketchum one of the 100 people "who shaped the conservation movement of the 20th Century." Ketchum has been a longtime friend of The Palm Beach Photographic Centre, and so it is with great pleasure that the Centre will acknowledge this designation from American Photo magazine by hosting a retrospective exhibit of Ketchum's career, January 2-April 3, 2010. The exhibit is timed to open during , a weeklong celebration of photography that the Centre has been hosting for twenty years. EMBROIDERY, "YK DELTA FROM 1,500", 2003 While an undergraduate at UCLA in the mid-1960's Ketchum studied with Edmund Teske, Robert Heinecken and Robert Fichter, three very groundbreaking, non-traditional image-makers. Their influence clearly defines a whole other aspect to Ketchum's work far more experimental than those images he has produced on behalf of conservation. In the early '80's, Ketchum entered China through the UCLA-China Exchange Program, and began to collaborate with some of the historic embroidery guilds of Suzhou to develop complex textiles based on his photographs. Some of the most recent examples of this embroidery and loom weaving, many of which took years to complete, will be included in this exhibit, as will new designs from the digital darkroom that Ketchum has recently developed for the embroiderers. Ketchum's distinctive, dimensional prints are in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the National Museum of American Art (DC), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY). Significant archives (more than 100 images) have been acquired by the Amon Carter Museum (TX) and the Huntington Library and Gardens (CA), and substantial bodies of work can be found at the High Museum (GA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Akron Art Museum (OH), Stanford University Art Museum (CA), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Cornell University (NY), and the National Museum of American Art. PHOTOGRAPHIC PANELS, "CHOOSE JOY", 2007 It is seldom that The Centre has the opportunity to feature a photographer that embraces such a diverse approach to photographic image making. In appreciation of Ketchum's long friendship with PBPC and his well-earned reputation as an inspiring teacher, during FOTOfusion The Centre will present Ketchum with their annual Mentors Award. In turn, Ketchum will honor a relatively unknown photographer with the Rising Star Award. Ketchum has selected Miguel Ángel de la Cueva, a young Fellow from the International League of Conservation Photographers who is doing remarkable work in Mexico and Baja. Ketchum would also like iLCP photographers to become regular attendees and contributors to FOTOfusion, so he is introducing several iLCP Fellows at this year's festival and they will be lecturing, exhibiting, and signing recent books. Get out of the cold of winter. Come to FOTOfusion in West Palm Beach, take in a little sun... and some great photography!

One final bit of news is that my social media team and I have spent the past few months redesigning my website and today it's finally ready to be revealed! A couple of things I like most about my new site are that while it showcases my art nicely, it also coordinates my social media network, and even has video capability!  In addition, my new site now hosts an online store... just in time for the holidays. It would mean the world to me if you'd stop by the new site at some point and check it out:  www.robertglennketchum.com. Sincerely, Robert Glenn Ketchum

The Passion and Essence of Nature by Patricio Robles Gil, September 4, 2010

The Passion and Essence of Nature 
by Patricio Robles Gil, Fellow, International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), September 4, 2010

For millions of years we evolved within wilderness. It is interesting, now, how distant is that wild world and with what disregard it is treated by us city dwellers. In some ways this is understandable because there is no modern human comfort in wild nature, and some of the animals there can eat you.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon America’s Haunting Catastrophe by Daniel Beltrá, April 20, 2010

Oil covers the surface of the Gulf of Mexico on the vicinity of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill source, June, 17, 2010. Photograph © Daniel Beltrá for Greenpeace.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon America’s Haunting Catastrophe
by Daniel Beltrá, Fellow, International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), April 20, 2010

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and became the world’s largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Methane gas, under extreme pressure, escaped from the well and shot up the drill column causing an explosion that engulfed the platform in fire. Despite multiple efforts to douse the flames, the platform, weighing 58,000 tons, sank one mile to the ocean floor on April 22, 2010. Eleven crewmen died, and 17 others were injured.

Robert Glenn Ketchum honored by Secretary of the Interior

Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar and the Department of the Interior have given Robert Glenn Ketchum the 'Partners in Conservation Award' for his participation in the Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership.

Ketchum's Aperture book "Rivers of Life: Southwest Alaska, The Last Great Salmon Fishery" published in 2001 began to define this little-known but spectacular, undisturbed habitat to the public as part of a now decade long campaign to protect the fishery and the land-based ecosystem that supports it. Ketchum followed with a 2nd book, "Wood-Tichik: Alaska's Largest State Park" in 2004, and a national traveling exhibit in 2005. During that same period a grassroots coalition has grown to considerable proportion and formed the more-than-70 individuals and companies recognized by this award.

The Obama administration has just recently taken Bristol Bay out of consideration for oil and gas development, and so the first of two threats has now been defused.

