HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC

A Riveting New Exhibition Presented by Food Bank For New York City & Brooklyn Historical Society by Photojournalist Joey O’Loughlin

“As you look at the pictures, please consider: What would you do if you couldn’t feed your family?” – Joey O’Loughlin

Jewish families in Brooklyn lines up each Friday for bread for Sabbath dinner. Keeping kosher is hard for families who live in poverty. The food tends to be expensive and the number of kosher pantries is limited. The majority of poor Jewish families who live in NYC lives in Brooklyn. Photo Credit: Joey O’Loughlin

Food Bank For New York City and the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) is co-presenting a joint exhibition Hidden In Plain Sight: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. The exhibition, which open to the public on November 6, 2015 and be presented at the Brooklyn Historical Society‘s 1881 landmark building, will feature the photographs of Brooklyn-based photojournalist Joey O’Loughlin. The exhibit reflects the extraordinary diversity of location, population, and experience in food pantries throughout New York City, where hundreds line up to receive free groceries and is designed to raise awareness of the causes and impact of food poverty as a devastating reality of contemporary urban life.

Food Bank For New York City Logo (PRNewsFoto/Food Bank For New York City)

Food Bank For New York City has been the city’s major hunger-relief organization working to end hunger throughout the five boroughs for more than 30 years. Nearly one in five New Yorkers relies on Food Bank for food and other resources. It takes a strategic, multifaceted approach that provides meals and builds capacity in the neediest communities, while raising awareness and engagement among all New Yorkers. Through its network of more than 1,000 charities and schools citywide, Food Bank provides food for more than 64 million free meals for New Yorkers in need. Food Bank For New York City‘s income support services, including SNAP (food stamp) screening and free tax assistance for the working poor, put more than $150 million each year into the pockets of New Yorkers, helping them to afford food and live with greater dignity and independence. In addition, Food Bank’s nutrition education programs and services empower more than 275,000 children, teens and adults to sustain healthy diets on very limited budgets. Working toward long-term solutions to food poverty, Food Bank develops policy and conducts research to inform community and government efforts. (Learn how you can help at www.foodbanknyc.org.)

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. Photo Credit: Joey O’Loughlin

Nearly one in five New Yorkers relies on Food Bank For New York City‘s programs and services. During the past year, the organization has seen the need for emergency food in New York City increase while the resources required to combat hunger and poverty have decreased. The number of meals that vulnerable New Yorkers are missing due to lack of sufficient resources tops a staggering 241 million, representing an enormous Meal Gap. The Meal Gap, adapted as the City’s official measure of food insecurity, has now been geographically mapped to reveal where hunger lives – enabling Food Bank to allocate resources to areas with the highest need across New York City.

“What would you be willing to do if you couldn’t afford to feed your children?“
Image from the exhibit, HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC by Photojournalist Joey O’Loughlin

For nearly three years, Ms. O’Loughlin documented the people behind the statistics by photographing and interviewing clients at Food Bank For New York City‘s citywide network of food pantries– the last line of defense against hunger for New Yorkers in need — to reveal the people who run them, and the people who wait on their lines. Through these images, Ms. O’Loughlin asks the question, “What would you be willing to do if you couldn’t afford to feed your children?“

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. Photo by Joey O’Loughlin

“People are always shocked to learn that one in five people on our pantry lines has a job,” said Margarette Purvis, President and CEO of Food Bank For New York City. “No one wants to believe that you can work your entire life and still not be able to afford food. The myth is, they did something wrong. The fact is, they didn’t. Children, the working poor and the elderly on fixed income are the most severely affected by hunger. These are the faces highlighted in this exhibit in order to combat the myths about hunger. We hope that this exhibit and related programming will foster empathy and awareness among New Yorkers, and inspire them to advocate for hunger-relief resources and opportunities that so many of us now need to survive in this challenging economy.“

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. Photo by Joey O’Loughlin

The exhibit takes viewers from food pantry line to the home pantry. While most food pantries work hard to ease the experience, lining up for food can be dehumanizing. On the line, you’re both on display and socially invisible, but at home, you’re like everyone else. By juxtaposing images of food lines with those taken inside people’s homes, this exhibit puts a face on the everyday New Yorkers–often strong mothers and grandmothers–who must participate in the complicated economic balancing act that allows them to stay in their homes, and retain their family dignity. As family dinner is a universal point of connection, the exhibit will also feature images of home-cooked meals made from pantry groceries. Family history and personality are revealed in images of meals and around the table.

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. Patrick is 46 and disabled by AIDS. He was outed in the military, less than honorably discharged and never completely regained his footing. He worked for Housing Works for years and lives in subsidized housing on Staten Island. Patrick depends on food pantries to get by, and can offer a remarkable accounting of his living expenses, balanced down to the penny.  Photo by Joey O’Loughlin

Through interpretive materials in the exhibition, and a focus on people and places throughout New York City, it is hoped that the exhibit will provoke thoughtful discussion on both cross-cultural and cross-generational experiences. Public programming around the exhibition will include panel discussions featuring historians and food justice advocates, among others. Programs will engage visitors in questions about hunger and poverty, raising awareness about this increasingly pervasive issue. The exhibition will be on view at BHS from November 6, 2015 – November 13, 2016.

“We are proud to exhibit the thought-provoking images in “Hidden in Plain Sight,“‘ said Deborah Schwartz, President of Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). “O’Loughlin’s photo essay continues the mission of BHS to tell stories which have been overlooked, yet are part of our collective experience and living history. Our hope is that this exhibition sparks a conversation about the inequalities in food access that affect us all, and the solutions we can work on together to overcome them.”

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Portraits of Hunger in NYC. Emily Diac, aged five years old, waited while her mother shopped at a food pantry. One in four New York City children doesn’t have enough to eat. Times are especially hard for poor families in NYC and the family has since left NYC for Marietta, Georgia, where her mother works at a Sam’s Club and her father is a maintenance man. Photographed by Photojournalist Joey O’Loughlin

Joey O’Loughlin is a photojournalist, producer and writer with more than two decades of experience in news, informational and cultural programming. Her photographic work supports humanitarian efforts in the United States and around the world. In 2012, O’Loughlin worked with the Brooklyn Public Library to show how library experiences are woven into the fabric of people’s daily lives, and why libraries are valuable in challenging economic times. The resulting photographic multimedia project “Where Do the Books Go?” was installed at the Brooklyn Public Library, and was featured in the New York Daily News, as well as other publications