GISH Collective

Dooney, the founding photographers of the GISH Collective, have been shooting in Greenville for roughly 4 years now. Photographer Aaron Turner and writer Jardine Libaire joined the team in 2015. The GISH agenda is not to appreciate the “single photograph” but rather to responsibly and innovatively collect and curate material so it culminates in a prismatic view of photography and place, initiating

a conversation about how photography enables us to look at ourselves and at each other. GISH incites self-reflection in an alternate mirror to the mainstream media, and provides a gateway to empowerment, to agency of voice, and to a sense of community.

“Man is the only picture-making animal in the world. He alone of all the inhabitants of the earth has the capacity and passion for pictures . . . Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers, and this ability is the secret of their power and achievements: they see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.” —Frederick Douglass

Greenville is an important site for study and portrayal because of the complex interconnectedness of race, American history, socioeconomics, amplified artistic and cultural traditions, and geopolitics that all collide and connect, defining this city and echoing other American cities.