Fund for an OPEN Society posts open call for photos defining INTEGRATION

OPEN
CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHS

If
we’ve learned anything from the current national primary season, it is that conversations about race and integration need to happen ….and
they need to happen now.

We
want to include your thoughts in this powerful conversation – a national
conversation.  Fund for an OPEN Society has launched a campaign
entitled Reclaiming Integration. OPEN is the nation’s only
nonprofit organization whose sole mission is to promote racially and ethnically
integrated communities – whole communities that are good places for families to
raise children – and for our nation to heal and finally leave its segregated
past. 

OPEN’s
roots are firmly in the civil rights movement; our founders are James Farmer,
recognized as one of the “big four” of civil rights, founder of CORE, student
of Gandhi and non-violent direct action and mentor to MLK; and Morris
Milgram pioneer in the nation's open housing movement.  Together they
harnessed the energy, vision and help from influential colleagues to strike at
the very heart of segregation in America: they set out to
disassemble the historic patterns of racial separation in family housing and
neighborhood schools.

The
OPEN they founded is still hard at work today to further those critical aims,
yet we confront a curious, unexpected obstacle that Milgram, Farmer and
the visionaries of the civil rights movement never did - the false
belief that America
is no longer a racially segregated society. That the word and even the goal of
“integration” are no longer relevant or needed because rank discrimination in
housing and schools is history. 

Reclaiming
Integration
seeks to recapture both the power and spirit of the word - rekindling the
passion for just communities and recognition of integration as a civil right. 
As part of this campaign, OPEN is exploring, through words and images, visions
for a better integrated society.

The
warning Milgram uttered in 1969 still rings true today: “If we don't learn
to live together, soon the world is going to come apart.”  For New
Orleans victims of Katrina, those words are painfully apparent.  Economic
and social segregation still play a significant role in life of our country.

The
goal of a fully integrated society is in danger of slipping away. Hurricane
Katrina gave America
a catastrophic glimpse of how continued residential segregation destroys lives.
We hope that you agree that this issue is important enough to lend your vision.

"Where, after all, do universal
human rights begin? In small places, close to home…"

Eleanor
Roosevelt

THINGS TO
KNOW

·        
Deadline is Tuesday June 17, 2008.

·        
Absolutely no fees are required to enter.

·        
You may enter an unlimited number of images.

·        
No fees or royalties will be paid for the use of
your shots, though appropriate credit (and contact information if you wish)
will be attached to your image. 

·        
Your images may be shot with a digital camera,
scanned, appropriated, screengrabbed, photoshopped, made with your camera
phone… it doesn’t matter so long as you are able to transmit the final files
digitally.

·        
If your work is chosen for inclusion in the project,
it may be published in OPEN’s annual journal and/or included in our online
exhibition. All printing expenses will be paid by OPEN.

·        
Work submitted may also be included in on our
planned blog. OPEN may additionally use your images for educational or marketing
purposes.

·        
If your work is selected you will be notified by
email on or before August 1, 2008.

FAQ

·        
Who makes
the final selection of images?

o  
The editorial board working with Fund for an
OPEN Society will make all selections.

·        
Will you
only consider photographs?

o  
No, we are open to any and all media that can be
digitally transmitted.

·        
I got an
email that my work has been selected, what happens next?

o  
You will need to submit high-resolution files of
your work, ideally they will be 300 dpi.

·        
Why is
OPEN printing my work? Can I just send my own prints?

o   No,
to allow the editorial panel, a national group, to examine all of the images,
digital files are required.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

CD Submissions:

Images should not exceed 5×7 inches @ 300 dpi.

Email Submissions:

Send small .jpgs @ 72dpi

Email: ri@opensoc.org

Along with your images, please send an artist statement (two paragraphs),
image descriptions and bio (two paragraphs).

To submit via mail:

Fund for an OPEN Society

515 Valley Street, Suite 170

Maplewood, NJ 07040

Deadline: June 17, 2008 (Mail submissions must be postmarked by this date)