“A photography program held at the Boogie Down Grind in Hunts Point this summer invited Bronx teens to explore their neighborhoods through the study of film photography. Earlier this month, the program showcased the students’ work that went on display at an exhibition at neighboring venue Bronxlandia.
Imag(in)e: The Black Photographic Tradition Through Flux was started by Collin Riggins, a former student of Boogie Down Grind’s owner Majora Carter, and his colleague Max Jakobsen through a fellowship opportunity at their alma mater, Princeton University.””
“Collin’s project Sites of Memory blends portraiture and landscape photography to poetically express the daily practices of intimacy, remembrance, and ongoingness that flourish from Harlem to the South Bronx. Working closely with his subjects, Collin asks “how folks leverage rapidly changing environments and, maybe more importantly, each other to feel, to remember, to mourn, to live, to remain, to transcend.””
“When Collin describes Cotton Stain as a visual monograph that intervenes into the historical narratives of race and cotton by ‘resisting dominant capitulations of cotton to chase its memory in all its depth,’ I hear him describing the work of creating a counter archive,” Womack said. “Collin always understands artists, makers, and community members as theorists of their own lives and futures.”
“Although our goals are revolutionary, our work spawns from a long tradition of Black radical education,” Collins adds “We’re looking at the Freedom Schools, which decided in the summer of 1964 to create entirely different schools for Black students so they could learn frameworks for how to resist and how to function in daily life.”
“I think that above all, the amount of emotional labor required in any project like this can be a lot. I feel like this is often the case when I use personal materials as a way to make sense of broader structures. You always want to ensure that you handle these materials with great care, while also embracing vulnerability. It can be hard. Nevertheless, when you are able to strike a balance, I believe you can find some of the most fertile ground for creation.”