Zynab Cewalam

The images in this series were captured by Zynab Cewalam, an Egyptian-American fine art film photographer based in New York City. Her work focuses on portrait-style photography in the most honest way. She is inspired by the softer, empathetic side of humans contrasted with her love for the alluring side of fashion. Cewalam started her career wandering into the fashion world, where she craved more creative direction behind the scenes. Her love for film photography began in the lab room, where she stood alone with her images, developing and printing her work as she envisioned them. She works with Film By Two, which was created to venture into the world of storytelling through different mediums: film photography, digital photography, and filmmaking. Dedicated to creating a world beyond reality while maintaining a sense of realism, Film By Two believes that every story is worth capturing to be remembered.

Malikah

Malikah is a global collective of women and nonbinary people committed to building safety and power for ourselves and our communities. Over 10 years, we have trained tens of thousands of people in over 30 cities across the globe in self-defense, economic empowerment, healing, justice, and organizing.

With every self defense technique, we deconstruct the notion that our bodies are not our own. With every movement, we begin a healing process with our bodies—one where we finally have full control over our security and space. We affirm the diversity of our community and recognize that we are all on unique journeys. For some women and gender marginalized people, self-defense may be a tool for healing and connection with our source of power and body. For others, we are motivated to be trained in self-defense because it will ultimately be a tool for self-preservation.  Whatever the case may be, Malikah’s spaces are meant to be affirming for every part of your experience.

Queens Museum

The Queens Museum is dedicated to presenting high quality arts and educational programming for the people of New York, and particularly the residents of Queens, a uniquely diverse ethnic, cultural, and international community. The Museum’s work honors the history of our site and the diversity of our communities through a wide ranging and integrated program of exhibitions, educational initiatives, and public events.