Thank you President Obama and Secretary Salazar for recognizing the value of this astounding natural resource. Now I hope you will consider placing the entire fishery into a permanent reserve.

Onshore another threat to the habitat looms ever greater, though. The Pebble mine proposal is a disaster in the waiting for fish, animals and parks alike, so it is now time to turn our total attention to this fiasco, and see that is stopped once and for all.

Observations from Venezuela: July 31, 2009: by LAP Editor Miguel Tinker Salas

Observations from Venezuela: July 31, 2009 

by Miguel Tinker Salas

LAP Editor 

I would submit that events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a right wing counterattack taking shape in Latin America. I have been arguing for sometime that the right is rebuilding in Latin America, and has decided to act with Obama / Clinton in the White House. Bush / Cheney and company did not give them any coverage and had become of little use to them. A “liberal” in the White House, with extensive ties to the conservative forces gives them the kind of coverage they had hoped for. It is no coincidence that Venezuelan right wing commentators applauded the naming of Clinton to the White House indicating “now we have an ally in a position of power.” The old cold-warrior axiom that the best antidote against the left is a liberal government in Washington gains new meaning under Obama with Clinton at the State Department.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: 35 Years of Publication and many more to come

Latin American Perspectives (LAP) recently celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary. It was a particularly special milestone for the journal, as it coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. LAP has in many ways grown with the revolution and documented its ups and downs in the numerous articles and issues dedicated to the goals and struggles of the revolution. Our most recent issues (Jan, Mar, and May 2009) highlight this important anniversary for the Cubans by calling on Cuban scholars, as well as international scholars who have taken part in the defiant dialogue to bridge the widening gap between the United States and Cuban governments.

Cuban Exceptionalism by Ken Cole

Cuban Exceptionalism: A Personal View 
by Ken Cole
Ken Cole is a member of the International Institute for the Study of Cuba at London Metropolitan University. 

January 1, 2009, marks the fiftieth anniversary of victory in Cuba’s third war of independence. In his first speech of the Cuban Revolution, given in Santiago de Cuba on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro declared that for the first time in four centuries Cubans were free. Whereas Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and José Martí had led the previous wars, in 1868 and 1895, against Spanish colonial dominion, Castro’s July 26th Movement (named after the day in 1953 when the attack on the Moncada barracks marked the commencement of the revolution) challenged the economic domination of Cuba by the United States.

The Municipal University Centers: Past, Present, and Future by Jorge González Corona

The Municipal University Centers:  Past, Present, and Future
by Jorge González Corona
Translated by Mariana Ortega Breña
Jorge González Corona is Professor of Political Science at the Manuel Bisbé Municipal University. Mariana Ortega Breña is a freelance translator based in Canberra, Australia. 

The development of education in Cuba since January 1, 1959, has gone through several phases. The 1960's witnessed the National Literacy Campaign of 1961, the implementation of universal access to elementary education, the adult post-literacy programs, the massive training of teachers, and the University Reform of 1962. In the next period, 1970–1980, universal access to secondary education was achieved, as was a nationwide university network. These efforts were accompanied by substantial investment in the creation of the necessary material base for education and the accelerated training and upgrading of teachers and professors.

Reflections on the Cuban Revolution by Gary Prevost

Reflections on the Cuban Revolution

by Gary Prevost

Gary Prevost has been Professor of Political Science at St. John’s University since 1977.

When I visited Cuba in the first few days of 1992, it was not clear that the revolution would survive. Food was in relatively short supply and electricity blackouts were common. Even long-time supporters of the revolution were pessimistic about the future. Everything that had been accomplished in its first 32 years seemed in jeopardy when the Soviet Union went out of existence

at the end of 1991 and canceled most of its trade deals with Cuba. The country’s gross domestic product was in the process of shrinking by 50 percent.

Cuban Solidarity and Disaster Response by August Nimtz

Cuban Solidarity and Disaster Response 
by August Nimtz
August Nimtz is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and the author of Marx, Tocqueville, and Race in America (2003). A more detailed version of the argument presented here can be found in “Natural versus Social Phenomena: Cuba and the Lessons of Katrina” (The Black Scholar, 2006, 36 [4]). 

How is it that an underdeveloped country that is incessantly alleged to be under a dictatorship can do a far better job of saving the lives of its citizens when a hurricane strikes than a rich country with all the trappings of liberal democracy? The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that this is not just an interesting academic question but a matter of life and death. Even before then, international bodies such as the United Nations and the International Red Cross often cited Cuba for its exemplary practices in dealing with hurricanes. Measured in terms of preparation, loss of lives, and recovery, the differences between Cuba and the United States Gulf Coast persist. Even in the 2008 season, when Cuba was assaulted by the most powerful hurricanes on record, it experienced the loss of only five lives.