Your Hosts
William Daniels
Lead Course Instructor
William Daniels is a French photographer working on long-term documentary projects with a particular interest in people’s quest for a sense of identity and territories prone to chronic instability.
In 2007, he won the Lagardère Foundation’s Young Photographer grant to conduct a personal project in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, a young and fragile nation prone to inter-ethnic clashes and just years after the Tulips Revolution hailed by the West as a sudden ascent to democracy of a people liberated from the shackles of Soviet rule. This project was exhibited at the Fait Et Cause gallery in Paris, and self-published in the book, Faded Tulips (2012).
Since 2013, Daniels has traveled 10 times to the Central African Republic, a former French colony mired in extreme violence and mistrust between communities. His work was exhibited as a 100-meter-long fresco along the Seine River in Paris in 2014; in a similar street show in New York in 2016; and at the War Photo Museum in Dubrovnik in 2015. In 2017, he published the book titled RCA about the Central African Republic and published by Clémentine de la Féronnière.
Since 2015, William Daniels has been making regular trips to the Russian Far East with the support of the French National Center for Arts. He has followed the Baikal-Amur mainline, documenting life along this mythical railway that has been abandoned since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In 2019, the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin in Paris hosted his exhibition Wilting Point. In botany, this expression describes the point at which a plant can no longer be salvaged. The photo selection aimed to convey human fragility. The installation, conceived as an immersive experience, offered a transversal narration through images of conflict-ridden places (Indian Kashmir, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan, the Bangladesh-Myanmar border…). While the roots of these conflicts differ, they have one common denominator: a colonial past.
Aside from his personal projects, William Daniels contributes, as a photojournalist, to National Geographic magazine, the National Geographic Society and other international media such as Le Monde. His assignments have won several international accolades, including two World Press Photo awards, a Visa d’Or at the Perpignan Photojournalism Festival, and the Tim Hetherington grant.
Photo of William Daniels by Martin Colombet
Uma Bista
Course Instructor
Uma Bista is a photographer from Nepal based in Kathmandu. She uses the camera as a tool to tell visual narratives that focus on social, cultural, environmental, familial, personal, political, and psychological perspectives, on gender inequality and everyday experiences.
She graduated from the International Photography Program at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Bangladesh. She is an alumnus of the Angkor Photo Workshop and Festival, Siem Ream, Cambodia where she is now a facilitator. Uma Bista has received the British Journal of Photography’s annual Ones to Watch 2019 and the Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellowship in 2020.
Her photographs have been published and exhibited both nationally and internationally, including Growing Like a Tree: Sent A Letter, Breda Photo Festival, Chobi Mela, Photoville, Pen & Brush Gallery, Rubin Museum, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Washington Post, Stern Magazine, and Caravan Magazine, among others.
Glenn Ruga
SDN Founder and Director, Executive Editor, ZEKE Magazine
Glenn Ruga is a photographer, graphic designer and curator. He founded the Social Documentary Network (SDN) in 2008 as a web platform for a global community of documentary photographers to present their work online. As a photographer, he has created traveling and online documentary exhibits on the struggle for a multicultural future in Bosnia, the war and aftermath in Kosovo, and on an immigrant community in Holyoke, Mass.
In 2015, Ruga launched ZEKE: The Magazine of Global Documentary Photo where he currently serves as Executive Editor. ZEKE a print and digital magazine presenting the best stories from the Social Documentary Network.
From 2010-2013, Ruga was the Executive Director of the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) at Boston University. He curated numerous exhibitions while at the PRC including "Global Health in Focus" featuring work by Kristen Ashburn, Dominic Chavez, and David Rochkind. Ruga is also the former Publisher and Art Director of Loupe, the magazine of the PRC.
From 1993 through 2009, Ruga was the founder and president of the Center for Balkan Development, a non-profit organization established to help stop the genocide in Bosnia and create a just and sustainable future in the former Yugoslavia.
Glenn has a B.A. in Social Theory from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and a MFA in Graphic and Advertising Design from Syracuse University.
Sharu Joshi
Advisor
Sharu Joshi Shrestha holds Master’s in Political Science from the Tribhuvan University in Nepal and Master’s in Women and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. She is a working member in various programs including the Task Force for Reforms on Foreign Labor Migration, Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security, 2018. Ms. Shrestha is the recipient of the International AFFUND Prize for Pioneering Development Project 2003 for leading the program “The Asia Pacific and Arab State Regional Program on Empowerment of Women Migrant Workers” in Nepal (including Jordan and Indonesia). She served in the Social Welfare Council for many years, and also led several UN programs on women empowerment. Ms. Shrestha has published more than 50 articles in various newspapers, journals, and magazines including on the role of NRNA and remittance.
Mahesh Pradhan
Mahesh Pradhan, a UN career administrator from Nepal, currently serves as the Coordinator of the "Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA)", an intergovernmental mechanism administered by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Previously, Mahesh served as Coordinator for the "Global Partnership on Nutrient Management" based at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Mahesh brings extensive experience in international environmental management, having served in UNEP for nearly three decades in addressing the triple planetary crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution. Mahesh will serve as independent advisor for this workshop developed by SDN to create visual stories on climate change, its harmful impact in his home country and how Nepal is striving to overcome these challenges.
Eric Chang
Logistics director
Sanjeeb Shrestha
Local Ambassador
Questions?
Email info@socialdocumentary.net
