New South Wales Government Criticized for Censoring Photojournalism Exhibition
The Reportage Festival in Sydney, Australia is a well-known Vivid exhibition that displays the powerful work of some of the world’s best photojournalists and documentary photographers. But this year, the New South Wales government has gotten involved by telling the curators what they can and cannot display, stirring up many photographers and anti-censorship advocates in the process.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, photos of the Cronulla riots, the Granville train accident, as well as several award-winning Magnum photographs have all been deemed inappropriate or “too distressing” by the NSW government’s tourism department, Destination NSW.
Festival curator Stephen Dupont called the censorship “embarrassing.” Speaking with the Herald, he laments that many high-profile photographers who have traveled from all over the world to display their photography may not even see it up.
Photojournalist Ed Giles, who has spent the past couple of years documenting political upheaval in Egypt, was outraged:
It is not the place of the state government to censor the communication of documentary work on issues that actually matter. Our collective lives are saccharine enough without being packaged by tourism boards.
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