© David Frohman
David Frohman is an artist and storyteller specializing in documentary photography. Born and raised in Philadelphia by his mother and her family, Frohman is a product of the ‘war baby’ generation that characterized the 1940s and 50s. As a photographer, Frohman is largely known for his involvement in and documentation of The Farm community in Lewis County, Tennessee from 1971 to 1983. Led by teacher and former U.S. marine, Stephen Gaskin, and his supporters, The Farm was a community dedicated to teaching sustainable practices related to living off of the land. Its main mission focused on establishing a communal living space dedicated to “nonviolence, spiritual consciousness, and vegetarianism.” Over the course of Frohman’s career, his work on The Farm has been published in countless newspapers, magazines, television shows, and films around the world, and exhibited in galleries in Nashville. In 2014, Frohman’s photographs were featured in the “Intentional Communities” exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum. He has since donated 50 images which remain part of the Museum’s permanent collection.
“I slowly began to recognize that whatever we were doing was different, yet welcome in some respects by other youth of the time and even by the media who recognized a peaceful group of our generation trying to do something to make a difference in society.”
To learn more about David Frohman’s work and background, take a look at the interview we conducted with Frohman here.
“There are those who observe, who happen to be at the right place at the right time and see something and capture it on film or digital. Then there are those who are participants: those who are aware and engaged in what is going on around them, and—whether they are active in that scene or not—they are engaged, sometimes invisibly to the others, but always there, at a time when that ‘decisive moment’ becomes their’s for the taking.”