On Thursday, June 15th, The Bronx Junior Photo League will host the opening reception from 4PM-7PM of ‘Journeys: Immigration Stories‘ including a multimedia presentation at 5PM by the students.
This exhibition is the culmination of the 12-18 year old students’ photography and journalism after school program at the Bronx Documentary Center where the exhibition will be on view from June 15th through June 25th.
As part of their instruction, the students photographed and interviewed members of The Bronx’s immigrant community including a Vietnamese nun, “…an exiled Russian journalist…” and a Dominican artist among others.
Last year, Bronxite and New York Times journalist and photographer David Gonzalez wrote:
“This is not a feel-good exercise about some imagined naïve childhood vision. Programs like the Bronx Junior Photo League and ICP at the Point show that young image-makers are keenly aware of the world around them and how they wish to portray it. They know an outsider might see only menace or pain. They see a neighborhood.
Older, more experienced photographers might learn a thing or two from these young people. I did in 1979 when I returned to the Bronx after graduating from Yale and taught photography to fourth-grade students at Community School 61, which loomed over the mountains of rubble on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx. The images my young students took were not of the despair and destruction outside, but guided by the love and hope that still beat in their hearts. They showed everyday scenes decades before “Everyday” became a staple of Instagram.”
Please come support our youth, especially tomorrow during their opening reception!
The Bronx Documentary Center is located at 614 Courtlandt Avenue at East 151st Street in Melrose.
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