← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:10]
A
The photography festival Photoville is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. What started in 2011 as a handful of exhibits inside shipping containers at Brooklyn Bridge park has grown into a citywide festival with more than 85 exhibitions across all five boroughs. The festival features work by hundreds of photographers, from established photojournalists to emerging artists. And the range of subjects is pretty extraordinary. There are exhibits about immigration, wildfires and life in Ukraine, a series of portraits of trans women and gender non conforming people in the 1990s, an exhibit about community gardens in New York, and even one devoted entirely to apples. We're joined now by fotoville co founder Laura Romanos to talk about this year's festival and how it evolved over the last few years. 15 years. Laura, it's nice to speak to you again.
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B
It's lovely to speak to you. How you doing?
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A
I am doing fine. When you look back at this festival, which started as a relatively small experiment in 2011, what feels most different about
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B
the festival now, I think for us is that we've expanded throughout. We've gone beyond Brooklyn Bridge park, which is our home, and how much we love it, but we've expanded throughout the city. So there is something really lovely about the fact that people may not have even come to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Be like, oh, you did the photo up in Harlem at Jackie Robinson park, or we were just in Astoria. So it's now becoming this really wonderful New York kind of tradition. And even actually when we, our team installs in those parks in Staten island and all over the city, we've got the community who are like, yes, it's Photoville time. So that's what's really special is that we've really kind of just gone beyond a little like village in Brooklyn.
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A
What was the original idea behind Photoville?
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B
Well, the idea was that and as much as we love museums and galleries, we were finding, and this was 15, 16 years ago, we were finding that there was all these amazing visual storytellers, all these photographers, and they just were frustrated because they couldn't break into New York. They couldn't get a gallery show, they couldn't get their work seen. And we just had such a really lovely relationship with the folks at Brooklyn Bridge park who were developing their space at that time. So we kind of love the idea. My other co founders, Dave Shelley and Sam Barzelay, we love the idea of public art and showing work outside that's accessible for everyone. And so like you said, what started as a little experiment as part of the Dumbo Arts Festival, actually in Dumbo in 2011 was then kind of discovered by Brooklyn Bridge Park. That turned into our festival in 2012 and, you know, the rest is history. Fifteen years later, here we are.
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A
A lot of the work this year is very specifically about New York. What do you think photography can reveal about New York that many other art forms can't?
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B
Well, it just shows that we're such a melting pot. As you can hear from my accent, I'm not from here. I grew up in Australia and moved to New York 20 years ago. So I'm a citizen now. I find I say New York as my home. I feel so at home because it is a melting pot. There's people from all over the world who are able to kind of start in new to experiment and there's so many stories. And we actually opened last Saturday with a celebration of all five boroughs of New York called Boroughs in Focus, where we actually had an open call for photographers all over the city to submit their work. We had a curatorial committee from all over the city of amazing editors and museum curators and artists who kind of picked and selected. It was a real celebration. Brooklyn isn't one place either is the Bronx or Manhattan. So it just shows the many, many different stories that we have here and how universal it is.
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A
Our guest today is Laura Romanos, co founder of the popular photography festival Photoville. The festival is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year with over 85 exhibits across five boroughs. They'll be on view until May 30th. The festival includes everyone from internationally known photojournalists to students to emerging artists. Artists. How do you think about balancing established names with newer and lesser known photographers?
- [04:37]
B
That I think is our superpower. We actually, we've been for the last few years we've had a grant that we open up to educators with our friends at Photo Wings. And it's basically an educator exhibit grant where their middle and high school students who they display their work. So we have teenagers who have exhibitions next to New York Times photographers, photographers from the Pulitzer Center, National Geographic photographers. And that's what's so wonderful. You have people from all walks of the photographic industry and they come to actually show their work because our audience isn't the photography world. Our audience is everyday people. And that is, like I said, our superpower. And that's what makes it so magical is that we're having all these different points of views and sometimes you don't even know if they're an 18 year old who took that photo or a 53 year old and that's what's so special?
- [05:35]
A
This is of course, an art festival. But as a lot of listeners to this show know well, art is often political. A lot of the work this year engages in some pretty directly with social realities and political realities, whether it's immigration, incarceration, environmental crises. When you're putting together a festival like this, how consciously are you thinking about the political dimensions of the work?
- [06:00]
B
Every day. It's important. We're living in such interesting times, but we've been doing this for 15 years. And so for us, we have a real responsibility to show what's going on in the world, especially right now, where photojournalists and the press are under fire. And actually, for years we've been working with the Committee to Protect Journalists and our other colleagues to make sure that people really, truly understand the value of visual storytelling and photojournalism. And also it's really interesting. We do also think about, you know, we do have families who come through and kids. And I have a 10 year old and something that I really appreciate about. About. Sorry, appreciate about Photoville, is that I'm able to have these conversations with my child. And I've been doing this for years. And actually this morning, and one of the reasons why my voice is hoarse is we had hundreds of school kids this morning and we will be for the next few days at Photoville and we give them tours and we have these conversations, we introduce them to other photographers and it's important for our kids to understand what's going on. And visuals help us understand that there
- [07:10]
A
are a lot of different public spaces that Photoville has partnered with for the festival. We won't have time to run through all 90 of them, but could you highlight a few exhibits or their locations? Maybe some that are a little more off the beaten path? Let's say three, for example.
- [07:24]
B
Okay, so one that I. Maybe because I live in Harlem and so I'm biased, but we've been working with the Schomburg center up in Harlem and we have the most beautiful exhibition up in Jackie Robinson park on 145th Street. And it is called Pose Black Dance Photography from the mid 20th century. And it's the most gorgeous photographs. And I just tell everyone to go up to Harlem because there's so much going on there anyway to go visit the Schomburg. But I definitely recommend everyone go see that. We also have partnered with our friends at the Alice Austin house in Staten Island. So at south beach, at actual Alice Austin house, like take a trip to Staten island if you haven't been there's. Also a really wonderful exhibition we have here in Brooklyn Bridge park called Puppies behind Bars. And photographers Ashley Gilbertson and Ava Pillor actually partnered with Puppy Behind Bars, which is a nonprofit that actually they invited the photographers into a men's maximum security prison in New York to photograph how these men, these inmates, were actually trained dogs to be service dogs for vets for people with disabilities. And it's the most powerful, beautiful photo exhibition. But like, I mean, we have over 85 exhibitions, so there is always something for everyone. There's also an exhibition that we have that we developed with our friends at Photo Wings and the Henry Street Settlement. And it was a program called Bridging Generations where we brought together younger people with older adults. And this was about two months ago where they came together at the Henry Street Settlement and talking about their photographs, talking about their memories. And we photographed them and we now have a wonderful exhibition in Brooklyn Bridge Park. So there is so, I mean, I can go on, but like, we don't have all day.
- [09:21]
A
Photoville, the festival is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year with over 85 exhibits across the five boroughs. They'll be on view until May 30th. My guess has been been Laura Romanos, co founder of Photoville. Thanks for joining us and take care of your voice.
- [09:37]
B
Thanks, Alison. Take care. Have a wonderful day. Be well.
- [09:41]
C
Hi, I'm Maggie Smith, poet and host of the Slowdown. Each weekday I share a poem and a moment of reflection, helping you turn listening into a daily ritual. It's five minutes to slow down, pay attention, and begin the day with intention. Find it in your favorite podcast app and make the Slowdown your new daily poetry practice.