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IMAG(IN)E
Summer Photography Programme
IMAG(IN)E is a summer photography program designed to empower high schoolers in the Bronx to use film photography not only as a means of self-expression but also as a way to critically engage with and represent their communities. The inaugural program was held in 2024 and co-led by Collin Riggins, Max Diallo Jakobsen, and Majora Carter. Over six weeks (July 27 – August 31), we explored the stakes and potential of film photography, by providing each student with their own 35mm film camera, hands-on training in photography, as well as teaching the historical context of the black photographic tradition. Our cohort of high school students attended Saturday classes, completed photo assignments, went on field trips, and met with professional artists. They learned to shoot with their cameras, develop their own film, how to make prints, and proudly presented their work in a group exhibition on September 14th. The program lives on and is speerheaded by Collin Riggins. To learn more: www.imagine-bx.com.
Description
Peace is not simply the absence of conflict; it is the presence of self-awareness, agency, and the power to shape one's narrative. In the truest sense, peace is when an individual feels that they have the space to imagine themselves fully, to explore one’s place in the world with confidence. This sense of peace, rooted in agency and equity, was the driving ethos behind IMAG(IN)E.
Despite New York’s rich cultural landscape, access to the arts is unevenly distributed, and the Bronx, with its vibrant history, has long been a victim of economic neglect and limited creative opportunities. Art programs, particularly in mediums like film photography, remain scarce. In launching IMAG(IN)E, we set out to challenge these disparities by placing film cameras into the hands of high school students in the Bronx. Our goal was to empower them to reclaim their stories, offering a platform in spaces that often overlook or misrepresent their communities. The work that emerged from this program reflects the complexity, pride, and resilience of a borough that deserves to be understood on its own terms.
At the heart of IMAG(IN)E was a commitment to slow, deliberate storytelling through analog photography. Film demands patience, attention, and reflection. This slower process encourages students to consider, with care and intention, how they want to represent themselves and their neighborhoods. The curriculum blended technical instruction on 35mm cameras with explorations of the black photographic tradition and exercises that invited students to reflect on both their personal and collective identities.
IMAG(IN)E was anchored in the legacy of black photographers who have used their work to contest oppressive narratives and offer new visions of black life and black living. Students were introduced to artists like LaToya Ruby Frazier, Deana Lawson, Dawoud Bey, Zanele Muholi, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, and so many more. They engaged with some of these artists in-person, like when Dawoud Bey visited our class. They also engaged with their works in museums, like when we organized a private walk through of LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work at MoMA and visited the Whitney Museum’s special collections. These figures not only expanded the students' understanding of photography as an art form but also inspired them to see the camera as a tool for documentation with nuance, care, and authenticity. In this way, the film camera became a lens through which they could view and better understand their personal histories, families, and their broader Bronx community.
The program culminated in an exhibition on September 14th where students presented their work in front of family, friends, and the wider community.
CYPHER: IMAG[IN]E PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION
What does it mean to channel one's individual voice while contributing to a collective roar of resistance? What does it mean to think and work within a tradition of photographers who refuse to take our representation for granted?
For the past two months, artists Angel Rivera, Yomeris Alvarez Basilio, Karmanie Minnis, Shiah Versey, Sydney Del Cid, Pedro Hernandez, Kmari Thompson, Aishah Nimaga, Eliana Gonzalez, and Ariana Lorenzo have been wrestling with these questions as the inaugural cohort of IMAG(IN)E — a summer film photography program for high schoolers in and around the Bronx. With this year's theme being “the black photographic tradition through flux," these artists have been closely following the work of contemporary photographers who challenge the reductive narratives attached to their communities, people, and environments. Their references span from Braddock to Harlem to Gaza to Bamako. And they remind us of the urgent need to define our communities and experiences, because in many ways, voices in power already have.
The artists featured in this photographic cypher have taken up this mantle to visualize their homes: the Bronx and its surrounding communities. Treating the camera as a tool for radical exploration, they express the heartbeat of their communities through their own unique lenses. They pull on and actively retool the aesthetics of landscape photography, portraiture, and self-portraiture to create a beautiful chorus of aliveness that resists easy placement into any fixed genre. When placed in conversation with each other, these artists demonstrate that there is no one way to define a community, affirming the depth and truth that often gets erased in mainstream discourse.
This is the Bronx. At least how some of its most impassioned, young, creative minds see it. We hope you feel the visual poetics they are throwing down. We sure do.
-- Collin Riggins, Max Diallo Jakobsen, and Majora Carter