Photoville NYC 2021 Announces 10th Anniversary Programming Across All Five Boroughs

Brooklyn-based nonprofit Photoville announces Photoville NYC 2021, September 18 - December 1, 2021, marking the festival's 10th anniversary, and its second year bringing photography to every borough of New York City.

Supported by countless partners, including 10-year anniversary partner Leica Camera, the festival celebrates and showcases photographers and organizations from New York and around the world, and vitally broadens the possibilities of art experienced beyond museum and gallery spaces.

At Photoville NYC 2021, the beauty and specificity of New York's myriad outdoor settings become backdrops for arresting visions of multitudinous and diverging realities. Siddhartha Mitter in the New York Times writes that Photoville "is a reminder of photography's power not just to document crisis, but to help imagine better lives."

Founded in 2011, Photoville has always sought to address cultural equity and inclusion- exhibiting artists who are diverse in gender, class, and race. In pursuit of this mission, they launched the Photoville festival, activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments-nurturing a new lens of representation. Falling in the midst of a crisis that has both glaringly illuminated and further entrenched society's inequities, Photoville in its 10th anniversary year fills New York with exhibits exploring often intersecting social, cultural, political, and environmental currents-both global and hyper-local.

Prior to the pandemic, Photoville's creators were already brainstorming how-in order to truly be an all-inclusive destination for the city-they could expand to all five boroughs. With so many ways to experience art having been placed on hold, they realized this expansion would be all the more resonant to New Yorkers. The 9th Photoville NYC in 2020 set an energizing, successful precedent for city-wide exhibitions that the festival now continues in its 10th anniversary year. As the Delta variant perpetuates uncertainty surrounding indoor gathering, Photoville continues building on its legacy of outdoor presentation, also for the second year forgoing entirely its former shipping container/outdoor hybrid format to offer all art for view in open air.

Last year, Photoville reached a public of over 500,000 people with the work of over 600 photographers at various stages in their careers-giving these exciting artists large-scale exposure. As Photoville continues to fill Brooklyn Bridge Park with 45 diverse photographic visions, 30 other exhibitions cover the city from Staten Island to the Bronx. Photoville NYC is open to the public-all ages, and all pets included-free of charge-making it unlike any other photo festival in the world.

For the first time ever, Photoville presents a Community Day: Photo Festival Opening (September 18) bringing the various activities that typically occur across the festival into a single day that celebrates the photo destination's 10th anniversary. Outdoors in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the visual storytelling event will feature a family activity area, organized in partnership with the Stoop Stories, Brooklyn Children's Museum, and Aperture; the Penumbra TinType Sessions, and Photoville 10th Anniversary partner Leica Camera; pop up music and dance performances by the Haiti Cultural Exchange; exhibition tours by featured artists; photo puzzles on the lawn; a professional development educator lab; photo workshops with Leica Camera and Adobe; a Smorgasburg pop-up; and an evening screening of "10 Under 10," enlisting the New York Times, National Geographic, Pulitzer Center, and more to contribute under-10 minute multimedia programs. To end the evening, musicians from Carnegie Hall will serenade the audience with lullabies. The all-day opening event offers a festive, deliberate, and safe outdoor space for gathering around 40 ranging, eye-opening, artistic and journalistic visions.

Photoville co-founder Laura Roumanos said, "For 10 years, we've had the privilege of sharing stories of communities around the world, using the vast and dynamic platform of New York public space. Thousands of visual storytellers have challenged, informed, and entertained audiences at Photoville across the last decade, and we are proud to be able to bring, to the New York community, the insight photography can offer during this troubling time."

"Brooklyn Bridge Park is thrilled to welcome Photoville back to the Park for its 10th season," said Eric Landau, President of Brooklyn Bridge Park. "This year's show will once again display amazing exhibits across Brooklyn Bridge Park and New York City and provide an experience like no other. Photoville is one of the greatest public photography shows and a signature event in the Park for the last decade - one not to be missed."

Immersion and interactivity have always been at the heart of Photoville's success and popularity, allowing it to become the largest annual photographic event in New York City and among the most­ attended photographic events nationwide. As Photoville continues to creatively consider the necessary limits of our moment, the organization offers an abundant calendar of virtual events surrounding the festival-including artist talks and workshops, one-on-one safety clinics with the ACOS Alliance and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Professional Development Workshops with Diversify Photo, with support from Leica Camera. Educational programs include exhibitions for recipients of the Photoville x PhotoWings Educator Exhibitor Grant, an education field trip for NYC students in Brooklyn Bridge Park, virtual meet-the-artist and student photographer programs, and an educator professional development lab on September 18.

Working with more than 75 curatorial and programming partners, Photoville NYC 2021 exhibits work by more than 300 visual artists. This year's exhibitions include 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, in which Ai Weiwei's work tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father; Community Matriarchs of NYCHA, with digital platform My Projects Runway celebrating women residents of Lower East Side public housing who have contributed to transformative change in our neighborhood with portraits from Courtney Garvin and a video work by Christopher Currence-presented by Abrons Arts Center and Photoville; Diaspora on the Frontline, with Rosem Morton sharing the stories of Filipino nurses-a diaspora immensely affected by losses during the COVID-19 pandemic; TAXI: Journey Through My Windows 1977- 1987, Joseph Rodriguez's portrait of the gritty chaos and community of New York City, presented by Photoville with additional support by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; Secrets of the Whales-plunging viewers into the epicenter of whale culture photographed by Brian Skerry for National Geographic; Bronx Life, spanning four decades of David Gonzalez' documentation of street life as a Bronx native; The Last Chapter of War in Afghanistan, Paula Bronstein's work exploring the aftermath of America ending the 20-year "endless war"; Michelle V. Agins: A Retrospective of the Trail-Blazing New York Times Photographer, celebrating Agins and her ongoing commitment to the photojournalism community, presented by the New York Times; Here Is Where We Shall Stay, consisting of works by Pat Kane focusing on how Dene people in the Northwest Territories of Northern Canada are moving towards meaningful self-determination, presented by Indigenous Photograph in partnership with Photoville and Leica Camera USA; In Your Hands: Women Taking Ownership of Peace, with local women photographers elevating the visibility of women's participation in-and their essential contributions to-peace and security, presented by the United Nations Department of Peace Operations, the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, and UNWomen; An Incredible Freedom, featuring works from young New York City photographers, presented by East Side Photo Program and Photoville in partnership with PhotoWings; Rebel Vision: Black Women Photojournalists, centering the work of Black female and non-binary photojournalists to chart the liberatory possibilities of using the documentary camera as a tool for anti-racism, presented by Photoville with additional support by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; and Goodbye Salad Days: Kevin Faces Adulthood, with handmade dioramas by Traer Scott following the day-to-day of a hamster humorously attempting to navigate a quarter life crisis, presented by Photoville.

Many exhibitions will be accompanied by live and on-demand programming online for photo-lovers of all ages. Panel discussions will give added depth to many of these exhibitions, with artists and industry leaders addressing some of the most compelling topics and photo stories of the moment.

This year's programming includes a series of workshops hosted by Adobe for photographers looking to expand their skill-sets using Adobe's industry-leading software; Tabletop and Prop Stylist Robin Zachary will lead Styling Beyond Instagram, a discussion of opportunities and ways to get into the exciting Prop Styling business; eight photographers from The Everyday Projects will discuss their group project published in National Geographic about the impact of migration on women worldwide, Conversations hosted by Leica Camera USA, and so much more.

Online programming will run September 24 through October 22, and the full schedule and programming details for virtual talks, workshops, and activities will be announced August 31, 2021.www.photoville.nyc.