POP at NYU

Festival Opening - May 29

World Savvy's Global Youth Media and Arts Festival celebrates the creativity and vision of NYC youth artists. Please join us for the Opening Celebration!
When: Friday, May 29, 6pm
Where: NYU Commons Gallery, NYU Steinhardt, Barney Building, Ground Floor, 34 Stuyvesant Street at 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues

Phases of Existence

My middle school Pedagogy of Photography students are in a great exhibit through World Savvy at NYU. Check it out! Below is their artists' statement.

"Phases of Existence is brought to you by Bronx youth participating in Pedagogy of Photography (POP). For our piece we reveal to you our Phases of Existence through self portraiture and poetry. Our Faces become the Phases of the Moon decorated with a variety of mediums revealing our state of being. We chose to use Emergency Blankets (AKA Space Blankets designed by NASA) as a background so that you too can see yourself and remember others in our art. It is reflective like a mirror, like the Moon. It's reflection brings warmth...to migrants during their journey, marathon runners at the end of their journey, to us as we navigate our journey as adolescent immigrants and hopefully to you as you reflect on your Phases of Existence.

We are constantly reminded of how we are different especially when we talk about immigration and identity so this art is meant to show how we are united. No matter what country you come from, what religion you practice, what gender you are or prefer, what age you are, what side of the border you are on, what education you have, we can all see and believe in the Moon. What we believe might be different. Your New Moon might be my Full Moon but it doesn't matter. The Moon does not discriminate. It illuminates. It unites us not only with each other but with history itself as the moon has been revered as gods and goddess, been a part of oral history and folklore in every culture, affects earths oceans and has even guided women in ovulation and menstruation.

We believe the Moon is the perfect symbol of our journey as immigrant adolescents. We have changed. We are changing. Even if we try to stop the change, we are pulled into a new phase of our lives. It is inevitable. The Moon is always changing, morphing, altering just like us. Our friendships, our beliefs, our bodies, our connection to our culture. The Moon embraces every state and emotion that enters our being, pride, shame, emptiness, sincerity, rejection, forgiveness, methodicalness, inexperience, illiteracy, hope, love, shyness, reaching our goals, imperfection, ignorance, hiding our true selves, disappointment, maturity, uncertainty, jealousy, satisfaction, assimilation, enlightenment, appreciation and being savvy!

May the Moon and our photographic installation piece bring out the lunatic in you, the believer in you,the loner in you, the dreamer in you, the dark side in you, the poet it you, the planter in you, the harvester in you, the romantic in you, the individual in you, the unusual in you, the teenager in you, the immigrant in you, the change in you."

POP's Phases of Existence:

Artists:

Christina Aviles
Jenifer Mejia
Christopher Mejia
Irena Nilaj
Jasmine Rodriguez
Mario Staka
Juvella Tolentino
Vivia Thompson
Katya Urbano

World Savvy is also hosting a fundraising reception on Thursday May 28 at 6:00 pm at the same location, to raise support for the Global Youth Media and Arts Program in NYC. Guests will enjoy a private viewing and tour of the exhibition, a special presentation by featured youth artists, and bid on student artwork during the silent auction. Hors d’oeuvers and refreshments will be served. Tickets are available on a sliding scale from $50 to $250 at Brown Paper Tickets, online at www.worldsavvy.org
Location: When: Friday May 29, 2009 @ 6 pm Where: NYU Commons Gallery NYU Seinhardt Barney Building, Ground Fl

New York Photo Festival

I participated in the New York Photo Festival for the second year in row and it's second year in existence. The New York Photo Festival was founded in January 2007 by Frank Evers and Daniel Power in an effort to establish a world-class photo festival in the United States dedicated to the "Future of Contemporary Photography". Unlike other festivals which focus more on established masters of photography or previously produced works, the New York Photo Festival is focused on providing a platform for discovering contemporary photography through an intellectual presentation of ideas and previously unseen work.

Two of my images from Nicaragua were shown at the New York Photo Festival in Powerhouse Books in a slideshow format and one of the curators of the show even sent me an email with photographs of my images exhibited. See below.

Dear Photographer,

Congratulations! Your images were shown at the NYPH ’09 festival yesterday. Enclosed you will find installation views of your images as they appeared on the festival’s screen.

The festival is enjoying great crowds. The organisers are all grateful for your participation in this global project. Thank you again for enriching the visual experience of festival goers.
Sincerely,

William A. Ewing
Curator
New York Photo Festival ‘09
Director, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne




After 3 days of photography exhibits and lectures, two exhibits stood out the most to me as they allowed me to reflect on my passions for youth, the Spanish language, and marrying the written word with the visual image.

American Youth by the photographers of Redux Pictures launched their book and exhibit at the NYPH. A project I would have loved to have participated in had I know about it prior. Having worked with, photographed, and mentored youth how to photograph themselves for the past ten years, the photographs really hit home. It was interesting to see a solid collection of photographs of youth by a variety of photographers with different styles. In each photograph, I thought to myself, how would I have taken picture? How would the youth in the photographs have photographed themselves?



