General Information: Overview: Who We Are: Peter "Kuku Sama" Cunningham

PETER CUNNINGHAM recently returned from China where he is teaching Chinese photographers and completing his STILL FILM entitled Cultural Evolution. This might seem a long journey from his first paid job as a photographer in 1973, when, for $25 he made Bruce Springsteen's first pictures at Columbia Records and later did the same for Madonna. Peter learned to be a professional photographer creating images for famous performers in music and theater, he did this for 15 years until the birth of MTV made the field less interesting.

At the same time he learned to remain a passionate amateur from photographer Adger Cowens who taught about seeing not objects in one's camera, but perceiving objects as the light that is bouncing off them, mixing it with your feelings and history and mythology, and and responding from your gut. Peter also learned from Henri Cartier-Bresson who he was privildged to assist in 1975. The two traveled every day for a month to New Jersey to document what HCB considered the prototypical American state. My job was to talk to everyone so Henri could concentrate on seeing. The New York Times gave Henri it's lead op-ed space on the day PBS aired the show

Also in 1980, Peter began studies with Bernie Glassman at the Zen Community of New York. His first public exhibitiion, "THIS IS IT? was held in the cafe sponsored by ZCNY; that little cafe evolved into The Greyston Bakery famous for cakes and cookies and for revivifying people with difficult histories. Peter's travels and friendships among Zen practitioners and teachers in Japan, Europe, The Middle East, and The United States have been a great blessing and influence on his life and work. His trip to Japan with Bernie and Peter Matthiessen to visit the ancestors of Bernie's teacher, Maezumi Roshi, resulted in the publicaton of "Nine-Headed Dragon River"; Peter has helped document the migration of Zen Buddhist practice from Japan to the West. After Maezumi Roshi's death in 1995 the practice, while retaining it's traditional form in many places, also evolved into new American/European forms. Bernie Glassman took his students into the streets or to sit meditation in Auschwitz-Birkenau and has now created The Peacemaker Community.