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SAYING anything meaningful about humanity is a daunting task, says Hoxton Mini Press’s Martin Usborne about Portrait of Humanity. But this collection of 200 photos that attempt to capture the changing face of the world in book form eloquently demonstrates that the effort has been worthwhile.
In collaboration with 1854 Media and Magnum Photos, the works are drawn from photographers from around the globe and the book has been partially inspired by the exhibition The Family of Man. An ambitious project curated by Edward Steichen, director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1955, it toured the world for eight years and drew record-breaking crowds.
Commenting on its appeal, Steichen said that people “looked at the pictures and the people in the pictures looked back at them. They recognised each other.”
The exhibition was turned into a book that became a best-seller and, at the height of the cold war, it became a kind of manifesto for peace. In 2003 the Family of Man photographic collection was added to Unesco’s Memory of the World Register in recognition of its historical value.
This new book has a similar aim. A “map of global fears and wants,” it’s as much a reflection of the things we have in common as the things that make us different. In it, the power of photography paints a portrait of humanity which celebrates every race, religion, sex, gender, age and culture.
Each photo has a caption providing a background sketch of the context in which the photo was taken and its significance for the photographer. I would have wished these texts to be longer and more informative — they are often frustratingly short.
And the strength of Family of Man lay in presenting several photos on each page in juxtaposition, allowing the viewer to compare and contrast and discern relationships. Here, each page has only one image — many of them stunning — and this sometimes makes it difficult to relate them to each other in conveying the sense of a “family of humanity.”
Even so, this book is a much needed and joyous celebration of our commonality in these times of division, intolerance and hate.
Published by Hoxton Mini Press, £22.95.
