Artist Statement

After the publication of Walker Evans' and James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," no longer would the photographer be viewed as an objective and benevolent witness. Photographers choose what to include as well as what to exclude, thus framing the discourse, arguments, and points of reference. How can we make policy if we do not know those it confines and liberates? Members of marginalized communities quickly become static characters in the policy arena, devoid of individuality and human value. As Damasio writes, "Thought is made largely from images," and from our thought flows policy. My photography is an attempt to better reveal the true humanity of marginalized communities and to provide a venue for their voices to be considered, to be included, to be heard; to help them say, “I am here. I am beautiful.”

Artist Biography

Arthur Robinson Williams is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs where he concentrated on domestic public health policy and wrote his thesis on drug reform: Syringe Deregulation and State Policymaking: The Determinants of Successful Reform.

Robin studied photography for four years with Emmet Gowin, Lois Conner, and Mary Berridge. He has completed photography projects involving AIDS and the people of Ghana, the health system of Cuba, homosexuality in the Netherlands, anthroposophical farming communities in the Northeast, injection drug use in New Jersey, and drugs and addiction nationwide.

He attends the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he studies medicine and ethics.