Navigating Care for the Most Vulnerable

Explore a unique perspective on those who slip through the healthcare system’s cracks with Academy Fellow Dr. Randi Epstein in conversation with Nina Berman, a documentary photographer. Berman has had the rare opportunity to photograph one woman’s travails with drug abuse, homelessness and mental illness for thirty years, revealing an intimate encounter with health care in the U.K. and the U.S. An associate professor at Columbia University, Berman’s work has been shown at Whitney Museum of American Art. She is also the author of Purple Hearts—Back from Iraq, and Homeland, an examination of war’s aftermath and the militarization of American life.

Speakers

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, author and educator, whose photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 100 international venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Art Museum, and Dublin Contemporary. She is the author of two monographs Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, and Homeland, which explores the militarization of American life post September 11. She’s received awards from the World Press Photo Foundation, Pictures of the Year International, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Open Society Foundation. She is the 2017 Susan Tifft fellow at the Center for Documentary studies at Duke University and is an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photography program.

Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, MPH, is an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a lecturer at Yale University. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate and other national publications. She is the author of Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank (W.W. Norton: 2010). Her forthcoming book, also to be published by W.W. Norton, is about the history of hormones.