[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kate Hinds: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kate Hinds, filling in for Alison Stewart. If you were walking through the city last night, you might have caught the first night of Manhattan hinge that you just heard on the news cast, the twice-annual phenomenon in which sunset lines up with the Manhattan street grid. If you didn't notice the sunset, you may have clocked another phenomenon that accompanies it. The crowds of New Yorkers and tourists with their phones and cameras out on sidewalks and crosswalks trying to get the perfect pic of that unique sight.

Tonight is the second chance to witness the solar marvel as well as the streets full of photographers. Later this week, there will be another celebration of photographers. This Friday marks the return of Photoville for its 13th year. The outdoor photography festival was founded as a way to showcase perspectives from New York and around the world. This year the festival features exhibits in all five boroughs but its main home is in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The installation spans a variety of local stories including a pictorial Encyclopedia of New York City Theatre by New York Times photographer Sara Krulwich and this very radio station will even have its own spot with an installation titled "100 Years of WNYC". There will also be plenty of international stories told including from one of my next guests Ismail Ferdous, the Dhaka-born photographer's installation titled Sea Beach displays photographs of Cox's Bazar, the City in Bangladesh. Hi, Ismail.

Ismail Ferdous: Hello. Hi. How are you?

Kate Hinds: Good, how are you?

Ismail Ferdous: Good, good.

Kate Hinds: Joining him to discuss more of what this year's Photoville has to offer is Photoville's co-founder and executive director Laura Roumanos. Hi, Laura, welcome back to All Of It.

Laura Roumanos: Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here.

Kate Hinds: Laura, what was the initial mission of Photoville, and how has it morphed over the last 13 years?

Laura Roumanos: It's definitely morphed. We really started it 13 years ago with an idea of how do you make something that is so beloved and universal accessible for everyone. We all love going to museums and galleries and that will never change, but what we were seeing was there were so many amazing photographers and visual storytellers and community workers and folks who were telling really amazing stories but weren't able to access those galleries or museums.

We had the most amazing opportunity with the Brooklyn Bridge Park as they were developing their park when they just said, "Hey, you have this idea. We're shipping containers with open-air exhibitions, how about you do this in our developing Park and bring people down here?" That's what we did back in 2012. This is our 13th year here in New York City. We even did one in Los Angeles in 2019, but it keeps growing and expanding. Just the last few years, we've even gone outside of Brooklyn Bridge Park to all five boroughs, so definitely involved.

Kate Hinds: Talk about the five borough aspect. What will people find in each of the boroughs? Is there a theme in different boroughs?

Laura Roumanos: It's always about stories. We're so proud to have this wonderful partnership with NYC Parks at the beginning of the pandemic when we thought, "Well, people don't want to be in shipping containers." We reached out to the parks department and said, "Hey, could we access some of your parks?" They're like, "Let's go for it." We're in Staten Island. We're in the South Beach. They're in Staten Island, but also Alice Austen House, a wonderful, wonderful museum and space in Staten Island. They have four exhibitions. We're also partnering with Hudson Yards.

We also actually have an amazing activation at the Seaport, we have eight exhibitions. Actually, usually, we don't have a theme, we always talk about inspiring and community stories, but at the Seaport this year, our theme is actually food sustainability. We have an indoor exhibition called Leaked Recipes. We may even see some interesting leaked recipes and leaked emails, and that's really fun, but also wonderful exhibition outside looking at coffee, looking at Black chefs in New York City. We also have exhibitions in the Bronx, out in Jackson Heights in Queens, and also in Harlem, which is where I live in partnership with Schomburg.

Kate Hinds: I want to bring Ismail into the conversation. Is this your first year at Photoville?

Ismail Ferdous: Not really, it's my third year in Photoville, after the first exhibit I had in 2015.

Kate Hinds: How did you get involved?

Ismail Ferdous: This time or the first time?

Kate Hinds: The first time.

Ismail Ferdous: That time I was awarded with a grant from Instagram and Getty Images from my project. It was the first inaugural grant from Instagram to work on social documentary project and part of the award was to have an exhibition of my work in the container of Photoville in 2015.

Kate Hinds: Were you familiar with Photoville before you got involved with it?

Ismail Ferdous: I was. I was because some of my fellow colleagues and artists exhibited there before, but yes, my first experience was being part of it. At that time, I was not living in New York. It was incredible actually. It changed I think after that a little bit and I think it came back to the original model. I feel like living in New York City now for eight years and going there every year, it's quite an interesting experience with Photoville.

Kate Hinds: You have a history of going as a viewer and not just as an exhibitor.

