Ian Veras, just sing, 2024. Digital inkjet print, 16 × 20 in. Studio Museum in Harlem; Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community Collection, ETW.2024.15.2

— The Studio Museum in Harlem announces its presentation of the photography exhibition Something in the Water: Expanding the Walls 2024, showcasing the work of the sixteen artists in this year’s cohort of the Museum’s teen photography program. This latest edition of the annual exhibition, presented online, explores themes of place, space, and personal change, and will be accessible at expandingthewalls.studiomuseum.org from July 31, 2024, through July 30, 2025.

For almost twenty-five years, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community has been a cornerstone program of the Studio Museum in Harlem. The program teaches photography to teenage artists based in New York City through workshops, gallery and museum visits, and discussions led by contemporary artists. For eight months, participants engage with photographs dating from the Harlem Renaissance to the present. The archive of famed photographer James Van Der Zee (1886–1983) provides an entry point to studying works from the Museum’s permanent collection by contemporary photographers such as Dawoud Bey, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Texas Isaiah, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, providing a rich intergenerational understanding of photography. Within this framework, Expanding the Walls participants define their artistic practices within a broader context, explore the creative history of Harlem, and strengthen their relationship to community and place.

This year, Expanding the Walls welcomed students who live across Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens, and whose educational backgrounds range from homeschooling to attendance at prep and public schools. The 2024 participants are Celestia Altalune, Johnna Bagley, Fiona Chen, Isabella de la Cruz, Zenab Fofana, Simeon Glance, Minna Guerrero, Amunet Jones, Keila Merette, Kevin Minchala, Sofia Montesdeoca, Zemi Moreno-Billingsley, Nancy Nivillac, Diego Pacheco, Ian Veras, and Sarawar Zahan.

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, said, “Each of these sixteen young photographers has beautifully captured what it means to navigate change, whether of the urban landscape and communities around them or the personal transformations they are living through. They do so while finding ways to focus their lens on the quotidian moments they share among their families, their peers, and their city. It is an immense joy to help bring their visions to the public.”

Chloe Hayward, Director of Education at the Studio Museum in Harlem, said, “The photographs in Something in the Water: Expanding the Walls 2024 are a testament to the critical nature with which the artists are making sense of the world around them. The creative energy that reverberates in their photographs connects these artists to each other, Harlem, and the world beyond. We are so proud of their work and all they have achieved during their time with the Studio Museum in Harlem.”

In Something in the Water, the artists call out to the city as if it is an old friend they have not seen or spoken to in some time. Their photographs lend a new perspective to the flux that is emblematic of the cyclical nature of cities. With a camera in hand, each of these photographers recounts, reconsiders, and reckons with the city’s transformation by capturing the fleeting moments of their adolescence and their shifting relationship to place.

Something in the Water: Expanding the Walls 2024 is organized by Jayson Overby, Assistant Curator, Studio Museum in Harlem; with Ally Caple, Expanding the Walls Coordinator, Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Expanding the Walls 2024 participants.

Support for Expanding the Walls

Expanding the Walls and youth programs are made possible with support from the Keith Haring Foundation Education Fund; Joy of Giving Something; Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation; Hearst Endowment Fund; and by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Trust. The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Learning and Engagement programs are supported by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund; Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation; May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply grateful for Donna Van Der Zee’s continued support of Expanding the Walls.