POLITICAL THEATRE

About the Project:

For two years Mark Peterson photographed the sociopolitical landscape of the United States and the spectacle that was the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He traveled the country attending rallies, debates, town halls, and caucuses. He met voters and candidates alike and with a keen eye, he observed the drama, comedy (and often the farce) of the American political machine.

In the forward to the book, John Heilemann says “No journalist covering the 2016 election in any medium more beautifully and harrowingly captured the campaign and our politics more generally than Mark Peterson. In Political Theatre, [he observes] the transparent fakery and moments of accidental authenticity, and the abject chaos that has transfixed and often mortified anyone paying attention... The result is a series of images that are vivid, stunning, surprising, and searingly revealing. They are also deeply true.”

My Role:

From 2014 through the 2016 election, Mark Peterson served as MSNBC’s sole visual voice for our digital political coverage. I commissioned him to photograph all of the political campaigns and related photo essays for the entire election cycle. With a singular visual voice, the stories unfolded week by week as we built a much larger and much deeper statement on our political system, the electoral process, the media, and the cultural identity of the country at a moment in history.

This body of work was produced with Mark’s tenacity, intelligence, acute understanding of the absurd, and above all else his empathic eye. It culminated in the book Political Theatre (see the video below).