Pictures of suffering children are traditional fare for charity advertising, but when do such images step over the line and become exploitative?

 

The ethics of charity advertising is the subject of a debate entitled 'How far is too far? Charity advertising and images of suffering children' at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas this evening.

Speakers include Rachel Palmer, communications manager at Save The Children, Chris Geissler, a Cambridge PhD student in German, and Dr Ildiko Csengei, lecturer in English, who will speak on the history of charities' use of imagery.

Geissler, who has organised the debate, is a Gates scholar whose PhD includes an examination of the foundations of international humanitarianism in Germany around the issue of the slave trade and slavery.

Palmer led Save the Children's 'Depicting Injustice' project which examines photographic images made in four countries for fund-raising purposes in the UK. It is a participatory research project involving the subjects and the communities of the photographed.

The discussion takes place at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities in Mill Lane at 5.30-7pm on Monday.

The debate headlines a day of events and activities, ranging from a discussion of the work of Italian composer Puccini to a storytelling session on Greek myths set in the Museum of Classical Archaeology gallery. They kick off the second week of the Festival of Ideas, which runs until 31 October. The Festival is hosting over 150 events, most of them free. It is open to all members of the public and celebrates the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.