In 2012, Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill started the Everyday Africa Instagram feed as an effort to present a more accurate visual depiction of life on the continent, promote the work of African photojournalists, and direct a critical eye toward the international media industry in which they worked. Its viral success inspired like-minded storytellers worldwide to start their own Everyday communities on Instagram, using photography to celebrate local norms and global commonalities. In 2014 a group of these creators formed The Everyday Projects; from Latin America to Asia, Russia to the Middle East, Mumbai to the Bronx, the collective audience of The Everyday Projects is now well over 1 million. In this public lecture, Austin Merrill will discuss the key principles of localized visual storytelling via social media. He will focus on how Instagram can be used to reach diverse audiences, portray multiple perspectives, and ultimately also combat stereotypes in the international coverage of different parts of the world.
Speaker: Austin Merrill, Co-Founder of The Everyday Projects, is a former West Africa-based correspondent for the Associated Press and Vanity Fair editor. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Newsweek, Wired, and other media outlets. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Ivory Coast, he has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, New York.
Respondent: Giorgia Aiello is Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Bologna and Professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Leeds, in the UK. She has published widely on the problems and potentials of commercial, documentary, political and news imagery in contemporary culture and society.