Myriam Abdelaziz

Myriam Abdelaziz is a French-American photographer born in Cairo, Egypt. Her career started in corporate marketing seven years before she decided to change gears and pursue a profession in photography, her lifetime passion. Abdelaziz graduated from the International Center of Photography in 2006 and has been based in New York City ever since. In 2011, she joined the female Middle Eastern photo collective, ‘RAWIYA’ (‘She who tells a story’). Abdelaziz’s work tells the stories of its participants. Her inquiry into the tales of people takes her around the globe searching for narratives that overcome physical and cultural barriers and often reveal what we have in common: glimpses of solitude, hope, insecurity, dignity.

Rich Blint

Rich Blint is the 2016-2017 Scholar-in-Residence in the MFA Program in Performance + Performance Studies in the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute. He is co-editor (with Douglas Field) of a special issue of African American Review on James Baldwin (Winter 2013); contributing editor of The James Baldwin Review; and curator and co-curator, respectively, of the exhibitions The First Sweet Music (2014) and Bigger Than Shadows (2012, with Ian Cofre). Professor Blint is presently at work on his book project, Trembling on the Edge of Confession: James Baldwin and National Innocence in Modern American Culture. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at New York University, and has held faculty, research, and administrative appointments at Columbia University, Barnard College, Hunter College, and the Murphy Institute at the Graduate and University Center, CUNY.

Laurel Golio

Ruddy Roye

Ruddy Roye is a Cleveland-based documentary photographer known for his coverage of race relations in America and the diaspora at large. He has over fifteen years of experience and specializes in editorial and environmental portraiture as well as photojournalism.

Michael Wichita

United Photo Industries (UPI)

United Photo Industries (UPI) is a New York based nonprofit organization that works to promote a wider understanding of, and increased access to, the art of photography.

Since its founding in 2011, UPI has rapidly solidified its position in the public art landscape by continuing to showcase thought-provoking, challenging, and exceptional photography from across the globe. In its first seven years, UPI has presented the work of more than 2,500 visual artists in gallery exhibitions and public art installations worldwide.