Jersey City – Saint Peter’s College joins the ranks of some of the world’s top museums and galleries when “Speak Truth to Power: Portraits of Human Rights Defenders from Around the World” opens on Thursday, October 2, 2008. The exhibition features a series of photographs that capture worldwide human rights issues, taken over a two-year period by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams. Visitors can view the photos in the Saint Peter’s College Art Gallery on the Jersey City campus through Thursday, October 30 of this year.
Produced by activist Kerry Kennedy and Nan Richardson, the exhibition consists of 34 silver gelatin prints of human rights defenders’ dramatic portraits taken across four continents. The prints translate multiple human rights issues, including nuclear disarmament, children in war, environmental activism, religious self-determination and sex slavery. Excerpts from Kennedy’s interviews with the human rights defenders are mounted on the gallery walls to compliment the portraits.
The exhibition began its tour in 2000 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Since its debut, the showcase has traveled to venues such as The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, The Museum of Modern Art in Jacksonville, The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, The Athens Municipal Art Gallery, Sala Acala 31 in Madrid, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, as well as other cities across the globe.
Eddie Adams is the recipient of over 500 awards in photography, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his indelible picture of a Saigon police chief’s assassination of a Vietcong prisoner, taken during the Vietnam War.
The exhibition, which has no admission fee, is open to the public from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday evenings. It is sponsored by Saint Peter’s Department of Social Justice, Office of the Academic Vice President, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Department of Sociology and Urban Studies, Office of Public Policy, Project Peace, Latin American Service Organization, Women’s Studies Program, Sociology Club and Students of Caribbean Ancestry.
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Saint Peter’s College is the Jesuit College of New Jersey. Founded in 1872, Saint Peter’s has an enrollment of approximately 3,000 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. The main campus is located in Jersey City with a branch campus in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, with courses at various corporate sites at the Jersey City waterfront and in South Amboy, NJ.