The local photographers, James & Karla Murray, have used their creative talents to help raise awareness of New York City’s endangered mom-and-pop stores. In free workshops scheduled this spring and summer, they’ll be showing the rest of us how to use a camera and keyboard to become community advocates.
Here’s more about their upcoming project:
Capturing the Faces and Voices of Manhattan’s Neighborhood Storefronts is a photography and oral history workshop of the cultural significance of mom-and-pop stores and the impact they have on the pulse, life, and texture of their communities. There will be two separate 2-session free workshops held at the Neighborhood Preservation Center in the East Village culminating in an exhibition of each participant’s work at The Little Underground Gallery at the Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village from August 1 – October 1, 2018. The workshops teach how photography and oral history can be tools for public awareness and advocacy. Participants will learn to create their own powerful photographs of neighborhood storefronts as well as record oral histories with shop owners, which communicate artistically and are insightful and moving. Taught by acclaimed photographers and best-selling authors Karla and James Murray. Space is limited to 35 participants per 2-session workshop (70 participants total).
The workshops are free, but advance registration is required. Click here for more details and to sign up.
Karla and James Murray, East Village residents, published Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York (2008), an award-winning photo book. Other titles from the husband and wife team include: New York Nights, Store Front II- A History Preserved and Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC.
As we reported last month, they have a new exhibition coming to Seward Park during the summer.
