Using Photography To Discover Democracy

“What does democracy mean?” It’s one of those exasperating questions, like “what is art?” Both questions remind you that the dictionary definition is less a comprehensive explanation than a placeholder for centuries-old debates.

Photographer Andrea Bruce was asked the first question in 2003 by a woman who was working as a prostitute in Iraq to support her children after her husband was killed by a bomb.

“My answer had to do with the Bill of Rights, and it made no sense to her whatsoever,” says Bruce. She had been assigned to cover the war in Iraq and its impact on civilians as a staff photographer for The Washington Post. During the following years that took her to conflict zones across the globe, that question about democracy would continue to dog her.

Bruce left the as a staff photographer in 2009 to gain more flexibility to take on long-term projects. Her work has been carried by outlets ranging from and to the photojournalism collectives VII and NOOR, the latter