Life and Death in the Northern Pass
With the right kindling, one idea can set the world on fire. This concept motivates photojournalist Dominic Bracco II. The former Shorthorn photographer has documented the horrors of Mexico’s drug war through images of violence and its aftermath, as well as grieving families and tender scenes of day-to-day urban life. “I feel I have an obligation to produce work that will hopefully educate and evoke change,” he says. “There is a reality that every time I begin working, I am in danger. Sometimes I find myself thinking it’s not worth it, but then I am reminded constantly that it is.” Bracco’s photos are at the heart of a free exhibit, Life and Death in the Northern Pass, which runs through Jan. 14, 2012, in the Central Library’s sixth floor parlor. He also lectured as part of the College of Liberal Arts’ Festival of Ideas, an annual series of events that focuses on cultural and intellectual issues. “I have been working to step back a bit from traditional distribution models for photography,” he says. “An exhibition at a college campus in an event like the Festival of Ideas allows for the kind of environment that will stir discussion in ways that a few pictures in a newspaper could not.”
