In community-based art and participatory photography programs, artists collaborate with people whose lives directly inform the subject matter. Photography is used to express collective meaning, help participants find their voice, and build community. Panelists will discuss their work in the field and the challenges they face.
Presenters: David Dini Alice Proujansky Sam Barzilay Danny Peralta
Moderators: Lorie Novak
Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Pier 5 Uplands
In community-based art and participatory photography programs, artists collaborate with people whose lives directly inform the subject matter. Photography is used to express collective meaning, help participants find their voice, and build community. Panelists will discuss their work in the field and the challenges they face.
David Dini is a photographer and the founder of Umuzi Photo Club, a Johannesburg based social enterprise that brings together disadvantaged youth, media practitioners, and development professionals to produce and distribute multimedia that advocates for social change. He is currently a candidate Master of Public Administration student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Alice Proujansky is a documentary photographer and writer covering family labor: birth, work, motherhood, and identity.
She is now working on a Hard Times are Fighting Times photo book, photo essays about culturally-responsive birth work, and photography and visual literacy workshops.
Proujansky has taught photography since 2002 and was the lead curriculum writer for On Sight, Aperture’s photography and visual literacy curriculum. Her first book, Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids was published by Aperture.
Proujansky grew up in Greenfield, MA. She graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Photography and Imaging and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Sam Barzilay is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Photoville. Prior to founding United Photo Industries and launching the United Photo Industries Gallery, he was the Director of the New York Photo Festival. In his dual capacity as curator and festival organizer, he has had the pleasure and privilege of curating photo exhibitions and lecturing on current trends in contemporary photography as far afield as China, Greece, USA, and Japan. He has served as juror, nominator, and reviewer for the Prix Pictet, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Houston FotoFest, and the New York Photo Awards, among others.
Danny Peralta is a photographer and Director of Arts & Education at THE POINT Community Development Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth development and the cultural and economic revitalization of the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. ICP at The Point offers free black and white photography classes to youth ages 9-18.
Lorie Novak is an artist and Professor of Photography & Imaging at NYU Tisch School of Arts. She is the co-curator with Deborah Willis of the exhibition cit.i.zen.ship: reflections on rights,part of the For Freedoms 50 state initiative, on view at Photoville and Tisch School of the Arts. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally, and she is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Photography. She is also Director and Founder of Future Imagemakers, a social practice project at NYU Photography & Imaging, offering free digital photography classes to NYC area high school students. Novak’s installation Random Interference was exhibited at the first Photoville in 2012.
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