“Exodus,” an exhibit of 300 black-and-white photographs by Sabastiao Salgado, inaugurated the CDA’s Human rights Gallery & Resource Center. During its successful ten-week stay in late 2005, more than 14,000 residents throughout Utah visited this display, considered one of the most significant exhibits of contemporary photography ever assembled.

One of the world’s foremost photographers, Salgado began work on “Exodus” in 1993. By the time the project was completed in 1999, Salgado had visited 40 countries on every continent to document the flight of refugees and the movement of people who were abandoning the countryside for work in the cities. “Humanity is on the move,” Salgado explained. “It is a disturbing story because few people uproot themselves by choice. Most are compelled to become migrants, refugees, or exiles by forces beyond their control, by poverty, repression, or war.”

An ambitious undertaking, the presentation and acceptance of Salgado’s work was unheralded in the world of documentary photography. Eight sets of the exhibition were shown worldwide simultaneously, representing more than 220,000 copies of the two books that accompanied the exhibit. Migrations and The Children, were published in eight countries. It is estimated that more three million people have viewed “Exodus.” In response to Salgado’s hope that everyone “can pause and reflect on the human condition at the turn of the millennium” and his desire to “create a new regimen of coexistance.” The Center for Documentary Arts created programming around “Exodus” that reached out to students of all ages and their instructors, as well as the general public.

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The programming included:

Crossroads: Community Dialogues
Six well-attended public presentations on faith, art and human rights.

Celebrating the Human Rights of Children
Tales that Teach, a series of five reading geared toward elementary aged children.
Personal Journeys
YouthCity Artways, a partner in The Leonardo, sponsored five hands-on arts making activities for young people, in which they could use copies of “Exodus” images to construct collages and mixed-media pieces.

Human Rights Fair
Co-hosted by the Center for Documentary Arts and the National Conference for Community and Justice and held on December 2, 2005.
An Evening of Conscience
A Salgado residency at the College of Humanities at the University of Utah culminated in this event, which filled the university’s 1,800-seat Kingsbury Hall and featured Mexican poet Homero Aridis and Utah writer Terry Tempest Williams. The Center for Documentary Arts presented “Exodus” in conjunction with The Leonardo, YouthCity Artways, the Salt Lake City Film Center, and the University of Utah College of Humanities.

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About Sebastiao Salgado

Sebastiao Salgado, a native of Brazil, discovered photography while working as an economist for the World Bank in London. He moved to Paris in early 1973 to pursue photography full-time.

First as a photographer for the Sygma and Gamma agencies, and then as a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos, Salgado’s assignments have carried him around the world. He documented the plight of the underprivileged, producing essays on cultures such as the Indians and peasants of Latin America, for which he worked with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. Salgado left Magnum Photos in 1994 to form Amazonas Images with his wife, Lelia Deluiz Wanick, to support the production of his work.

The large scope of “Exodus” is typical of Salgado’s tireless and exhaustive approach to documentary photography. From 1986 to 1992, for example, he traveled to 23 countries to create Workers, a series of photographs that visualized the end of the age of large- scale industrial manual labor. These and other projects have been published in numerous magazines and books worldwide. Salgado is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an honorary member of the Academy of and Sciences in the United States. He has received numerous prizes, including several Honorary Doctorates and other accolades for his photographic work.