Gil Garcetti’s Africa photos head to U.N.

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‘Women, Water and Wells: Photographs of West Africa by Gil Garcetti,’ a 2007 exhibition at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, is evolving into a new show at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The revised version, combining Garcetti’s images of women stuggling to provide safe water for their families with young students’ responses to his pictures, will be on view from July 25 to Sept. 6 in the visitors lobby of the U.N. building.

Garcetti, a former Los Angeles district attorney who has become a prominent photographer, made his first trip to West Africa in 2001. Captivated by the land and the people, and struck by their need for healthy drinking water, he returned several times with his camera. The resulting book of black-and-white photographs, ‘Water Is Key,’ led to the Fowler show and a continuing effort to raise awareness of the crisis and funds to remedy the situation.

Among visitors to the Fowler were sixth-grade students from the Archer School for Girls in West Los Angeles who studied West Africa’s water problems and created mixed-media collages inspired by Garcetti’s work. The New York presentation will include landscapes, portraits and images that make connections between clean water and health. The students’ artwork will conclude the show.

— Suzanne Muchnic