Conversations with the World

Since 1980, Lonnie Graham has traveled throughout Asia, Africa, and North America interviewing people and recording their opinions and beliefs regarding their culture, heritage, and traditions. In 1994, he was awarded with the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the PEW Travel Grant, enabling him to expand his travels, broadening the scope of this project. Titled A Conversation with the World, Lonnie Graham says of this work, "This is an innovative project in its combination of visual art with elements of socio-anthropology. The project also illustrates basic needs of the human condition with a clear and articulate template…and seeks to delve beneath the superficial patina of cultural differences and explore the essential and fundamental motivations of human beings in order to clearly illustrate the bond that is inherent in our humanity."

Lonnie Graham is the founder of the African/American Garden Project, a physical and cultural exchange program. He has exhibited his work internationally, and was recently awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, one of the largest grants for an individual artist, which supported this project. Graham is a professor of photography at Pennsylvania State University.