The other exhibit which I found mysteriously beautiful and omnious was titled “Tu/Mi Placer” which showed diptychs with images by Luis González Palma with words in Spanish by Graciela de Oliveira. The first line of the text was always ‘NO SERA’ followed by a statement reflecting the logic of an imbalanced relationship. The viewer read the pieces as if they were in their ophthalmologists office taking an eye exam, blinded by love.

American Photography 25

Thrilled to get the following email in my inbox...
Click here to see my winning images

April 14, 2009

Dear Katie DelaVaughn,

We’re pleased to inform you that work you submitted to American Photography 25 has been CHOSEN to appear on TRIBUTE our web gallery at ai-ap.com.

On behalf of chairperson Kathy Ryan, The New York Times Magazine, and the entire jury, I thank you for your submission and support of American Photography. This year’s distinguished jury included Stacy Baker, More; Jen Bekman, Jen Bekman Projects Inc.; David Carthas, Blender; along with our past Jury Chairmen, Gary Koepke, Modernista!; Robert Priest, Portfolio; and Fred Woodward, GQ.

I had three photographs selected.

171 images were chosen from a record-breaking 10,100 submitted to receive at least 2 votes and are therefore eligible to appear permanently on their website - where over time photographers build an online portfolio of their AP winning images and where creatives make direct contact with them. TRIBUTE is being re-designed with new search capabilities and will be re-launched in November 2009.

Here is a some information about American Photography

American Photography presents the best images by established and emerging photographers selected by an outstanding jury from thousands of entries. The collection, gathered from books, magazines, promotional and personal portfolios, offers an informed view of photography today, with images that resonate through their clearly individual point of view. American Photography is a time capsule in the making.

American Photography offers a who's who in photography, with images by Luc Delahaye, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Jean Paul Goude, Lauren Greenfield, Brigitte Lacombe, Vincent Laforet, Annie Leibovitz, Martin Parr, Paolo Pellegrin, Spencer Platt, Martin Schoeller, Stephanie Sinclair, to name a few. Work by today's masters is interspersed with pictures by photographers just beginning to make a name for themselves. This year’s cover introduces the work of New York City student, Yael Ben-Zion.

American Photography, founded in 1985, is the leading juried annual and advocate of contemporary photography in North America and the world. Regarded by creative professionals as the number one source for today's finest image makers, American Photography is the premier showcase for editorial, advertising, fine art and experimental work. With a history of presenting the most cutting-edge images, its pages have honored work by Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and William Wegman and has proudly promoted the early careers of Sally Mann, David LaChapelle, Elinor Carucci and Steven Maisel.

A few testimonials:
American Photography represents those precious times when everything goes right, and the really good stuff makes it all the way to the printed page.” -Fred Woodward, Design Director, GQ

When you consider the breadth and quality of the photographers featured in American Photography, it's unrivaled. -Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, Newsweek

Interesting, amusing, and often downright creepy, the American Photography annuals illustrate best what contemporary photography seeks to achieve: a split-second of truth. -David Harris, Design Director, Vanity Fair

American Photography is the best photography annual published in America -Stefan Sagmeister, Sagmeister, Inc.

POP at Queens Museum of Art

IMMIGRATION JOURNEYS JUKEBOX PROJECT

Listen to middle school Pedagogy of Photography (POP) students share their immigration stories through symbolic poetry at the Queens Museum of Art during Immigrant Heritage Week. POP students share their feelings as Pakistani, Jamaican, Albanian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Ecuadorian, Nigerian and Filipino youth immigrants. Inspired by their photographic installation piece, Doors of Reflection, students recorded poetry and songs about their lives. Their CD will be exhibited in a Jukebox and can be listened to as part of the Queens Museum of Art NYC Immigrant Heritage Weeks' Immigration Journey Jukebox Project.

From April 17th - 23rd the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs presents Immigrant Heritage Week, a series of events throughout the five boroughs that celebrates the history and contributions of immigrants to New York City’s cultural and economic life.

Spring Break POP Camp

We are POPin around NYC this week, cameras in hand! More details to come!

Education Across the Americas Conference

Join us on April 4th at11:20am-12:35pm in Milbank Chapel at Teachers College, Columbia University (525 W. 120th Street New York, NY 10027)

POP students will be exhibiting and presenting their work at the Association for Latin American Students Education Across the Americas Conference for the 2nd year. This will be my third year exhibiting photographs and presenting at the conference. My images of my students in both Nicaragua and the Bronx are being used as ALAS promotional materials.

We are Panel 6: Voices of Immigrant Youth: Using New Media and Technologies as tools for Self-Expression and Identity-Making

Katie DelaVaughn and Pedagogy of Photography (POP) students will present an photographic installation piece and movie entitled Doors of Reflection: Identity and the Immigrant Experience.

For more information go to http://www.tc.edu/students/alas/