Edith Pan's Response to Meeting with Fran Meckler

On June 15, 2017 Fran Meckler, a documentary photographer, showcased her photo collection “Fading Traditions: Papua New Guinea in Color”. Students in the Summer Institute were able to meet with her and discuss how her photos were a method to bring injustices to light. Below is a student’s reflection on meeting with Fran Meckler and her thoughts on photography as a way for advocacy.

During the weeks I was working on my application for this program, I would peruse the listings of events at World Affairs, the speakers and the topics for the week. I was intrigued by everything I saw: It was all so relevant and polemical and presented by the “top of their field” elite. All this to say, I was underwhelmed when I found out that the first speaker was a photographer. However, I was very pleasantly surprised with how much I learned and how much I loved the exhibition. I was thoroughly delighted to find that mudmen existed and that for some people, full body paint was just a way of life. The exhibition popped my 21st-century American culture bubble and drew me into this colorful, fantastical world. It was a great to feel unity and understanding with these people despite the foreignness of their dress, culture, and environment. You could see pride, wisdom, loneliness, and excitement in the tribal men and women, and because of this common human experience, you felt a sense of closeness and unity. One picture in particular showed a naked boy running towards his village. Looking at it, the first thing I thought was “I would never be able to tell that little naked butt from any other little naked butt.”

There were many chuckles and laughs when Fran described the “backwards” ways of the tribes: their mistaking a cargo plane to be an animal which could be attracted by a mate, counting pigs to determine status, collecting period blood as fertilizer. Hearing these anecdotes made me wonder how many foolish things we “civilized” Americans do even as we sit here laughing at the tribal cannibals. Just off of the top of my head, I can think of the cosmetic surgery industry, the vitamin industry, and the reality TV industry as leading examples of how all our advanced technology and civilized manners have not led to significant societal progress. Additionally, the isolation of the tribes from the wonders and evils of the outside world led me to ponder if there were anything out there that, if I was exposed to, would change my whole way of life. Without getting too far into conspiracy theories, I weigh the possibility of there being a whole other world out there that we are ignorant of. It’s possible, I think, and maybe those headhunters are closer to discovering the wider world than we are.

Lastly, I think there is a lot to examine within Fran’s situation. Her own mission statement professes that she seeks to help organizations which help people become self-sufficient and contributing members of society. By her own admission, however, she is only able to do the work she does because her socioeconomic status enables her to do so. I am not sure if I can adequately explain what I’m trying to get at, but it is just painfully ironic that she is empowered to help the poor only through her excess wealth. Without being too much of a cynic, it makes me question whether the poor truly can “help themselves” with the monetary and societal limitations placed on them. For the people she helps, her way of life, as a philanthropic photographer, is not viable nor even possible. In no way am I saying that Mrs. Meckler does not do valuable work, and I believe that photos are great tools for awakening emotion and awareness for a cause. I am not even one hundred percent sure what conclusion this leads me to, I just think it is something worth examining. 

- Edith Pan