Common Ground: Photographs by Fazal Sheikh, 1989-2013

Common Ground: Photographs by Fazal Sheikh, 1989-2013, is the first comprehensive American exhibition of critically acclaimed photographer Fazal Sheikh’s work. The more than two-decade-long career of the Kenyan-rooted and American-born artist has focused on raising awareness of international human rights issues through his documentary-based photography practice.

The exhibition features more than 100 portraits and landscapes chronicling individuals living in displaced and marginalized communities around the world, many times as the result of war, exploitation, and poverty. Common Ground will survey works that span a period from 1989 to 2013, offering deeper insight into major world events, racial strife, and mass global displacement in places such as East Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and the Netherlands. Stories told through Sheikh’s pictures focus on survivors, orphans, and victims of violence and abuse.

Sheikh’s series of photographs have earned him countless awards and fellowships, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Henri Cartier-Bresson International Grand Prize, and the Luce Humanitarian Award, among many others.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website