Pictures Exhibition Documenting the Lives of California Farmworkers Opens at Shields Library – UC Davis Library

A touring exhibition of practically 90 works by labor photographer and journalist David Bacon providing a window into the lived experiences of farmworkers launches on Saturday, Sept. 13, on the University of California, Davis. Organized by the UC Davis Labor and Community Center in partnership with the artist, the exhibition shines a light-weight on the experiences, power and resilience of farmworkers in Northern California.

The exhibition, In Camps, Under Trees and Evicted: Farmworkers Living Close to the Line in Northern California, commemorates the sixtieth Anniversary of the 1965 farmworkers’ strike. Bacon’s work will probably be on view on the Peter J. Shields Library at UC Davis by way of Dec. 14, 2025. The works are displayed on partitions reverse the primary entrance close to the courtyard, and within the massive research house on the east finish of the primary ground (the alternative finish of the constructing from the doorway).

A group of black-and-white images taken over 35 years, the exhibition depicts the lived experiences of farmworkers and others dwelling near the road who’re, within the artist’s phrases, “virtually invisible in the picture most people see of Northern California.” The primary exhibition is accompanied by chosen gadgets from the library’s Archives and Special Collections, which incorporates intensive historic materials associated to agriculture, California historical past, and social and political actions of the twentieth century.

In bringing these faces and voices into the general public eye this month, the exhibition remembers the deep roots of the farm labor motion. On Sept. 8, 1965, Filipino grape staff led by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, or AWOC, organized a strike in Delano, California to protest poor pay and dealing situations. On Sept. 16, the National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez, voted to hitch the strike. Within a yr, the 2 organizations would merge to kind the United Farm Workers, a union that continues to prepare migrant farm staff to advocate for higher wages, dwelling situations and authorized protections to this present day.