How COVID and Black Lives Matter Converged – VICE

2020 was the year a once-in-a-generation global pandemic clashed with a global call for racial equality.

In her excellent new book, Through the Lens: The Pandemic and Black Lives Matter, NYU professor Lauren Walsh attempts to understand the historic year through the vantage point of the photojournalists that were on the frontlines capturing a multitude of unprecedented events. Walsh records the emotional toll that came with covering death, destruction, and endemic racism.

The historic Black Lives Matter protests were the largest demonstrations in US history and reverberated globally, Walsh says.

The devastating Covid-19 pandemic, a once-in-a-century disaster, has impacted the entire world. And both situations collided in 2020, forcing photographers into a terrain defined by new ethical, technological, and safety concerns, as well as innovative attacks on press freedom.

Through the Lens features images that range from lockdowns in Shanghai and Wuhan, to protests in Minnesota and Portland.

Her work, Walsh adds, aims to uncover the ethical dilemmas and the risks and challenges visual journalists encounter to bring us the news in pictures.

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How COVID and Black Lives Matter Converged - VICE