Instructor M. Wesley Ham, and Teaching Assistants Roy Baizan, Oluwatobi Aremu, and Kevin Nestor surprised the Thursday Teen Photo II class with selections from their own deeply personal bodies of work.
Ham’s personal work deals with the ideas surrounding family and legacy. Currently based in Brooklyn, his photographs are heavily influenced by his experiences growing up in Louisiana.
Aremu, born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Atlanta. A student in the New Media Narratives Program at the International Center of Photography, his video artwork “Negotiations” beautifully speaks to the theme of black masculinity and social power dynamics.
Baizan is a Chicanx documentary photographer and arts educator from the Bronx whose work focuses on music, community, and family. A graduate of the Visual Journalism and Documentary Practice Program at the International Center of Photography, his journey started in the ICP at THE POINT classroom.
Like Baizan, Nestor is also an alum of the ICP at THE POINT photography program. His work to date is a response to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s derogatory comments about the Mexican people. Nestor’s photographs primarily centers around positive depictions of his own family in the Bronx and Mexico in order to dispell racist stereotypes.
After the presentations, there was a vulnerable moment with one of the teens during the student’s group critique. “I’m crying because I’m so inspired by everyone else’s story.”
Photos by Abigail Montes