Community art projects, both large and small, can become vehicles for social change. Artists discuss their longterm projects, how they began, how they involve their communities, and what advice they have for other artists who wish to engage their own communities in art projects. Panelists will discuss projects on local communities and the impacts they’ve had, far and wide.
Presenters: Russell Frederick Cassandra Giraldo Nina Robinson Mark Strandquist
Moderators: Emma Raynes
Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Water Street
Community art projects, both large and small, can become vehicles for social change. Artists discuss their longterm projects, how they began, how they involve their communities, and what advice they have for other artists who wish to engage their own communities in art projects. Panelists will discuss projects on local communities and the impacts they’ve had, far and wide.
Russell Frederick is a photographer from Brooklyn, New York and is of Panamanian heritage. His global view and keen understanding of the human condition informs his compelling photography. Frederick discovered his love for photography after an introductory course at the International Center of Photography almost 20 years ago. Unable to afford a continuing education at the institution, Frederick taught himself by becoming a voracious shooter and spending countless days in book stores studying photography. His personal portraiture and visual activism projects have been primarily shot on black and white medium format film. Within the past decade, Frederick has had exhibits and presentations at the Brooklyn Museum, Photoville, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the MOCADA Museum in Brooklyn, the Reginald Lewis Museum in Maryland, the Visa pour l’Image photo festival in Perpignan, France; the Reportage festival in Sydney, Australia; the Shanghai International Photo festival in Shanghai, China; the Lodz photo festival in Lodz, Poland; the Angkor photo festival in Angkor, Cambodia; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Besides his photography work, Frederick is also an educator who has taught and been on panel discussions at NYU, the International Center for Photography, the School of Visual Arts, and Columbia University.
Cassandra Giraldo is an independent photojournalist and now associate producer at VICE News on HBO based in Brooklyn, New York. As a freelance newspaper photographer, she contributes locally to various outlets including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. While she loves the rush of a deadline and spot news, Giraldo is dedicated to working on long-form stories relating to youth, education, public school systems, and coming of age. When she’s not at work, you’ll find her either at Columbia Journalism School finishing her masters degree in investigative journalism or on the streets of Brooklyn documenting youth after school for her Instagram project @afterschoolproject. Her work has been exhibited internationally and recognized by various photo organizations including Getty Images, Instagram, NPPA, American Photography, The New York Times, and the Eddie Adams Workshop where she was awarded the Education Week award. Instagram added her to a list of Emerging Photojournalists in 2015 and she was named one of 30 Under 30 Women Photographers by Photo Boite in 2016.
Nina Robinson is an award-winning documentary photographer and educator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Including precisely what is necessary, her work has been described as tender, cinematic, and visceral. It has been featured on international platforms including National Geographic, The New York Times and TIME Lightbox. She covers stories in the American South, Midwest, and East coast.
From timeless portraiture to varied editorial, commercial, and documentary assignments, Robinson continues to break the visual prejudices of race, gender, class, and age. She is also deepening her focus on memory, family, death, and reflection—how they live in the world, and what they might look like to each of us.
Robinson developed a groundbreaking and innovative phototherapy program in 2015 with senior citizens at William Hodson Community Center in the Bronx. Through the use of photography, older residents were able to openly explore personal and social issues. She continues similar social workshops and programming centered around photography across the country. Robinson is committed to public art, making photography in and with communities, to expand knowledge, build relationships, and diversify visual narratives.
“One of the greatest things we can do is to use the gifts within us to help others to see or engage in ways that heighten their frequency levels. Encouraging them to build upon what they already have within them.”
Mark Strandquist has spent years collaborating with incarcerated men, women, teens, and those in re-entry to create public art and advocacy projects. At the core of his practice is the belief that those most impacted by the criminal justice system are the experts that society needs to listen to. By connecting those directly affected with a multitude of community experts and political stakeholders, we can utilize art to create change on personal and systemic levels.
His projects range from working with incarcerated youth to train the entire Richmond Police Department; to connecting incarcerated men and women with thousands of people through interactive public art installation; to creating teams of lawyers, artists, and formerly incarcerated individuals to help facilitate free legal clinics that have cleared the records of thousands of individuals.
His projects have received multiple awards, fellowships, national residencies, and reached wide audiences through media outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, and VICE.
Emma Raynes is the Director of Programs at the Magnum Foundation where she supports independent photographers to cover under-reported stories and imagine innovative means for distribution and engagement. She is also a member of the faculty at the International Center of Photography in NYC. Emma holds a B.A. in Art History and an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the New School for Social Research and received a Hine Documentary Fellowship from Duke University.
This website was made possible thanks to the generous support and partnership of 