This month, AS220’s Paul Krot Community Darkroom is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary! The Darkroom has a long history at AS220 as one of the first programs to spring up in the newly renovated Empire Street building. Established in August 1994 it has included both digital and traditional photography and offered educational programming to the community, including students and AS220 Youth members. It is actually the only publicly accessible darkroom in Rhode Island!
All month long, AS220 Media Arts has been hosting various events and celebrations. At Action Speaks we are proud to do our part to shed light on this wonderful community resource. On Wednesday, April 16th at 7pm we will be hosting a panel discussion, “Photographing the Edge: Documentary Photography Now” at Aurora (old Roots Café), 276 Westminster Street. As always, the panel is free and open to the public!
We also invite you to a pre-panel Cocktail Party Fundraiser before the panel at Aurora, from 5:30-7pm featuring photographers, Huascar Robles, Miguel Rosario, and Mary Beth Meehan, and music by Jesus Andujar. You will be able to meet the photographers and hear the inside story of their work while helping sustain programming and resources for the Darkroom. Tickets are $100 each or $150 for two and all proceeds benefit the Darkroom. Click here to reserve a ticket>
PANELISTS/PHOTOGRAPHERS INCLUDE:
“Hope in Haiti” Huascar Robles
Huáscar Robles is a journalist, photographer and critic who tackles topics of culture, urbanism and politics. Besides being a correspondent after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake for various media outlets, he produced “The Invisible Coast”, a short documentary on Haitian immigrants in Puerto Rico. He is a columnist for Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Día and has published articles and photographs in Chicago Tribune’s Hoy, Acts of Witness and other media in United States, Puerto Rico and Brazil. He is a 2009 Urban Media Fellow of the Institute for Justice and Journalism and a 2009 Ochberg Fellow of Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. He currently works on his first book on Haiti’s five-year after analysis and will commence Graduate Studies at New York University. Huáscar Robles was also AS220’s Artist in Residence in May 2011. During his artistic residency, he created a series of black and white darkroom photography on Rhode Island’s Latino community, titled “El país bajo mi piel: Culture, Memory, and Resistance”, which became part of the permanent collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
“Cinco Latinos” – Miguel Rosario
Miguel Rosario is a photographer and educator who has been a long-time AS220 community member. He launched his photographic career and passion through AS220 Youth and the Paul Krot Community Darkroom. He has been a dedicated mentor and Photography Instructor at AS220 Youth, AS220’s youth program focusing on teens under the custody and care of The State of Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Miguel Rosario’s photography capture daily life in the Dominican Republic. it’s people, identity, and culture. Routines, nostalgia, and immigration are recurring themes in his subject matter. His work is a sensible glimpse at the heart of the Dominican experience. Miguel Rosario was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and spent part of his childhood between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. As a photographer, he travels between Providence and the Dominican Republic, where the changes in his childhood town of Monción have inspired him to document the growth of Dominican culture through his photography.
“City of Champions: A Portraits of Brockton, MA” – Mary Beth Mehan
Mary Beth Meehan is a Providence-based photographer whose current projects deal with immigration, culture, and community. Her goal is to create a connection with the people of those communities, whose identities are often obscured by economics, politics, and race. Meehan’s work has been exhibited and published widely, including in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Washington Post; has been honored by Pictures of the Year International and The National Conference for Community and Justice; and was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. She is currently working on a second long-term project entitled City of Champions: A Portrait of Brockton, Massachusetts, which responds to her changing, post-industrial hometown. That work earned her a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship Merit Award in 2009, and also received financial support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Meehan teaches Documentary Photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and is director of the Documenting Cultural Communities program at the International Charter School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
We hope you can join us!