Project Details

Roy and Shellyne met on a biweekly basis to read and discuss their roles as artists who are also engaged in community, with an eye towards struggle and liberation. They read selections from Antonio Gramsci, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, and Paolo Friere. Shellyne and Roy discussed future projects together such as a community New Year’s calendar, a community altar, etc. They talked a lot about the responsibility one carries as artists who “live in their work.”  How the community as “subject” is incorrect because there is no separation or distance between artists and their people. They are against objectifying. Roy and Shelly both have committed their abilities to building people power, as artist, workers, sons, daughters, and future ancestors.

Bios

Roy Baizan: “I am a Mexican photographer from the Bronx. I photograph my community,my family, and my environment to preserve their stories. I use the camera as a tool to build my communities up and celebrate all that they are and to deconstruct the stereotypes of them. 

The photograph is just the beginning. My work as a photo educator is crucial to the celebration of my community. Passing forward and building upon the visual languages of those before me and the next generation to come.”

Shellyne Rodriguez is a Bronx-based artist, educator, insurgent, and writer. Rodriguez works with drawing, painting, collage, and sculpture to depict spaces and subjects engaged in strategies of survival against erasure and subjugation. Her work documents the ways in which the diverse social fabric of a place is rewoven as people and cultures struggle to coexist. Third World Mixtapes: The Infrastructure of Feeling, Rodriguez’s first solo exhibition premiered at PPOW gallery Spring 2023.