Ismail Ferdous: Yes. Also, I exhibited I think in 2017 on the fence. They have this fence exhibition goes around Brooklyn Bridge Park and maybe some other part of the city as well. Also, I think in 2018, I was part of a panel with National Geographic Magazine. That year, I did a story on race and diversity, culture and story for National Geographic. We had a panel with the picture editor, Jennifer Semel. I think some other new photographers were also there. Yes, I got engaged in many different scopes with Photoville previously.

Kate Hinds: Later in the conversation, I want to talk about what you're presenting this year, but before we do that, Laura, I wanted to ask you, there are many installations that present different views of New York and its history. What's one that you're really excited to see, and for other people to interact with this year?

Laura Roumanos: Oh, it's like asking me who's my favorite baby.

Kate Hinds: We won't tell.

[chuckles]

Laura Roumanos: Of course, you won't tell. We have a lot of really wonderful stories. I will be remiss to talk about-- let's talk about Queens for a moment, because this is actually in Travis Park, and it's actually work from a young photographer, Angelica Briones, who I actually reviewed her work a few years ago. I remember going, "This is so special." It's talking about immigration, and it's really special.

It's a two-part documentary project that takes place both in Mexico and in New York City. What I'm really excited about, the fact that it's actually in a wonderful neighborhood, Travis Park is one of the most gorgeous parks in the city. They all are fantastic. This is really special that is happening in Jackson Heights with such a diverse community. We also got so many other stories in Brooklyn Bridge Park, at the Seaport, we talked about the Black chefs, but there's a lot there that people can discover.

Also, what I think is so important about photography is stories are universal. Even if you look at something that's happening in Bangladesh or something that's happening in Italy, or in Australia, you can relate to it, because our stories are universal, and we do share these experiences together.

Kate Hinds: Another installation, and we talked about this a little at the beginning, features the work of New York Times photographer Sara Krulwich, titled On Stage and Off. Tell us about it.

Laura Roumanos: Well, Sara, I think for all of us who have read the New York Times, if you've ever read a review of any theater show in the Times or any feature, you've seen Sara's photos, and she is such a legend. When the New York Times pitched us a few ideas for this year, and they were like, "What about Sara's work?" I don't even think we let them finish their sentence. We all agreed.

There's some amazing highlights of her work that a lot of these photos have never been seen in the paper of the New York Times. That's why we love photos. I think theater lovers are going to love this. I'm a theater geek myself, so to me, it's very special, but I also think it's a really wonderful way for people discover this wonderful photographer, and also this amazing theater community.

Kate Hinds: What are some of the images people will see in that exhibit? Describe what we'll be looking at.

Laura Roumanos: Oh, I don't know if I can-- I want people to come down. I would say there's a lot of these kinds of quiet moments in theater, A lot of the time with theater and dance, what we see in the paper are really dynamic photos. You'll see some things that you've never seen before and you'll be surprised. We want people to be surprised.

Kate Hinds: I want to talk to Ismail right now a little bit about your installation. I'll get back to New York in a moment, but your installation is called Sea Beach, and it features photographs of Cox's Bazar, the Bangladeshi Beach City which is a major tourist destination, and as I understand it, the largest natural beach in the world. What is your relationship with Cox's Bazar?

Ismail Ferdous: My relationship with Cox Bazar actually is very long and it's like this intimate memory of my first vacation with my parents going there at the beach. Actually, it was also my parents' first beach vacation. From there growing up in Bangladesh and most of my adolescents life, I was going there with my friends and families for vacation exertions. Then later on becoming a photojournalist or a documentary photographer, I photographed the Rohingya refugee crisis over four years and being there for months and weeks, and then not really going to the beach which was just over the hills, a few miles away.

Kate Hinds: Because there's a camp, a refugee camp for--

Ismail Ferdous: Yes. By that time I was already living in New York City and every time I was going back, I was going for a magazine or newspaper assignments or some documentary work on the migration refugees. I was not focusing on the beach or even not going to just enjoy the beach. I had a little bit of time during an assignment back in 2020, downtime, waiting for some permission to photograph. I went to the beach with my assistant and we started photographing. That's how we started this series of work, which has been now five years.

I always say it's like this work born from this crossroad of vastness and intimacy that I live in different parts of the world now. I worked on a lot of emotionally heavy lifted stories but coming back to the story of my origin where I started. It's looking at the beach and enjoying it and how documentary photography can amplify those feelings of me being away and coming back to it. I'm very excited actually, be part of this Photoville, especially it's outdoor.

