David Blumenkrantz Collection, 1980-2023

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Summary

Creators:
Blumenkrantz, David (1957)
Abstract:
The collection consists of mostly visual documentation created by David Blumenkrantz, an educator, artist, and photojournalist, of several projects and of professional and personal experiences in Africa, China, and Los Angeles. Materials include born-digital images, scanned images, videos, interviews, transcripts, negatives, contact sheets, slides, notes, audiocassettes, and a thesis abstract.
Extent:
1.25 linear feet and 148 Gigabytes
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists of mostly visual documentation created by David Blumenkrantz, an educator, artist, and photojournalist, of several projects and of professional and personal experiences in Africa, China, and Los Angeles. Materials include born-digital images, scanned images, videos, interviews, transcripts, negatives, contact sheets, slides, notes, audiocassettes, and a thesis abstract. Dates span 1980 to 2023. The collection is arranged into five series: Africa (1987-2010), Broadway Historic Theater District Los Angeles (2007-2009), China (2015-2018), Homeless Los Angeles (1980-2023), and Photojournalism (1980-1999).

Series I, Africa, contains Blumenkrantz's non-governmental organization (NGO), documentary, and photojournalism work, and his teaching and travels in mostly East and Central Africa and Angola. This series consists of two subseries. Subseries A, Angola (2010), contains digital images shot on assignment for UNICEF documenting relief and development projects against the backdrop of the long and devastating civil war that impacted much of the country. Subseries B, East and Central Africa (1987-1994), contains scanned images and videos of the following during a tumultuous period: portraits, especially of children and those experiencing poverty, living in rural and urban environments; agriculture; political documentary; multiparty democracy movement and Mau Mar rebellion veterans in Kenya; Eritrean independence and refugees; civil war and AIDS in Uganda; Rwandan genocide; and war and famine in South Sudan. Subseries C, Interviews (1990-1992), contains interviews with Wangari Maathai, Rawson Macharia, Ezra Mbogori, Father Grol, John Muiruri, and Hana Simon. Significant people photographed include Nelson Mandela, Kenyan politicians and activists Kenneth Matiba and Wangari Maathai, and a few East African presidents. This series contains graphic images of genocide.

Series II, Broadway Historic Theater District Los Angeles, contains digital images from 2007 to 2009 of the predominantly Latino American community and the run-down urban environment of Broadway Theater District in Downtown Los Angeles, which is composed of six blocks (3rd to 9th Street along South Broadway) and includes 12 historic theaters. It also contains Blumenkrantz's MFA thesis abstract, which includes images from this series and provides further narrative. This project coincided with the City of Los Angeles's "Bringing Back Broadway" 2008 campaign to revitalize it as a cultural and economic center, and occurred at the onset of gentrification in the area.

Series III, China, contains digital images and videos of portraits, street scenes, buildings, artists, and performers in China. It highlights Blumenkrantz's documentation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in the Yunnan and Hubei Provinces. The ICH movement covers a broad spectrum of cultural traditions, ranging from art and music to math and science, and reaches all corners of the country. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ICH is defined as the "practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage." Blumenkrantz was introduced to several "Inheritors," individuals designated and subsidized in various ways by the Culture Ministry to preserve and pass on skills and knowledge to new generations. Against the backdrop of rapid urbanization and commercialization in China, the preservation of these many forms of intangible cultural heritage, some of which are also recognized by UNESCO, was a timely and essential topic for study.

