A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial, a global survey of contemporary photography and video, opens at the International Center of Photography on Friday, May 17. The exhibition will feature 28 emerging and established artists from 14 countries whose works speak to and illuminate the new visual and social territory in which image making operates today. Artists include Nayland Blake, A.K. Burns, Thomas Hirschhorn, Elliott Hundley, Gideon Mendel, Wangechi Mutu, Sohei Nishino, Lisa Oppenheim, and Nica Ross, among others.

Starting from the premise that most photography is now produced, processed, and distributed in digital form, A Different Kind of Order explores thesometimes unanticipated consequences of this shift as revealed in the work of a wide range of international artists.

Among the artists represented who traverse the realms of still images and video is Gideon Mendel, whose pictures of flood victims around the world map the social, emotional, and economic consequences of natural disaster. Because he has photographed the aftermath of flooding, the people in his close portraits have had time to reflect on the new realities of their lives. And because disastrous floods are indiscriminate, the people in the photographs he has taken over the last several years in India, Haiti, Pakistan, Australia, Thailand, and the UK come from all walks of life.

Bihir, India: Chinta Davi and her daughter Samundri Davi after an excursion to buy cooking oil in the flooded village of Salempur. In Bihar alone, more than 515 people have died and at least 2 million people in the province now live outdoors as a result of the extreme monsoon flooding.

The diversity of their situations is democratized by the stylistic formality of Mendel’s square format. Mendel said in an interview last year,  “My intention is to depict them as individuals, not as nameless statistics. Coming from disparate parts of the world, their faces show us their linked vulnerability despite the vast differences in their lives and circumstances.” Mendel has created an awareness of what lies ahead for a large segment of humanity, as flooding due to climate change becomes an increasing factor—a largely unanticipated outcome of Hurricane Sandy last fall.

A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial opens Friday, May 17 and continues through September 8, 2013. International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY. Information.

Friday, 7 pm: ICP presents a Triennial Performance by Nica Ross. Using the glass-box pavilion of ICP's School in Grace Plaza, Nica Ross and collaborators from Joshua Light Show will stage a spectacular live-mix video performance during the opening of A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial. Free.

In cooperation with ICP Associate Librarian Matthew Carson, the exhibition will also include an installation of approximately 100 recent photo books,which testifies to the extraordinary boom in self- published and small-press photo books now occurring around the world.

Tuesday, May 21, 7 pm: The ICP Lecture Series presents Gideon Mendel. HBO Auditorium 1100 Avenue of the Americas. Admission is free. Reserve tickets online. Future events.

Gideon Mendel (b. 1959, South Africa) is a photojournalist who was considered one of the young generation of "struggle photographers" documenting change and conflict in South Africa in the lead-up to Nelson Mandela's release from prison.