RISC was founded in 2012 by the journalist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm, War, Restrepo), who covered the war in Afghanistan with Tim Hetherington. When the latter died during the 2011 Libyan civil war, Junger was devastated. The loss of a dear friend and colleague was all the more painful since it might have been prevented: Hetherington died of a hemorrhage on the way to the hospital, and a tourniquet could have saved his life, or at least granted a few precious minutes to reach medical personnel. Junger knows that in modern warfare, where there is no front and the streets are a chaos of explosions, journalists should be able to give first aid to their fallen comrades. He founded RISC, which offers four-day training workshops in emergency medical response. Since its inception, RISC, Inspired by the informal training which Junger and Hetherington received from a medic in Afghanistan, has trained over 120 journalists in New York, London, Beirut, Nairobi and Kosovo.
To help fund the initiative, RISC is holding an online auction of the work of 45 photographers, each of whom has donated a photograph for the sale. The selection reflects how photojournalism has taken hold of the art market—a piece by Richard Moose is being sold for $9,500, and many of the photographers are represented by galleries—as well as how the “language” of documentary has changed over time. Susan Meiselas, the godmother of contemporary documentary photography, both as a photographer and through her involvement with projects like the Magnum Foundation, of which she is the president, and the Open Society Foundation, for which she curated the exhibition Moving Walls, donated her famous photograph of Nicaraguan rebels, which the International Center of Photography holds in its prestigious collection. The auction begins on November 19th.
AUCTION
RISC Benefit & Silent Auction
From November 19th to December 3rd 2014
Paddle 8