One of the greatest moment from this installation exhibition is in New York, we have a lot of Bangladeshi living here, almost 100,000 Bangladeshi people. I think it'd be interesting for them to see the exhibit. I will also have my book launching, it's also Sea Beach, after the panel talk on June 1st at 1:00 PM. Yes, very excited, very looking forward to it. I gave you a long answer, but it's just like a narcotic coming out of excitement.

Kate Hinds: I hadn't even thought about the city's Bangladeshi community and them interacting with your work. What did you want to capture in your photographs about Cox's Bazar when you went to the beach with your camera? What were you thinking about?

Ismail Ferdous: I was not thinking about anything. I just wanted to see what's going on and photograph it. It's a body of work, a series of work I created that I really wanted to free myself from all the rules and constructions and limitation of documentary photography. I just wanted to photograph ordinary life of people. I wanted to make people feel that, oh, it looks like vacation and just no hocus pocus, just very ordinary moment of life. I didn't have any really an agenda that I need these and that particular things to photograph.

Literally I was just, what I would discover, explore during my walk. I would go there each trip for 10 to 14 days. Then I'll just spend two hours maximum in the beach in a certain time of the day, particularly in the midday to photograph whatever happens in between. We see in this series of pictures, everything is between the sunlight and the light reflects from the beach.

Kate Hinds: I want to talk more about that, but we need to take a quick break. We will be back in a minute with Photoville's Executive Director Laura Roumanos and Photographer, Ismail Ferdous. Stay with us. This is All Of It.

[music]

Kate Hinds: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kate Hinds in for Alison Stewart, and we are speaking about Photoville, the exhibition of public photography that opens this weekend and is installed throughout the city. We're here with Executive Director Laura Roumanos and New York City based Bangladeshi Photographer, Ismail Ferdous. Before the break we were speaking Ismail about your installation called Sea Beach and the residents and the refugee camp and your approach in photographing all of it. I wanted to ask Laura, what do you appreciate about Ismail's work and what drew you to it?

Laura Roumanos: Ismail talked about his history with us at Photoville. Goes without saying that we are huge fans of his work and respect him as a photographer, but as a person. I discovered this body of work last year actually because of Leica camera. Ismail is actually the recipient of a grant, the Oskar Barnack Award. He received $40,000 I think it was Ismail.

Ismail Ferdous: £40,000. Yes.

Laura Roumanos: Yes, £40,000. I remember seeing this just blown away. They're the most beautiful images you will ever see, and they're outdoors and Ismail's actually not only going to have an exhibition at Photoville. He's talking about his work at one o'clock on Saturday in Brooklyn Bridge Park. He's also going to be featured in our evening celebration Under the Bridge, which I hope you all come down to, it's free and it's him and a few other special guests and amazing artists that we're all going to be highlighting their work.

Then he also has an amazing show at the Leica Gallery in the Meatpacking District. We're only showing a selection of these photos. There's going to be a lot more [laughs]. It was just really lucky for us to be able to share his work to a greater public. It's inspiring. We're going to have hundreds of New York City school kids, middle and high school students coming next week for our education field trips who are also going to see it. For us, it's such a great range of people who are going to see this work, and I'm just really excited. It is mind blowing. It's beautiful.

Kate Hinds: I just want to shout out your website so that people who are listening that will want to check it out. It's Photoville, P-H-O-T-O-V-I-L-L-E.nyc. There's tons of information about the Photoville Festival, which opens this weekend. Of course, we mentioned earlier one of the exhibits is WNYC, which is celebrating its centennial. Listeners of this show know that we were founded in 1924, in part because of our public song project. The 100 years of WNYC exhibited Photoville was co-curated by WNYC's Archives Director, Andy Lanset. I'm curious how does the archival history of this radio station fit into the umbrella of Photoville?

Laura Roumanos: We have a long history of showing so many different types of stories from contemporary work. We're looking at the safety of photographers and a free press, but we really love showing historical work. Our partnership with the Municipal Archives of New York City, with the Schomburg and this is not something new. What we do know is people really appreciate history and it's really important to see where we came from.

I think this is going to be one of those very popular shows because as we know, archival shows are always super interesting. I think, hopefully, this will also have young people discover a piece of history that they will be able to appreciate. That's also why it's really important for us for things like public radio, for libraries. We also have a grant for schools, especially for public school teachers, because for us, these public institutions, we want to keep going for a really long time. Celebrating the history about culture is important.

Kate Hinds: How do you make the history of radio come alive in a photograph exhibit?

Laura Roumanos: Well, I would say that it's people, it's objects. It's great photos. One of our promo photos, where it's looking at someone with one of the old TV cameras, and it's looking at WNYC, as you're thinking about public radio, but a lot of things were photographed. That actually was quite surprising how much was photographed. If you're going to promote something, you need visuals. You look at the WNYC website, it's full of visuals, and you're a radio station.

