PGB Field Offices

PGB’s Field Offices are a reclamation of space within an institution

The Photographer’s Green Book was founded with concern and love for visual artists who are excluded, fetishized, and regulated to the outskirts of lens-based mediums. This occurs through the institutionalization of cultural, social, and political norms that benefit a white patriarchal hierarchy in what is taught about, and exhibited within, the field. To combat this, PGB has dedicated its mission to bringing together a community of vibrant organizations, artists, and scholars who create a network of spaces of safe travel for practitioners. In this endeavor, PGB has begun to partner with organizations who are seeking to become a part of this network through the changing of their practices.

The Photographer’s Green Book’s Field Office is our team's way of creating institutional interventions which center on immediate, and sustained, structural change. We engage with institutions on restructuring hiring practices, shifting cultural norms, invigorating educational curriculum and structure, and reimagining programming and exhibition curation, as the beginning steps towards change. We do so by engaging with staff, board members, and audiences to give them the skills to knowledgeably advocate for change. At the core of these endeavors is advocating for new voices to have positions of power within institutions, and for institutions to have the mechanisms to support these voices in ways that don't fetishize or isolate the identities which make up a diverse space.

PGB’s Field Offices are a reclamation of space within an institution, but it is not a permanent solution to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is why our approach to this work focuses on shifting power dynamics and educating those currently in positions of power on how to divest and resituate their own positionally to be able to support new voices at the table. The goal is always to position the labor of change within the institutions and to foster it’s independent ability to engage with the expansive conversations happening within lens-based mediums.