Everyday Bronx, the Exhibition
Everyday Bronx is a Bronx-themed Instagram account with more than 45,000 followers. It’s part of The Everyday Projects, a global initiative to amplify local voices and champion a collective, grassroots form of storytelling.
Founded in 2014, Everyday Bronx exclusively features photographs from its followers, and rewrites the narrative of the Bronx, one photo at a time, telling the complex stories from often-overlooked daily lives in the borough. The BDC curated the exhibition in collaboration with Rhynna M. Santos, a Puerto Rico-born documentary photographer living and working in the Bronx, who leads a five-member volunteer team that posts images every day of the year on Everyday Bronx.
The exhibition features more than 50 photographs and video displays, mostly done on cellphones, from what has become an important online archive of Bronx life. By encouraging followers to photograph their neighborhoods, Everyday Bronx fosters artistic expression from a range of individuals, not just trained photographers, and creates a unique online archive of documentary images of the Bronx. The photos and videos portray the real Bronx, dispelling misconceptions about the borough.
The exhibits opening night featured music, breakdancing, and graffiti––celebrating the history of the Bronx as the birthplace of hip-hop and its role as an epicenter of creative art, music, and dance.
Rhynna M. Santos is a photographer born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico and currently residing in Bronx, New York. Ms. Santos graduated from UCLA in 2007. Since then she has worked with a number of Bronx based organizations including but not limited to Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center, Bronx Documentary Center and Bronx Art Space. Ms. Santos also gained international experience and recognition in Madrid, Spain. In 2010 she received noteworthy attention from the prestigious PhotoEspaña Festival. In 2014 Ms. Santos had her first solo exhibition in Madrid, Spain entitled Window to the Bronx. The exhibition expanded a global dialogue about urban, Latino immigration.
Ms. Santos depicts the everyday life, geographies, emotions and realities of people of color in Bronx, New York. She has exhibited work as featured artist in Curate NYC 2013, Bronx Art Space: Access to Art 2014 and Bronx X Bronx 2014. Ms. Santos transforms the stereotypical interpretation of the Bronx and its inhabitants. In June 2014 she was a featured photographer for the WNYC series “Rx for the Bronx.” Her photographs document Wendy Fernandez, a working class Bronx resident’s struggles with the health care industry.
Ms. Santos is currently a member of the Bronx Photo League at the Bronx Documentary Center and curator for the Instagram feed Everyday Bronx.
EVERYDAY BRONX – Exhibition
March 31 – May 14, 2023
Bronx Documentary Center – New York
More info on:
