The Reva and David Logan Gallery of Documentary Photography at Berkeley Journalism is proud to present celebrated photographer and Professor Ken Light in conversation with Wesaam Al-Badry (’20). The two photojournalists will discuss Light’s work in “Course of the Empire” and photos they took together at the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Democratic convention in Chicago. A corresponding exhibit will be presented in the halls of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism through January.

Wesaam Al-Badry (’20) and Professor Ken Light at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, WI.

A decade of mounting tension in a polarized America, from Wall Street to the rural heartland

A decade ago, Ken Light traveled across the United States photographing a country that he realized was the most fragile of organisms. The photographs of the earlier years in this book create the context for understanding how America lost its way. Light reached all four corners of the country to document people across race, class and political lines. We see the heartland and the coastal cities, Wall Street and rural small towns.

As he continued, seismic changes erupted across America and the country descended into an age of crisis. He photographed protests and Washington politicians in Congress and the White House, climate change disasters and environmental defenders, the rise of the regime of Donald Trump, the Trump rallies and America’s reactions to it all. He comprehensively probed the fractured social and economic condition, going beyond the tropes of inequality we all recite by heart to create a visual portrait of a country mired in calamity, its people deeply splintered, angry and in pain.

The resulting portrait of the American social landscape is a riveting historical and visual record of a complicated country in a complicated time. It is compelling, and one of the earliest photographic accounts of an age that historians and citizens will be scrutinizing for generations to come.

Ken Light

Ken Light

Ken Light has worked as a freelance documentary photographer for over fifty years, focusing on social issues facing America. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and his work has been published in twelve books, in magazines, exhibitions and numerous anthologies, exhibition catalogues and a variety of media, digital and motion pictures. He has exhibited internationally in over 200 one-person and group shows and his work is part of numerous collections including the San Francisco MOMA, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the International Center of Photography and the American Museum of Art at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress and many others.

A beloved teacher, colleague and mentor to innumerable alumni, Ken has taught at the School since 1983.

Wesaam Al-Badry

Wesaam Al-Badry

Wesaam Al-Badry stands as both a witness and a creator, tracing the contours of a world shaped by displacement, conflict, and the relentless search for identity. As an investigative journalist and interdisciplinary artist, Wesaam’s work is a fierce interrogation of the images and narratives that define our understanding of self and other. His work questions what it means to belong, to be seen, to resist the erasure that so often accompanies the displaced and the dispossessed. Through photography, video installation, sculpture, and painting, he dismantles the simulacra of wars—wars that are not just fought on distant soils but in the minds and bodies of those who bear their scars.

His artistic journey traverses the complex terrains of identity, migration, and memory, drawing connections between the lived experiences of the U.S., the Middle East, and the North African diaspora.

Wesaam’s current projects lay bare the complicity of the image in perpetuating racialized ethnographic studies, particularly in the context of Iraq. He exposes how the visual and the textual have been weaponized to inscribe certain bodies with narratives of otherness, revealing the deep interconnections between power, representation, and violence.

Wesaam’s work asks us to reckon with the ways in which art and documentation, image and word, are complicit in both the oppression and the liberation of marginalized voices. His current projects do not shy away from this complicity; instead, they expose and deconstruct it, offering a powerful critique of the visual and textual tools that have long been used to subjugate and define the other. Through this critical lens, Wesaam challenges us to see beyond the surface, to confront the deeper truths that lie within his art, and to engage with the ongoing struggle for justice and humanity.

Born from a childhood marked by struggle and displacement, Wesaam’s art is not merely a reflection of pain but an act of defiance and reclamation. He reimagines the human struggle, infusing it with a dignity that refuses to be erased and a love that transcends the confines of circumstance. His work challenges us to see beyond the surface, to confront the uncomfortable truths that lie beneath the images we consume, and to recognize the humanity that persists in the face of dehumanization. His work is a testament to the power of art to transcend borders, to challenge the narratives imposed upon us, and to reclaim the stories that are our own.

Wesaam holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master of Journalism in New Media Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. He is represented by East Wing Gallery, Contact Press Images, and Jenkins Johnson Gallery.