Brooklyn Photo Salon
Brooklyn Photo Salon provides an exchange and interactive platform for photographers to connect with community members using photography as an active tool for social engagement/change, photographic practice and vision. Our mission is to promote inter-generational dialogue on photography by showcasing the works, practices and visions of emerging to master photographers, build a supportive community and advance the craft.
The Brooklyn Photo Salon pays homage to the salons held during the Harlem Renaissance, while actively participating and shaping the contemporary Brooklyn renaissance. Brooklyn continues to evolve as the destination of choice, especially for those engaged in the arts, creative commerce and community building. We contribute to Brooklyn by sustaining a natural creative oasis that thrives on neighborhood communality.
Brooklyn Photo Salon endeavors to highlight diverse photographers in scope of work, style, gender, age, ethnicity and experience. We search for compelling photography through research and our networks. We also invite online submissions for our review. Created by Regine Romain in 2008, our signature program is The Quarterly Salon. For the first year and a half, the Brooklyn Photo Salon was co-curated and co-hosted by Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel.
The Quarterly Salons provides a safe intimate space, where invited guests are welcomed to the sounds of music, laughter and conversation. Guests sit with plates of savory home-cooked edibles delicately balanced on their laps anticipating the evening's visual journeys. Art, the creative process, ideas, inspiration, culture, challenges, and technique are all open for discussion and debate. Our Quarterly Salons are about give and take - teaching and learning, engaging the community, receiving both praise and critique.
At each salon two - four photographers are invited to present and discuss their work for about 40 minutes each with prints or projected digital images. Since our 2008 inaugural year, over twenty-five photographers have presented. Some of our featured emerging and established photographers are Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Chester Higgins, Philippe Dollo, Teru Kuwayama, Malin Fezehai, Anderson Zaca, Geralyn Shukwit, Russell Frederick, Katja Heinemann, Delphine Fawundu-Buford, Jules Allen, Alex Webb, Jamel Shabazz, Ernesto Bazan, Bebeto Matthews, Alan Chin, Boniface Mwangi, Vladimir Syomin, and Adger Cowans.
Themes of home, loss, health, war, culture, migration, spirituality/religion, community engagement, natural disasters, identity, class and representation, are central to the work of many of our featured presenters. Our Quarterly Salons are about give and take - teaching and learning, engaging the community, receiving both praise and critique. Our goal is to improve the general public's ability to understand and critically analyze the visual media we are inundated with on a daily basis. Betwixt light and shadows, film and digital, the Brooklyn Photo Salon provides a reflective gaze on photography, while fostering a dynamic, interactive exchange and evolution between artists and the community.
Grant Recipient: Brooklyn Arts Council Re-Grant 2010
Patch Article: Photographer Hosts Salon to Honor Black History by Stephanie Keith
Addis Foto Fest 2010: Brooklyn Photo Salon Screening at First Annual Addis Foto Fest, Ethiopia
