En Foco celebrates 30th year

After 30 years of existence En Foco is still foundationed in discussion, mentorship, collaboration and artistic exposing of and for "minorities." Today En Foco's programs include an annual novel Works Photography award given to up-and-coming photographers, ongoing exhibitions in community venue of that kind as libraries, universities and banks and the publication of Nueva Luz a bimonthly journal dedicated to showcasing the photographic work of tribe of color. Over the span of thirty years, En Foco has exhibited 99 photographers in either the journal or in individual of the traveling exhibitions that have become part of the permanent collection (and are displayed upon En Foco's web site). With a $4500 membership pay En Foco offers portfolio reviews, access to their slide registry of the permanent collection and a subscription to the journal Nueva Luz

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En Foco's planters Charles Biasiny-Rivera, Roger Caban and Phil Dante met in the Bronx in 1974 at an exhibition entitled "Dos Mundos: the sum of two units Worlds of Puerto Rico (where they each had work exhibited). At a small gathering at Caban's apartment following the exhibition the vision of En Foco was formed. They fix a kinship in similar backgrounds and wanted to address the discriminatory world around them.

The original vision was to examine their of recent origin York-Puerto Rican cultures and unite below shared experiences in a world that labeled them as "Spanish"--with no distinction as to who they really were. They began working at a grassroots horizontal that epitomized the term "mentorship" by dint of providing photo-based education in elementary seminarys and taking photography out of the gallery, and exhibiting the photographs of friends, family and neighbors among these communities. "We were making work that made us have feeling alive," Biasiny-Rivera stated in a new interview, "it was 'personal work.'" In 1978 En Foco received public funding and took up residence in a donated office in an without contents building at Lehman College in the Bronx In 1985 En Foco began publishing Nueva Luz

Little has changed in Nueva Luz from its original intent. Each issue still features single to three artists, with accompanying biographical details, artists' statements and a portrait of each artist. single image is displayed per page, creating a distinctive gallery. The written commentary upon the photographs by different critics has built an enduring forum for discussion about the images and imagemakers. The commentary ranges from discourse about intent and technical details to similar themes place within the work. It was important to have the photographers reviewed, and En Foco nourished the notion of artists' remunerations that equaled those in the mainstream art world. "This gave a faculty of perception of equality--even though the profitable artists are working from their hearts, it impressed upon an artist that they could have beneficial work and money," Baisiny-River annotateed Nueva Luz began as a black and white tabloid printed upon newsprint and sold for $300 It included the self-descriptive statement that it was "a photographic journal that addresses itself to the search for statements through photographers who have developed a reflective stance vis-a-vis their culture" Nueva Luz committed to "showcase a proces in which we witness a dedication to define a unique aesthetic."

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Today Nueva Luz is a slick, full-color magazine that vends for $7.00 and describes itself as "the country's premier photography magazine to publish works by means of American photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander heritage." Nueva Luz has kept up with the times. For example, "Critical Mass," a section listing opportunities for photographic artists, was added.

What have the appearances to be the most significant follow of En Foco and its public face of Nueva Luz is minimizing prejudice. Sadly, this discrimination was still not absent in a 1995 New York Times review by dint of Vivien Raynor entitled "Photographs With a Puerto Rican Imprint." Raynor writes, concerning an En Foco exhibition, "The character of the [Hostos] display is Puerto Rican if sole because the curators say it is. Indeed, disinterested spectators may at first have disarrange recognizing it as particularly Hispanic." (1) Raynor obviously missed En Foco's primary intentions as the organization's mandate is clearly to dispel preconceived ideas of by what means a certain culture behaves. over the years what Nueva Luz has tendered is photography--interesting, challenging, disturbing, beautiful sad--that needs no language to speak. Associate Editor Betty Wilde-Biasiny agrees with this in her introduction to the 2001 Commemorative issue of Nueva Luz "It is clear that En Foco does not rely on preconceived formal notions about photographic imagery," she writes, "and has helped forge the profunditys of its aesthetic possibilities." The bilingual aspect of Nueva Luz in its editorial and commentary sections makes it an important bridge for cultural gaps and provides a uniquely felicitous tool for both photo-based education and linguistic applications.