A 10-week multimedia series chronicling the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from April until July 2020. Produced in partnership with Detroit NPR affiliate WDET 101.9FM and the Documenting Detroit Fellowship.
Producers: David Leins, Karah Shaffer
Editors: Shiraz Ahmed, Meta Stange
Multimedia Artists: Erik Paul Howard, Amy Sacka, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Rachel Elise Thomas, Rosa María Zamarrón
Creative Writing and Narration: Courtney Wise Randolph
WINNER, RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards
Excellence in Innovation, Large Market Radio
An interactive exhibition designed for Photoville Festival 2019, which incorporated wheat pasted portraits of Detroiters covered by postcards with images from the city, held to the interior walls of a shipping container gallery by magnets. Visitors were invited to take postcards, revealing the portraits. Interactions between visitors and the installation were documented via photography, Instax cameras, and time lapse video. The exhibition also included a newspaper for visitors to take home.
Producer: Karah Shaffer
Curators: Karah Shaffer, Alan Chin
Photographers: Shiraz Ahmed, Nadir Ali, Edgar Cardenas, Kahn Santori Davison, Theon Delgado, Sr., Stephanie Rhoades Hume, Elisa Limon, Mark McClelland, Kyla Milberger, Janice Milhem, Noah Elliott Morrison, Ray Rogers, Lauren Santucci, Rachel Elise Thomas, Valaurian Waller
Video Editor: Steve Koss
‘HERE YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT’
In September 2018, in partnership with Salzburg Global Seminar, the Knight Arts Challenge, the Baltimore Gallery in Detroit, MI, and Facing Change: Documenting America, the exhibition ‘Here You Can Be Whatever You Want’ celebrated the individuality at AFROPUNK Festivals around the world.
In 2023, the photos were exhibited throughout the Salzburg Global Seminar campus at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria.
Producers: Karah Shaffer, Lauren Rossi
Curator: Karah Shaffer
Photographers: Kholood Eid, Melissa ‘Bunni’ Elian
A collection of photographs and audio taken in the densely populated multilingual community of Southwest Detroit alongside photos from a similar neighborhood in Dortmund, Germany. In late 2021, the show was installed at the Ann Arbor Public Library, and as a public art exhibition on Vernor Avenue, one of Southwest Detroit’s main arteries. It has since traveled to Marquette, Michigan, Houston, Texas, and in 2023 was reprinted and installed at the Salzburg Global Seminar.
Curators: Karah Shaffer, Kristin Dickinson, Alan Chin
Photographers: Peyman Azhari, Theon Delgado Sr.
Facing Change: Documenting Detroit is a project creating a documentary record of Detroit by Detroit-area photographers through education, discussion, and multimedia production, engaging local and global communities. The project has supported 65 photographers from the Detroit area via our Emerging Photography Fellowships (a 3-month immersive documentary storytelling workshop which took place annually between 2016-2020).
The work of the photography fellows has been published in local, national, and international outlets, and exhibited as part of festivals, installations, and educational exhibitions on three continents. Documenting Detroit has also installed public art, hosted outdoor multimedia projections, and produced a series of photography lectures to publicly discuss how Detroiters are crafting their city’s narrative.
Executive Director: Karah Shaffer
Photographers: Damon Adams, Shiraz Ahmed, Nadir Ali, Ievgeniia Andrusiak, Gabriela Baginski, Quinn Banks, MarQuez Bell, Julian Bibb, Alexa Borromeo, Jeremy Brockman, Edgar Cardenas, Zac Clark, LaToya Colts, Xavier Cuevas, Kelly Anne Cummins, Alexandre da Veiga, Amethyst Davis, Mishira Davis, Kahn Santori Davison, Brian Day, Jon DeBoer, Theon Delgado Sr., Marisol Dorantes, Cydni Elledge, Danya Ensing, Damani Gatewood, Kelsey Clare Gaskell, Nick Hagen, Junfu Han, Erik Howard, Stephanie Hume, Razi Jafri, Anthony Lanzilote, Ali Lapetina, Jarod Lew, Elisa Limon, Angela Lugo-Thomas, Steve Koss, Khary Uche Mason, Rebeca Maxon, Mark McClelland, Kyla Milberger, Janice Milhem, Justin Milhouse, Noah Elliott Morrison, Samantha Otto, RJ Page, Jeff Pearson, Viviana Pernot, Katie Raymond, Yvette Rock, Sal Rodriguez, Ray Rogers, Amy Sacka, Lauren Santucci, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Rachel Elise Thomas, Felicia Tolbert, Corey Turner, Anahli Vazquez, Valaurian Waller, Andria Watha, Sean Work, Rosa María Zamarron
A feature documentary film examining the complexity of Detroiters’ relationships to the land they live on, and the fraught process of deciding who is the rightful owner and caretaker for neighborhoods when the city’s capacity to care for its land is diminished. World premiere at Freep Film Festival, 2016.
Director: Sean King O’Grady
Associate Producer: Karah Shaffer
A feature documentary film that follows several veterans and civilians as they attempt to address the suicide epidemic among American veterans, seeking both personal and social healing. The film premiered at the 2021 GI Film Festival San Diego.
Directors: Ryan Welch, Ryan Rossman
Associate Producer: Karah Shaffer
