Louie Palu

Louie Palu
RCA

Louie Palu on assignment at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with writer Michelle Shephard and other media. Image by Joshua R. Nistas
Born 1968
Toronto, Canada
Occupation Photojournalist, Artist

Louie Palu RCA (born Toronto, Canada 1968) is a Canadian documentary photographer and filmmaker known for covering social-political issues, including war and human rights. His first major body of work was Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt with writer Charlie Angus, followed by working for The Globe and Mail for 6 years as a staff photographer (2001-2007). In addition to this, he covered the war in Kandahar, Afghanistan, between 2006-2010 and the drug war on the US-Mexico border between 2011-2012.[1]

Personal Life and Education

Louie Palu was born in Toronto, Canada in 1968 to Italian immigrant parents. His mother worked as a seamstress before his birth and his father was a stonemason.[2] Palu graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 1991. He was awarded a summer scholarship to study in New York City.[3]

Photography

Palu is known for projects focusing on social-political issues. His five long-term projects are as follows.

Cage Call

Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt was an in-depth project that began in 1991 and continued until 2003 examining communities in mining regions located in Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Quebec. This work resulted in the publishing of two books with writer Charlie Angus. The first book was Industrial Cathedrals of the North published by Between the Lines in 1999. The second was Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt as an award from PhotoLucida. The work is in the collection of the Library and Archives of Canada and has been published widely, including the Virginia Quarterly Review.[4]

Asbestos

In 2004, Louie Palu began a project on asbestos and its impact on its victims, which was subsequently published in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine.[5]

Kandahar, Afghanistan

While a staff photographer at The Globe and Mail, Louie was sent on an assignment in 2006 to cover the Canadian combat mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In early 2007, upon his return, he left The Globe and Mail and joined the photo agency, ZUMA Press, and returned to Kandahar. This was the first of several trips Louie made to cover the war through 2010.[6] In his time spent in Kandahar, he worked embedded and independently of the military, covering frontline combat with Canadian, American, British, and Afghan soldiers. His work was published in many publications including the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Toronto Star,[7] the academic journal of political theory Theory and Event,[8] and has been exhibited at the Canadian War Museum. The completed body of work is entitled: “The Fighting Season.”[9]

Guantanamo Bay

In 2007, Palu made his first of several trips through 2010 to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, located on a U.S. military installation in Cuba. His photographs of detainees and the prison have been published in The Atlantic,[10] NPR,[11] The New York Times,[12] and The Walrus,[13] along with several others.

Mexican Drug War

Louie Palu was awarded a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellowship from the Washington-based New America Foundation in 2011 to study the drug war in Mexico and its relationship to the United States of America.[14] This work can be found in many publications, such as Foreign Policy Magazine[15] and the Globe and Mail.[16] He was also awarded a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant for this project.[17]

Exhibitions and Collections

Louie Palu’s work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals. His work was selected for the 2012-2013 landmark exhibition “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and It’s Aftermath,” curated by Anne Wilkes Tucker, Will Michaels and Natalie Zelt. It opened at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in November 2012 and has subsequently been exhibited at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City.[18]

Honors and Awards

References

  1. ↑ Noah Richler, “Louie Palu: The Art of War,” Canadian Art, October 4, 2010.
  2. ↑ Hal Stucker, “One to Watch: Louie Palu,” Photo District News, May 1, 2012.
  3. ↑ “What do you do with a degree from OCAD University?” OCAD University. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
  4. ↑ Louie Palu, “The Underground Giant: Life in the Hard Rock Mines of Quebec and Ontario,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall 2010, 48-65.
  5. ↑ “Where asbestos is just a fact of life,” The Globe and Mail, November 25, 2011.
  6. ↑ Phil Coomes, “Five Years in Afghanistan,” BBC News, March 1, 2011.
  7. ↑ Louie Palu, “Frontline Medevac Teams are Life-Savers in Afghanistan,” The Toronto Star, January 1, 2011.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Louie Palu, “Southern Afghanistan: The Fighting Season,” The Digital Journalist, April 2009.
  10. ↑ Louie Palu. “Guantanamo and Its Remaining Prisoners: A Photographer’s View,” The Atlantic, November 16, 2010.
  11. ↑ “A Visual Tour of Detention at Guantanamo,” National Public Radio, February 12, 2008.
  12. ↑ Charlie Savage, “As Acts of War or Despair, Suicides Rattle a Prison,” The New York Times, April 24, 2011.
  13. ↑ Louie Palu, “Goodbye, Guantanamo,” Walrus Magazine. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  14. 1 2 “Louie Palu,” New America Foundation. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
  15. ↑ “La Frontera,” Foreign Policy Magazine, January 2, 2013.
  16. ↑ Louie Palu, “Crossing the Line: Chronicling Mexico’s Drug War,” The Globe and Mail, January 25, 2013.
  17. 1 2 “Louie Palu,” Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
  18. ↑ “The haunting faces of war: Startling pictures from America’s conflicts show more than 70 years of bloodshed,” Daily Mail Online, November 11, 2012.
  19. ↑ “2008 Photojournalist of the Year & Photo of the Year awards,” News Photographs Association of Canada, April 26, 2009.
  20. ↑ “Home Front,” The Aftermath Project. Retrieved 2014-01-10.
  21. ↑ “Louie Palu,” Alexia Foundation. Retrieved 2014-01-10.
  22. ↑ “National Magazine Award-Winning Portrait Photography 2007-2010,” Magazine Awards. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
  23. ↑ Pictures of the Year International. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
  24. ↑ "New Members". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
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