Series IV, Homeless Los Angeles, contains digital and scanned images, interviews, transcripts, and videos documenting individuals experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles from the 1980s to the 2020s. It focuses on three collaborative projects that involved Blumenkrantz, university students, people experiencing homelessness, social service groups, activists, law enforcement, legal agencies, and others involved in seeking solutions in a system that failed. It also includes earlier photography from the 1980s and 1990s of Skid Row and other locations. The main body of work began in 2016 with the One of Us Project in collaboration with the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission and California State University Northridge (CSUN) students. One of Us project's objective was to "change the conversation" about people experiencing homelessness by providing a platform for self-representation in efforts to humanize them through advocacy, portraiture, and oral histories. The team visited locations offering services to those without housing and set up a portable studio where individuals could sit for a portrait and share their story. Exhibits occurred at the Museum of Social Justice in 2018 and at Los Angeles City Hall. How We See It community engagement project was a participatory photography workshop that brought together an Advocacy Media for Nonprofits CSUN journalism class with individuals experiencing homelessness at the St. Charles Borromeo Church's Holy Family Service in North Hollywood in 2019 and 2020. "Enough is (never) Enough" group exhibit occurred in 2023 at the Skid Row History Museum.

Series V, Photojournalism, contains images and some text from Blumenkrantz's earlier assignments as a photojournalist for mostly local publications in Los Angeles. It documents a variety of social, political, and cultural topics. It includes several significant personalities, such as Jesse Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Gil Scott-Heron, Hillary Clinton, and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, and highlights a few of his major assignments.

All series and folders are arranged alphabetically.

Biographical / historical:

David Blumenkrantz is an educator, artist, and photojournalist. He earned a BA in Journalism in 1985, an MA in Art Education in 2003, and an MFA in Visual Communication in 2009, all from California State University, Northridge.

While living in Kenya from 1987 to 1994, Blumenkrantz worked as a photojournalist and documentarian for various non-governmental organizations, including Inter-Aid International and UNICEF. As a freelancer, he was a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines in Kenya and elsewhere. He taught photography workshops and conducted a training course in photography for former freedom fighters in Eritrea. In 1992, he visited refugee camps in several African nations, compiling a documentary exhibit for the All Africa Conference of Churches. From 1992 to 1994, he was the Information Department Coordinator for the Undugu Society of Kenya, an organization dedicated to advocacy projects related to street children and urban poverty in Nairobi. He has designed and taught photography workshops at Kodak East Africa, the French Cultural Centre in Nairobi, and more recently, at Shining Hope for Community's (SHOFCO) Kibera School for Girls in 2022 and Mukuru Youth Initiative in 2024.

In Los Angeles in 2004, after eight years teaching with the Los Angeles Unified School District, he joined the journalism department at California State University, Northridge, and is a tenured professor. More recently, he has been involved in the One of Us project and "Enough is (never) Enough" exhibit in 2023, aimed at humanizing people experiencing homelessness through advocacy, portraiture, and oral histories. He has worked with at-risk youth at Watts Towers Art Center (for the Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Los Angeles) and at North Valley Caring Services. He has freelanced for the Los Angeles Times and various other publications as a writer and photographer. Within the United States, he has also taught at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh's Online Division and New York Film Academy.

In China, he documented intangible cultural heritage (ICH) programs in Hubei and Yunnan provinces from 2015 to 2018. He presented at the Intercultural Communication Conference at Wuhan University in 2015 and 2017. He has lectured at universities in Wuhan, Yangtze, and Yunnan.

His work has been exhibited and published in several countries outside the United States, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, China, Germany and France. He has been interviewed in Pixel Magazine and Inspired Eye.

Acquisition information:
David Blumenkrantz, 2024
Processing information:

Elizabeth Peattie, 2024

Arrangement:

Series I: Africa, 1987-2010

Subseries A: Angola, 2010

Subseries B: East and Central Africa, 1987-1994

Subseries C: Interviews, 1990-1992

Series II: Broadway Historic Theater District, Los Angeles, 2007-2009

Series III: China, 2015-2018

Series IV: Homeless Los Angeles, 1980-2023

Series V: Photojournalism, 1980-1999

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research use.

Terms of access:

Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of this collection has not been transferred to California State University, Northridge. Copyright status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Preferred citation:

For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.

Location of this collection:
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330, US
Contact:
(818) 677-4594
Website