The repertoire of images encompasses work created from the Bronx to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Haiti.
“Seis del Sur: Barrios \ˈbär-ē-ˌōz\,” a photographic group exhibition featuring both the vintage and contemporary photojournalistic and social documentary work of the six members of the Seis del Sur Photo Collective – Joe Conzo, Ricky Flores, Ángel Franco, David González, Francisco Molina Reyes II, and Edwin Pagán – will open at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 23, at New York University’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, located at 53 Washington Square South, New York, N.Y. The exhibit, which runs through February, builds on the members’ documentary photography in the Bronx to create a wider imaginary for the barrios and communities of Latino America.
The works featured in “Barrios” (\ˈbär-ē-ˌōz\) invoke, reclaim, and explode the notion of the “barrio” in order to reflect on community as experience and metaphor in Latino and Latin America. The exhibit focuses on a diverse social geography that has been shaped by empire, colonialism, race, and social inequality, and on the ways that language, religion and politics invite us to imagine and question lo común. The idea of comunidad is an integral part of the Hispanic/Latino diaspora in the Americas. But community is often built in the tension between home and diaspora, between stable bonds and social precariousness, and representations of Latino communities are often composed through problematic frames.
The exhibit, then, is conceived to reflect Latino subjects in the work of Latino photographers and interrogates how Latino and Latin American subjects are perceived, both within and without extended forms of community. The repertoire of images offers a two tier visual tableau that encompasses work created in the U.S. and internationally, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Haiti. The exhibit will also include the vintage black and white work the collective’s members created in the South Bronx during the 1970s through 1990s.
“\ˈbär-ē-ˌōz\” represents the largest selection of the collective’s work shown together to date.
Organized in partnership with Bronx Documentary Center and The Loisada Center, this exhibit was designed especially for the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (KJCC) at NYU. The photographers, some of whom are journalists and activists, will be available throughout this term and into the spring to talk to NYU scholars, students, and classes about their work, its history, and its political and cultural context. For more information, visit http://www.kjcc.org/event/opening-seis-del-sur-barrios/#opening-seis-del-sur-barrios or call the Center at 212.998.3650.