Mr. Tisdale is the founder of the Harlem World Magazine, which highlights the latest news and culture of Harlem.

En Foco presents Sonia Louise Davis‘ tracing(s) belonging(s) exhibition series at the Aguilar Public Library in New York. Davis is an up and coming photographer and also a researcher for the upcoming PBS documentary “Through a Lens Darkly“. En Foco is a non-profit organization that supports contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures.

Davis makes her personal statement for this series:

“Over the past year and a half I have been making images in and about Harlem with a 4×5 monorail camera. I’m drawn to the physical shooting process, moving slowly through the streets around my apartment in an attempt to weave my own story into the visual fabric of my neighborhood. I take Harlem as my subject and context, and my practice is both documentary and autobiographical. Drawing on collective memory and family history, I’m interested in framing the personal past in this mythic and everyday place. The objects featured in the still-lives belonged to my grandparents and hold personal sentimental value. As temporary constructions on the streets of Harlem, they become physical reminders of the legacies of the past as well as absent portraits of sitters long gone.”

Click here to see Sonia’s portfolio.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 12 from 2:00 to 4:00pm

Artist Talk:
Saturday, May 12 from 1:00 to 2:00pm

Location:
Aguilar Library/NYPL
174 East 110th Street (between Lexington & Third Avenues)
New York, NY 10029
(212) 534-2930

Hours:
M & W, 11:00-6:00pm; Tu & Th, 11:00-7:00pm;
Fri & Sat, 10:00-5:00pm

For more information about this event, click here.

]]> http://ddfr.tv/2012/05/sonia-louise-davis-tracings-belongings-exhibition-at-nypl/feed/ 0 http://ddfr.tv/2012/05/capturing-kentucky-memories-with-linda-holmes/ http://ddfr.tv/2012/05/capturing-kentucky-memories-with-linda-holmes/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 17:24:59 +0000 admin http://ddfr.tv/?p=3492

Journalist Linda Holmes greets filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris with a large satchel containing her precious family photographs, news clippings and memorabilia.  “I’m telling the world this, but I haven’t told all my family members”, Ms. Holmes reveals when she visited the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow (DDFR) at Harlem Stage.

Ms. Holmes begins her story with her great-great grandparents’ photo dating back to the 1840s when slavery was still the law of the land in her native Kentucky. Ms. Holmes took a great sense of pride looking over the photos and accomplishments of her family. She smiles as she takes us back in time to visit her grandparents’ home in Kentucky, “…every summer we would go see Mama and Papa.”

“I love this photograph because the men are so handsome and the women are so beautiful,” exclaimed Ms. Holmes as she presents her parents’ wedding photo. Holmes goes on to relay the story of her determined young mother traveling far from home to receive proper education, and her father becoming a successful optician with his own office in New Jersey.

Ms. Holmes concludes, “As we share our stories, we see the similarities and it is creating a diaspora of community ’cause it’s UNITING!”

KOFI PARE, “A Photographic Essay”

“’Kofi Pare’ is an art exhibition that utilizes vernacular photography to represent the spirit of communities. The images explore the importance, the essence and the spirituality of village life and its lasting impression on the contemporary and the global.”

“The exhibition is a tribute by Seth Kwasi Dei, a prominent entrepreneur and art collector, for Kofi Pare, a small cocoa farming village in the Eastern Region of Ghana, where he grew up. Kofi Pare, a community of 3,000, is named after one of its founding fathers, a migrant cocoa farmer from Aburi, who bought the land from the chief of the nearby town of Akantin in 1912.”

“Featured in the exhibition is a timeless collection of photographs of the entire village some of which date back to the early 1900’s, when the village was founded.  The images evoke narratives, dialogues, and the personality of Seth Kwasi Dei and his village. The exhibition also includes video documentaries on Seth Kwasi Dei and his influence on his village, the art community and the nation as a whole.”

“’Kofi Pare’ is co-curated by Michael Sowah, Michael Martey and Jennifer Mensah under the academic direction of Prof. Lyle Ashton Harris, a renowned artist, curator and professor at New York University.”

For more information, visit deicentreghana.org.

KOFI PARE, “A Photographic Essay”

May 17^th, 2012 – June 21^st, 2012

Opening Reception:

Thursday, May 17^th, 2012 at 6:30 – 9:30 pm

No. 7A Ninth Street, Tesano, Accra

info@deicentreghana.org

Award-winning photographer Jules Allen will give a special seminar on street photography at the School of the International Center of Photography. Mr. Allen, who teaches at the Queensborough College Department of Art and Design, has done various films and projects across the U.S. to West Africa.

The visual artist shares his experience and perspective on capturing photographic moments on the streets of New York City. For more info, visit the ICP website.

Jules Allen Seminar

Photographers Lecture Series
The School at ICP
1114 Avenue of the Americas
@ 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Tel: 212-857-0001

To view Jules Allen’s portfolio, click here.

Rev. Dr. Patricia A. Singletary. Photo by Ozier Muhammad for New York Times.

Ozier Muhammad is a photojournalist in search of the new scoop. He turned back to Harlem for inspiration and found religious leaders creating impacts on local neighborhoods. Mr. Muhammad’s work is featured in the New York Times article, “Portraits of Harlem’s Clergy.”

