Washington Heights Artist Shares Family Album Highlighting Immigrant Experience

 

Slideshow

"Papi Born Again."

Groana Melendez

"Roberto Antonio Melendez Papi."

Groana Melendez

"Mercedes Altagracia Gross de Perez Tia."

Groana Melendez

"Mami on Stairs."

Groana Melendez

"Tia Miledy y Jose After Church."

Groana Melendez

    1 of 5  

"Papi Born Again."

Photo Credit: Groana Melendez

RELATED ARTICLES

Advertisement

By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER MANHATTAN — Any one of Washington Heights' resident Groana Melendez's photographs is worth a thousand words when it comes to expressing the spirit and flavor of immigrant culture in the neighborhood.

Her current show, “Family Work Series,” is made up of 18 medium-format color prints that allow the viewer an intimate peek into the lives of the Dominican artist’s family — mother, father, aunts and uncles, the whole bunch — highlighting the chasm between émigrés in Washington Heights and those who remain in the Dominican Republic.

"I photograph my family because I have a need to immortalize them from my point of view," the Brooklyn-born artist said of her work.

"I act as both a participant and observer," she went on. "There are different class dimensions in my family; family that could afford certain luxuries versus those that live day by day. Judgments and prejudices are made from one part of the family to the other, and I have attempted to move between the two."

Melendez's photographs are currently on display at the New York Public Library's Aquilar branch at 174 East 110th Street through September 7.