CV
Meg Handler, Photo Editor /Curator
Phone: 917-353-7303
Meg Handler is a photography editor, curator, and social documentary photographer, with a focus on politics, media culture, and social justice.
Work History:
313 Presents
Curator
May 2021 – April 2022
Worked with a marketing and communications team to produce the upcoming photography exhibition, “Pine Knob: 50 Years of Music and Memories.” This exhibition tells the visual history of a popular music venue outside of Detroit. On view May-September, 2022.
Curator
August 2020 – April 2022
Worked with a team of photographers, editors and designers to research and produce the social advocacy campaign, Postcards From Forever-Abortion edition. Through powerful archival and contemporary images documenting women’s dignity and protest, the Abortion Rights edition of Postcards from Forever captures the past and present of the fight for women’s and reproductive rights, to lift us further than we’ve ever gone.
Editor at Large
September 2012 – April 2021
Oversaw the daily photo research, editing and story ideas for this online publication. Curated the Reading the Pictures ARCHIVE consisting of 17 years of writing on images in the media. Conducted
original photo research for additional online programming . ReadingThePictures is the only site dedicated to the daily analysis of news photos and media images. Launched in 2004, ReadingThePictures is closely followed by the political and visual media, the photojournalism community and university visual studies and communication programs.
Whose Streets? Our Streets! New York 1980-2000
Co-Curator
Bronx Documentary Center (’17), Harris Gallery at RIT (’18), Lane Hall at U Michigan (’19), Boston University (’22)
Featuring work by thirty eight independent photojournalists, this exhibit captures ordinary New Yorkers as they rallied, rioted, marched, and demonstrated. These stunning images document historic moments of violent confrontation such as the Tompkins Square Park and Crown Heights Riots and as well as organized protests involving non-violent civil disobedience and creative street theater. Collectively, these photographs, which have never before been exhibited together, chronicle New York’s history from 1980-2000. During these two decades of swift economic and demographic change, residents grappled with social issues including race relations, police brutality, housing and gentrification, AIDS and gay and lesbian rights, reproductive rights, U.S. foreign policy and military actions, art and the culture wars, environmental and animal rights issues, and education and labor relations. The exhibit is co-cu- rated by Meg Handler, former photo editor of The Village Voice, historian Tamar Carroll, author of Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism, and Michael Kamber, founder of the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC).
NationSwell
Senior Photo Editor
September 2015 – August 2017
Acquired, researched and edited photography for online news publication. NationSwell is a digital media company founded four years ago to fill what we saw as a void in the traditional news coverage. Too much reporting focused on the problems and challenges facing the nation without proposing alter- natives, too many stories stopped short at what’s going wrong without evaluating what’s actually work- ing and why. The mission mission is to spotlight solutions to the country’s most pressing social issues.
Freelance photo research and editing (2007 – Present)
2018-2021
-Consulting photo editor, “Cherry Hill: A Childhood Re-Imagined” by Jona Frank (Monicelli, 2020)
-Photo Editor, “Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980” by Rick Perlstein (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
2017:
-The Ross School, East Hampton, New York. Photo research and editing for new curriculum lesson plans.
-Whirled Productions. Photo research for montage video for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Past Books:
-Dublab: From the Archives of Future Roots Radio (forthcoming, Hat & Beard, 2022)
-Manny Farber: Paintings & Writings (Hat & Beard, 2019)
-Chicago 1968: The Whole World is Watching (Hat & Beard, 2018)
-DETROIT UNBROKEN DOWN by Dave Jordano (powerHouse Fall 2015) -War is Beautiful by David Shields (powerHouse Fall 2015)
-MAD WORLD: An Oral History of the New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein (Abrams Image, 2014)
-HONEY BADGER DON’T CARE: Randall’s Guide to Crazy, Nastyass Animals by Randall (Andrews McMeel, 2012)
-Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide by Shirley Halperin & Steve Bloom (Harry N. Abrams, 2010)
-Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life by Shirley Halperin & Steve Bloom (Abrams Image, 2008)
-PAPARAZZI by Peter Howe (Artisan, 2005)
-Phil Stern: A Life’s Work (powerHouse Books, 2004)
PUBLISHED
Photos from the 1990s on abortion show how the present is like the past (The Washington Post, May 17, 2022)
Whose Streets? Our Streets: New York City 1980-2000 catalog (RIT Press, 2017)
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic by Jack Lowery (Bold Type Books, 2022)
Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism, by Tamar Carroll (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015)
Backing Into Forward: A Memoir, by Jules Feiffer( Nan A. Talese, 2010)
The Nat Hentoff Reader, by Nat Hentoff (Hachette, 2001)
INTERVIEWS
JOURNAL MENTIONS
Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences
Social protest photography and public history: “Whose streets? Our streets!”: New York City, 1980–2000 by Tamar W. Carroll
WRITING
A Photo Editor Remembers The Village Voice (SPD Grids, 2017)
Savaging Jeb! (Reading the Pictures, 2015)
Everything Wrong (Including Yes, Journalistically) With The HONY Gay Schoolboy Photo (Reading the Pictures, 2015)
APPEARANCES
Atl 203 – Taking Time Exploring Images
Need to Know | October 11, 2018 WXXINews
PHOTOVILLE 2014
BagNewsSalon: Reading Key News Photos of 2014 ,Panel Discussion: featuring Michael Shaw, David Campbell, Meg Handler, Carolyn Cole, Todd Heisler, Robert Mackey, James Wellford and Mario Tama
PHOTOVILLE 2013
PANEL: PHOTOJOURNALISM IN FLUX: A MATTER OF ETHICS OR CONTEXT? Featuring Nina Berman, Photographer at NOOR images and Associate Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Meg Handler, Photo Editor, Editor at Large for BagNews; Stephen Mayes, Visual Entrepreneur; Spencer Platt, Staff Photographer/ Getty Images; Michael Shaw, Publisher, BagNews; and Jamie Wellford, Photo Editor/Curator
Portfolio Reviewer:
Fotofest Houston, Santa Fe Photo Workshops, Rhubarb-Rhubarb (UK), powerHouse Portfolio Review, Columbia College Chicago
EDUCATION:
Rochester Institute of Technology, BFA in Photography, 1990.