The World's Family

The World's Family is a new mirror held up in the faces of all humankind. It follows in the great tradition of "the Family of Man", "The Family of Children" and "The Family of Woman". The photographs, all taken by Ken Heyman in fifty countries, reflect the oneness of mankind, but they mirror too, the magnificence and endless facets of the human spirit. In 1952. Edward K. Steichen, the great photographer and head of the photography department of New York's Museum of Modern Art, began to work on a huge exhibition, the most important work in the history of photography. He had a name - The Family of Man, a phrase from one of Abraham Lincoln's speeches. In his autobiography, A Life in Photography, published in 1963, Steichen explained why he undertook the project. "Although I had presented war in all its grimness in three exhibitions, I had failed to accomplish my mission. I had not incited people into taking open and united action against war itself. The failure made me take stock of my fundamental idea. What was wrong? I came to the conclusion that I had been working from a negative approach, that what was needed was a positive statement on what a wonderful thing life was, how marvelous people were, and above all, how alike people were in all parts of the world." The Family of Man exhibition opened on Jan 24, 1955 and was a smashing success, touring the United States and around the world. It is now gone, and so is Steichen. 30 years later, Heyman picks up where Steichen left off, taking a fresh look of a different world through the eyes of only one photographer- his. A world where one begins to feel that the Orwellian predictions of 1984 multiplying themselves beyond imagination. Some communities of families sense themselves hurtling into obliteration and oblivion. Human control becomes doubtful. Even reproduction of the human species is controversial and contradictory. Yet, for so many everywhere in the world, nothing is changed. The seeded womb sets out the child who matures and seeks to mate. The broad range of ancestry and forbears and heirs and offspring persists and persists with or without census or computing. Ken Heyman, a photographer stirred by his own very human convictions, has thoughtfully committed himself to search out and record images that show our human family persisting. Indeed, contemporary life needs this special viewing and re-viewing to help us feel and know the world's family today.