Photography to Heal Trauma

When current affairs stories inform and also support victim/survivors

This Art/Photojournalism Photography Focus group with Elisa Iannacone is a collective discussion on how photojournalism can evolve to support victim/survivors of trauma.

Questions to be addressed include:
How can we cover stories without re-traumatising victims?
Is it possible to move away from traditional photojournalistic methodologies to tell current stories?
To what extent can art and journalism/documentary overlap to tell stories?

Elisa Iannacone grew up in Mexico, where conflict was a part of the daily lifestyle. She went on to work on ambulances as a teenager and eventually covered various conflicts and humanitarian crisis as a photo/cinematographer. Having worked and traveled to well over 50 countries, her perspective on what is constructive as a woman with a camera, evolved until she wrote The Spiral of Containment: Rape’s aftermath, a book and traveling art exhibition which addresses trauma through art. Using journalistic and documentary principles, she now covers challenging stories of trauma through multi-media.