Documenting Dissent: Dallas Photographer's Protest Exhibit is A Sign of Our Times

Dallas photographer and documentarian Danny Hurley isn’t afraid to cover every corner of the political spectrum. As a college student in the '80s, he knew early on he wanted to capture the world changing around him.

“It was a KKK rally,” he explains. “Some people, college kids, were going to protest the KKK, who were rallying around the courthouse for something I can’t remember. That was kind of the bug.”

Hurley has since photographed many more protests, including as a contributor to the Dallas Observer. His lens has seen the gamut of modern political discourse — Black Lives Matter, Kennedy conspiracy theorists, the Westboro Baptist Church, and even the recent No Kings Protest are all represented in his portfolio.

His favorite works from 2020 onward have been compiled into a nine-minute video called Sign of Our Times, which will make its official debut at Kettle Art Gallery’s Viva La Revolution exhibition on July 19. “Official” is the operative word here, as Hurley has already done guerrilla pop-up screenings at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Fourth of July fireworks show at Fair Park.
“I had a really good reaction at Fair Park, by the way,” Hurley says. “I had one guy come up to me and talk about it in a bad way, but I pretty much ignored him. But a dozen or so people that came thought it was pretty cool. It was definitely worth it. There were thousands of people there to see the fireworks, so if I get a tiny percent, I feel good about that.”

His decades-long focus on protests has been sporadic, though he has noticed a pattern of when the volume of demonstrations tends to spike.

“I did it for quite a while through the Bush years. You know, it's funny. Most of our protests happened during Republican years, for some reason,” says Hurley. “And when Trump last came into power, people started protesting all the time. Really large protests. So I shot all of those.”

Hurley’s artistic goal is to explore the power of protests as a whole, regardless of the cause.

“My whole goal as a journalist is not to judge, but to photograph what I see,” he says. “Personally, I'm a liberal guy, so I tend to gravitate towards liberal protests. When I worked for the Observer, I photographed protests I didn't agree with. But as a freelancer, I'm like, I'm going to just work with you know, the people who come closest to my heart and try to help them get their message out, which is definitely Democrat, left-leaning. But even when I shot the NRA protest, I gave the pro-gun and anti-gun people equal time. Same thing goes with the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.”

Protest culture in Dallas and across the country has changed immensely since Hurley first started shooting. In his almost 40 years of experience, he cites one fairly recent development as the biggest game-changer.

“Social media changed everything,” Hurley says. “How it's organized, how it's seen, how it's given them extra eyes on everything. We’re not just relying on the press, which is great.”

Social media has also inspired a new generation of photographers to take to the streets and capture the movements of our time. Photographing such events can be both logistically challenging and potentially dangerous, but Hurley’s advice for up-and-coming photojournalists is surprisingly simple.

“Wear comfortable shoes and learn to walk backwards,” he says. “Try to design your shot and capture the moment. Don’t be in a rush."

Though his work spans across many different movements and ideologies – big and small, liberal and conservative, mainstream and conspiracy-driven – Hurley believes there is one unifying message that viewers can take away from his body of work:

“Come to a protest,” he says. “Your presence is all you need.”

Danny Hurley’s video presentation of Sign of Our Times will be displayed at Kettle Art Gallery (2650-B Main St.) on Saturday, July 19, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. More information on impromptu screenings can be found on Hurley’s social media.