I think that visuals is so important for people to understand history, understand context. Context is everything. Our educational program, for us, visual media literacy is everything. It's not just about a caption, it's about also teaching our community, our young people how to read a situation by looking at it, not just with words and hearing something.

Kate Hinds: That's so smart. Ismail, you're also an instructor at the International Center for Photography. What do you enjoy about teaching?

Ismail Ferdous: I think I always see teaching as an opportunity to share my experience. Then I also like, when I was a student, and I also think that the best way of learning from people's experience, I think that's something that is always unique. Depends on the instructors. I think it's one of the best way also of giving to the medium, like the medium I worked on photography, and I think it's very profounding to have this opportunity to share. That's what I like about teaching.

Kate Hinds: What are some common questions you get about photography from students?

Ismail Ferdous: Oftentimes, I think one of the first question I would get is how did I decide to be there or to photograph that? I think this is very most common or maybe, how did you end up there It is the same question. I said, it's the curiosity because it's the personality. It's what you're interested in, what story you want to tell, or what you would like to show. I think the photographer's work, the artist's work also show them as their personality or what they're interested in life.

Kate Hinds: You're largely self-taught, right?

Ismail Ferdous: Yes. This is also a very interesting thing that I never went to a photo school or a course. That's why I also find it very interesting, a very like, I think, something exciting that I didn't go to traditional photo school, but like teaching. That's why I wanted to frame it as an experience. Of course, I encourage people to go study photography.

Kate Hinds: We just have a couple of minutes left. Laura, I wanted to ask you about a couple of other things happening at Photoville this year, and I can't resist asking you about this one. The free dog portrait studio known as the Paw-Pup Pawtrait Studio, which is a chance to get your dog a free portrait. My two questions-- Actually, I have three questions. What is this? How do I sign up, and can I bring my cat?

Laura Roumanos: [laughs] I'm so excited that you ask these questions so we're obsessed. This is the brainchild of the most wonderful photographer Kholood Eid who is actually a wonderful-- She's a photojournalist, but she loves dogs and she has created this amazing business where she's photographing dogs primarily, but in the most beautiful situation. Last year, we showed her work, her actual photography, but then she also did a photo shoot, which we're going to be doing again this year. It's really fun. To be honest, I actually ended up commissioning her at the end of the year to photograph my dog and my daughter for our holiday photos.

For us, it's really important for us to value photographers. They're doing an amazing job and service. We hope that all of you come down to Photoville. You have to sign up. It's first come, first serve. For those of you who actually really value your fur pup and animal or cat, your fur baby, think about hiring Kholood or other photographers who are doing an amazing, amazing thing to capture our stories and our families. Come on down. It's just also so much fun to watch. She just is like the dog whisperer. There is definitely that and then so much more. I can mention a few more things.

Ismail Ferdous: I would like to add a little bit to this because Kholood is an incredible photographer, incredible photojournalist working for National Geographic Magazine, the whole district newspaper, but also when she came up with this project or this idea, it's phenomenal. I think it's a great opportunity for people to come and get their pet's picture taken by her.

Kate Hinds: Also, see photography in action with subjects who may not always obey every photographer's command. It's a bit like wrangling cats, I would imagine.

Laura Roumanos: My dog is the most, he's so naughty, and he doesn't listen to anyone and for some reason, he posed for her. My daughter too, by the way.

Kate Hinds: I bet they're both beautiful.

Laura Roumanos: It's great. Honestly, there's things like that. We also for the first time actually put out a call for artist to submit their artwork. We've created five photos standing. We actually paid artists, some are photographers, some are illustrators, and so spread throughout the village will be opportunities to stick your head into a great artwork and take a photo. We also have some photo puzzles. Oh, Cinthya Briones Santos is an incredible photographer is conducting a cyanotype workshop, a free cyanotype workshop on Saturday afternoon. Both Adobe like her, have wonderful demonstrations and workshops throughout the entire weekend. Again, free.

Kate Hinds: It all kicks off this Saturday, correct?

Laura Roumanos: Yes, absolutely.

Kate Hinds: Photoville runs from June 1st to 16th. It's mostly centered in Brooklyn Bridge Park, but there are installations all across the city. Check out the website at photoville.nyc. I've been speaking with Laura Roumanos who's Photoville's co-founder and executive director, and Ismail Ferdous a Bangladeshi photographer who's installation is called Sea Beach. Thank you so much for joining us.

Laura Roumanos: Thank you.

Ismail Ferdous: Thank you.

Laura Roumanos: Have a great day.

Kate Hinds: You too.

 

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