Center for Religion & Civic Culture

Matt Gainer is a documentary photographer whose work explores social and political movements, religious identity and community, and tensions between people and the environments they occupy — with particular focus on California and the American West. He is currently working on a collaborative book about a cult in the Mojave desert, and photo-essays about grassroots organizing around the immigration debate and religious pluralism in Los Angeles. He is also doing fieldwork for a project supported by the California Council for the Humanities entitled Exploring Community, Worth and Life on the Slabs.

Mr. Gainer is Director of the University of Southern California Digital Library, and research associate at the USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture. A portfolio of his work can be viewed at http://www.mattgainer.com.