We All We Got by Carlos Javier Ortiz (Archive)

Carlos Javier Ortiz is raising funds for his photography project which chronicles youth violence in the US. This project will only be funded if at least $10,000 is pledged by 1/18/14. To help: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

Since 2006, photographer Carlos Javier Ortiz has committed himself to documenting the depredations of youth violence in Chicago and other U.S. cities in his project, "Too Young To Die." Seven years after he first began his undertaking, the project's denouement, a book titled We All We Got ... , will finally collect in one place photographs, essays, and interviews humanizing the victims, survivors, perpetrators, friends and family of those irrevocably affected by the scourge of youth violence.

In 2011, Carlos Javier launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to help finance the first phase of the project. The funds, together with other grants, propelled the project forward and sustained its momentum, opening many doors. Since then, his photographs have been exhibited in universities, museums, community spaces and in various Chicago high schools. He has also donated prints to many anti-violence/youth development nonprofits with which he works closely, as well as students and educators seeking to better understand the problem at hand.

With your help, We All We Got ... will allow these stories to transcend the electronic confines of the Web and become a tangible, lasting artifact, one that will help spur a broader conversation on a difficult but pressing topic. Moreover, Carlos Javier hopes that the book will inspire similar projects in other cities and cultivate understanding and sympathy along the way. The photographic exhibition from this project will continue to travel throughout the United States and around the world.

Bio: Carlos Javier Ortiz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and raised in Chicago. Since studying photography at Columbia College Chicago, he has focused on documenting vulnerable, disadvantaged communities across the United States, Mexico and Guatemala. His projects have been supported by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation, the Open Society Institute, the Chicago Community Trust, Individual Artists Program, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Carlos Javier's photographs have been displayed in galleries and museums around the world. His work is currently in collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York. His work has been published in Ebony Magazine, Le Monde Magazine, GEO, among other international print, broadcast and online media.