Dupont Underground debuts World Press Photo exhibition

Every year since 1955, the World Press Photo Foundation has organized a worldwide photography exhibition that highlights groundbreaking, stunning photography with themes that vary from sports to climate change to issues in the Middle East. Through November 26, visitors in Washington, D.C., will be able to get an up close look at many of these photographs in Dupont Circle’s Dupont Underground art space. According to Washingtonian, this is the World Press Photo Foundation’s largest U.S. exhibition ever.

In the subterranean former trolley tunnel, there are now 13-foot-high projected images blown up with contributions from National Public Radio and award-winning photographers, such as Pulitzer Prize winner Stephanie Sinclair. Some of the many striking images include rhinos being poached in South Africa, an inclusive rugby team in Canada, Usain Bolt racing at the Olympics, and monarch butterflies fluttering in the snow in Mexico.

On some of the themes touched on by the exhibition, Robert Meins, the executive director of the Lightscape Foundation, told Curbed DC, “You may not feel comfortable … That’s sort of the power of some of those stories ... They reflect that complexity, and they make people think. You come in with your own ideas, and you leave knowing it’s too complex to see things in black and white.”

To put together the exhibition, the Lightscape Foundation worked with many think tanks, universities, embassies, and other organizations based here in Washington, D.C., working with both the left, right, and middle to tell stories from around the world.

General admission tickets start at $15. Get your tickets on Ticketfly.

Alongside the World Press photo exhibition, the Inter-American Development Bank will also host a three-month partner exhibition, titled “Dis/Place,” with photographs of leading Latin American and Caribbean photographers. The exhibition is located in the bank’s IDB Cultural Center.