Rev. Earl Kooperkamp. Photo by Ozier Muhammad for New York Times.

“’It is an intriguing place that is a laboratory for artistic expression,’” said Mr. Muhammad… ‘A cultural cauldron for Latino and African-American expression and, of course, with all the historical benchmarks like the Harlem Renaissance.’”

Rev. Jose Roberto Gardara Perea. Photo by Ozier Muhammad for New York Times.

Not only did Mr. Muhammad find great inspirational stories from the clergy, but also found out the true spirit of community and spirituality.

“Though he said he has ‘wavered on religion and wondered if it truly served the needs of the people,’he was surprised by what he found. ‘I was inspired by many of the people I photographed,’ he said. ‘The way they defined their mission and understand their congregation and its needs, and by extension linking up with the greater community.’”

Click here for full New York Times article.

Here’s more info on Ozier Muhammad.

“The photograph of Hughes and his second wife, Jane, was taken around the turn of the century in Yorkville, where Hughes settled after the war. The approximately 5-by-7-inch photograph of Nathan Hughes, who is not in uniform, but is wearing a Grand Army of the Republic medal, is the first original image of a 29th USCT member the library owns”.

“Kathryn Harris, Library service director, said a friend of the library contacted her and said that an image of Hughes was available from a dealer in Georgia. Harris contacted ALPLM executive director Eileen Mackevich, and donors — the Marks and Salchi families of Chicago — were found to purchase the image for the Library”.

“The only thing that could be better was if he was a colored soldier from the 29th in uniform,” Harris said.

For the full article click here.

For more information on this photograph click here

New York Daily News

Associated Press Article

Published April 24, 2012

“Culled from the Municipal Archives collection of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, the photographs feature all manner of city oversight — from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings.

The project was four years in the making, part of the department’s mission to make city records accessible to everyone, said department assistant commissioner Kenneth Cobb. ‘We all knew that we had fantastic photograph collections that no one would even guess that we had,’ Cobb said.”

Journalist A’lelia Bundles reflects on the 1916 Emancipation Day Reunion of formerly enslaved persons and how the images she discovered had a particular effect on herself and others. Ms. Bundles continued her search as her curiosity grew to find the photographs of ex-slaves taken on that day. Here is an excerpt from her article, “Four Free Women: 1916 Emancipation Reunion”:

“I couldn’t stop staring at the photo. Four elderly black women, ‘all older than 100, at a convention in the District in 1916,’ said the caption in last Friday’s Washington Post…Within a few minutes of online research, though, I discovered two more photos taken on the same day in 1916 by Harris & Ewing at an Emancipation reunion.  As the official White House photographers of the early 1900s and then the nation’s largest photo news service, they rarely snapped shots of African Americans.”

“I have, however, found out more about the reunion. The Washington Post ran at least six articles between September 23 and November 6, 1916 about the activities at Cosmopolitan Baptist Temple. ‘Colored people of the District are cooperating in efforts to make the affair a success,’ the Post reported. ‘Arrangements have been made to have vehicles of all kinds ready to carry the aged folk about the city.” Another article announced that ‘five thousand free dinner tickets will be distributed among the colored churches of Washington to be turned over to those who attend the fifty-fourth convention of former slaves and former owners.’”

For the full article, click here.

Visit her on Facebook at A’Lelia Bundles and at Helping Ourselves.

“A Choice of Weapons: The New Renaissance Artists,” photography exhibition opens in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Gordon Parks birth.  The opening reception takes place April 25, 2012 from 6 pm to 8:30PM and will include remarks from Honorary Gordon Parks Committee Chairperson: Saundra P. Thomas from WABC-TV. The event is hosted by 1199SEIU Bread & Roses Cultural Project, African Voices and SAVAE, Inc.  Other programs will run  from April 25, 2012-May 30, 2012.

Opening Reception RSVP http://bit.ly/I1QQsT

Open to the public on Wednesday May 16, 2012 at 6pm there will be a free “Artists Talk” with featured artists: Accra Shepp, Bas Clark,  Builder Levy, Clymenza Hawkins, Collette Fournier, Fikisha Cumbo, Francks DeCeus, Delphine Fawundu, Howard Moss , Jamel Shabazz, Jasmine Murrell, Ka-son, Francelle Figuaro, Kerika Fields, Leroy Henderson, Lisa Russell, Lolita Parker, Jr., Marcia Wilson, Mel Wright, Mirielle Liong-A-Kong, Mirlande Jean-Gilles, Nathan Yungerberg, Obari Cartman, Ocean Morisset, Opal Adisa, Osca Solis, Renaldo Davidson, Shante Cozier, Shawn Escoffery, Tumani Onabiyi.

1199SEIU Bread & Roses Cultural Project, African Voices and SAVAE, Inc. presents:

“A Choice of Weapons: The New Renaissance Artists”

1199SEIU Gallery

310 W. 43rd Street

(Between 8th & 9th Ave.)

For exhibit viewing, call: 212-261-2210 or 2211

For exhibition info contact:

212-865-2982 (African Voices) or 718-314-0766 (SAVAE, Inc.)

For further information, contact:

Bonita Savage 212-603-0026/bonitas@1199.org