Living with the Enemy: The
Photographs of Donna Ferrato
The Domestic Abuse Awareness Project
Exhibition planning in progress for 2007
Donna Ferrato has been a professional photographer for over 20 years. She earned degrees in sociology and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Ferrato has produced several books and worked at various newspapers and magazines around the world. In 1985, while on a magazine assignment to document the experience and phenomenon of love, Ferrato witnessed a man beat his wife.
Ferrato's response was to initiate a domestic abuse project, traveling across the country in an effort to see and document first-hand the scope of the acts of violence. Riding over 6,000 hours with police officials, she photographed in hospital emergency rooms, shelters and domestic abuse classes, the effects and acts of domestic violence on women, men, children, and communities. These photographs she would later feature in her book, Living with the Enemy.
Ferrato's photojournalist story first ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987 and in 1991 Ferrato's book, Living with the Enemy, was published by Aperture Press. Also in 1991, at the request of a New York women's shelter, Ferrato began exhibiting some of the photographs to raise money for the organization's efforts. The exhibition was a success, raising money for the shelter while at the same time educating the public. The exhibitions lead to the founding of the Domestic Abuse Awareness project, a non-profit organization based in New York City, started by Ferrato. The exhibition has traveled to over 100 venues, nationally and internationally.
In the introduction of Living with the Enemy, Ferrato comments that "Much of the book was born out of frustration - first, because I felt powerless in the face of the violence I had seen, and second, because for a long time no magazine would publish the pictures. It was only when I received the W. Eugene Smith Award in 1986 that magazine editors began to take the project seriously."
"Domestic violence is a tragic social dilemma, a catastrophic disease, not only nationwide but internationally," says Fine Art Museum Director Martin DeWitt. "Donna Ferrato, photographer and photojournalist, has taken a huge risk, shows us everything, the violence, the brutality experienced by so many women, so many families. Her poignant photographs document in stark reality the hard facts. Ferrato's Living with the Enemy photographs offer images to provoke a dialogue - and to take action."
Ferrato continues to lecture on domestic violence throughout the country and internationally at universities, hospitals and shelters.
In addition to the Living with the Enemy photograph exhibition at the Fine Art Museum, a community forum, artist gallery talk, and panel discussions are anticipated.
For more information, contact Martin DeWitt, founding director, at (828) 227-3591 or mdewitt@wcu.edu
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