Raised by Wolves: Photographs and Documents of Runaways by Jim Goldberg
Between 1985 and 1994, Goldberg worked closely with dozens of homeless young
people in California. He examined the social environment in which runaways live
from their points of view, and combined their own first-person accounts with
the varying and sometimes contradictory perspectives of parents, doctors, police
and the social service community. In doing so, Raised by Wolves was
not merely a didactic treatise in which we observe from the outside the circumstances
of troubled lives. Rather, the project illuminated the interior world of runaway
teens, shedding light on the causes—not just the symptoms – of their
alienation.
"Raised by Wolves is one of the most significant and innovative photography
projects of the last decade," says Philip Brookman, Senior Curator of Photography
and Media Arts at the Corcoran. "By weaving together various fragments
of truth, Goldberg challenged the traditions of documentary inquiry and made
us
realize that we could not rely solely on the camera to tell us the truth about
what we see."
Jim Goldberg is a contemporary pioneer of socially relevant photography. He establishes
sustained contact with his subjects, elucidating entire cultures and social attitudes
through combinations of images and text.
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