About Picture Projects


Picture Projects was launched in 1995 to create online spaces for voices traditionally overlooked by mainstream media. Dubbed by Photo Insider "the gold standard in interactive documentary," Picture Projects is renowned for blurring the lines between art and documentary.

We have worked with photographers, journalists, and other artists to create award-winning online documentaries. akaKurdistan, an online archive of images and stories created in collaboration with photographer Susan Meiselas, was designed to collect and preserve the history of the Kurdish people. Other projects include RE: Vietnam — Stories Since the War, a collaboration with Marc Weiss of POV Interactive to create a digital companion for the PBS broadcast of Maya Lin, A Strong Clear Vision,and Farewell to Bosnia with photographer Gilles Peress.

Picture Projects also produces unique websites and interactive installations for cultural institutions including The Women's Museum, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Tenement Museum. For corporate clients such as IBM, Picture Projects tells their stories and history through immersive, nonlinear narratives.

Though our approach is technologically savvy, Picture Projects is defined by its commitment to creating innovative web-based tools for social and political reform.


The Directors

Alison Cornyn
is a founding partner of Picture Projects. She is an artist with extensive experience in interactive and web design and in building online communities. She produced an international, online dialogue for The New York Times project Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace (1997). It was the first website to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has taught graphic design at City College and guest lectured about digital documentaries at New York University and other institutions. Cornyn has exhibited video and installation work in Europe, South America, and the United States. She recently curated b/t*, a new media show at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida (1998). The exhibition will open at the New Arts Center as part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival in April 2001.

Sue Johnson
worked as a documentary photographer before meeting Cornyn, a fellow student, at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Johnson's photography examines the impact of economics on rituals within different cultures including quinciñeras, migrant workers, pilgrimages, marriages, and debutante balls. Her interactive installations weave together her images and collected sounds, and have been exhibted in Europe and the U.S. She has taught photography and new media at Harvard University and City College and has lectured on digital documentaries in Mexico, Sweden, Holland, and throughout New York City.