There have been 1,589 days between the time my father’s life was taken from us and the moment I sit down to write this draft. With each version, I recount the days when he became the 23rd unsolved hit-and-run homicide in Massachusetts, pronounced dead at the scene. A perpetrator is walking among us, free.
This life-altering tragedy reshaped my understanding of safety and justice, forcing me to navigate a reality fractured by grief and unanswered questions, to keep living as the axis of love and violence collides. All the while, I am trying to make sense of what remains when a daughter loses her father in such a sudden, stark way.
In the aftermath of my father’s homicide, I began this body of work. It arises from an unrelenting need to understand and give form to loss—a way to reconcile evidence with helplessness, fact with raw emotion.
Over the past four years, my artistic practice has become both an act of endurance and of reclamation, where creation itself restores agency to a survivor’s story. During this time, photography became my sanctuary.
Winslow Gray Road ultimately embodies my journey through grief, toward healing, to reveal how art can transform trauma into a visual language when words are not enough.
Artist Bios
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Melinda Reyes
Melinda Reyes is a Massachusetts-based photographer deeply driven by social justice. After receiving a BFA from RIT in photography, she traveled throughout the US woking on various documentaries and, 10 years later, earned an MSW at Simmons University. She fuses both professional paths, using documentary photography to initiate awareness, especially in vulnerable populations. Her work has garnered national and international recognition in both solo and group exhibitions, books, and magazines. This current series has been featured in Lenscratch, was a Top 200 finalist in Critical Mass, won 1st place in the documentary category of the 25th JMC awards, participated in the CENTER’S Portfolio Reviews in Santa Fe, and welcomed into multiple group exhibitions, books, and magazines.
Organizations
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Photoville
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation.
Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
Winslow Gray Road
Featuring: Melinda Reyes
Locations
ON VIEW AT: #11
View Location Details Download a detailed map of this location Brooklyn Bridge Park – Emily Warren Roebling Plaza1 Water St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
This location is part of Brooklyn Bridge Park
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The views and opinions expressed in this exhibit are those of the exhibition artists and partners and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Photoville or any other participants and partners of the Photoville Festival.
