2nd Year Anniversary of Gaza Massacre, January 9th, 2011.

2nd Year Anniversary of Gaza Massacre - flash slideshow maker

Updates & Transitions.

A Palestinian activist waves his peace sign to passing vehicles, some who are attending the Hebron Aid Flotilla fundraiser by the Hebron Fund @ Chelsea Piers last night, November 16, 2010.

I have skipped two seasons somehow, and now find myself at the tail end of 2010. Oops. I first began the blog as a way to document my ventures as a photojournalist but as I've gotten more involved the core of intention has somewhat changed. I intend on keeping up with this blog as a way to archive my work, but my work as a photographer/activist has changed. I haven't figured out how to articulate the transition, but I will find the words.

Last night I photographed the protest against the Hebron Fund, which is an Israeli non-profit organization, that raises funds to continue the Jewish settlements in Hebron, a city located in the West Bank, inhabited by 160,000 Palestinians, 500 Jewish settlers, and thousands of IDF soldiers. This little bit from Wikipedia paints a dim picture of what Palestinians are going through in Hebron:

Palestinian control of Hebron is limited to the 20 or 30 square kiliometers of H1, which contains around 120,000 Palestinians. In H2, where more than 500 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians, the Palestinian populations' movements are heavily restricted whilst the Jewish settlers are allowed total freedom of movement and protected by the IDF.^[13] Palestinians are not allowed to use Shuhada street, which is one of the main thoroughfares of Hebron, which is restricted to settlers. Shuhada street has received millions of dollars of renovations funded by the United States.^[13]

As a result of these restrictions, about half the shops in H2 have gone out of business since 1994, in spite of UN efforts to pay shopkeepers to stay in business. Palestinians cannot approach near where the settlers live without special permits from the IDF. Palestinian criminals come to H2 to flee the Palestinian police.^{[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron)}

(My photos were featured on Adalah-NY's website, a Boycott Divestment Sanctions organization. You can also view the whole set here as a slideshow.)

Now to articulate my transition...The collective I started at the tail end of last year, called the Alliance of Conscious Documentarians (ACD), has been materializing over the course of the last few months. My first attempt at organizing ACD was at the annual antiwar march in Washington, DC, March 20th, 2010 and the May Day Rally here in NYC. The photos were taken by myself and 4 other photographers (Pete Pin, Johanna Galvis, Bill Hackwell, & Gabi Lazaro) and can be seen here.  It was a great experience working with these talented photographers, and we were able to put together a comprehensive set of the March 20th protest.  


In the summertime, I continued my project of documenting the after-effects of Police Brutality on victim's families, and joined forces with Oja, who is mainly known for being a spectacular NYC DJ, but is also an incredible human encyclopedia and aural historian.  Together, we've been continuing the work of documenting and broadcasting cases of Police Brutality, and also covering other struggles, like the Lynne Stewart case and the Palestinian right to return.  The union has been most fruitful, as now ACD has the crucial component of sound adding a whole new dimension to photographic storytelling.  


We are in the middle of putting together a blog:  http://acdmedia.wordpress.com , and a youtube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/acdmediachannel which will log our work.  We have recently completed our first international ACD trip to Haiti to document the condition of the earthquake displacement camps.  


As we continue our work, I will utilize this blog as a means of documenting my personal experiences, giving space for myself to process and continue the documenting of my experiences as a photographer.  


Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.  

The Birth of a Coalition

A bus full of activists!! The success of our organizing ;) for the 2nd Year Anniversary Vigil for Kenny Lazo, April 10th, 2010.

The last few months I have been busy building and co-organizing with Jennifer Gonzalez (Kenny's son's mother), the ANSWER Coalition and the October 22nd Coalition the Justice for Kenny Coalition, which is a new coalition that connects Police Brutality with Immigrant Rights. We have had some very successful events. On April 3rd, we had our very first event at the Brecht Forum where we featured several key speakers including: Jennifer Gonzalez (partner of the late Kenny Lazo), Juanita Young (mother of the late Malcolm Ferguson), William Bell (father of the late Sean Bell), Nicholas Heyward (father of the late Nicholas Heyward, Jr.), Allene Person (mother of the late Timor Person), Kathie Cheng of Oct 22 Coalition, Monica Ruiz of ANSWER Coalition, Pierre Yurovski of Amnesty International, and Frances Villar 2009 PSL Mayoral Candidate for NYC. We showed, Police Terror: The Police Murder of Kenny Lazo, a documentary short by ANSWER's Eddie Pages, Forced Trajectory: Images from the After Effects of the Police Murder of Kenny Lazo, a photographic essay by me, and we also featured ANSWER's Kenneth Chan Cruz' artwork. After the film, slideshow, and speakers, MC Majesty hosted the spoken word / hip hop portion of the event, featuring Spirit Child, Peggy Robles Alvarado, Raul K Rios, and Fifth Column's BadSportt. The night ended with us fundraising over $500, enough for us to rent a bus to go from the city to Bay Shore, Long Island for Kenny's 2nd year anniversary vigil held right outside the Suffolk County 3rd Precinct where he was left to die on April 12, 2008. Our event was covered by NY1, who stayed for nearly 70% of the event, and played repeatedly on NY1 headlines all Easter Sunday. :)

William Bell, father of the late Sean Bell, sits, listening to the speaker. Kerbie Joseph of the ANSWER Coalition and PSL sits in front of him.

Brian Benitez, Kenny Lazo's cousin, speaks out in public for the first time about Kenny's murder.

Hip hop artist, Majesty, performs.

Jennifer Gonzalez, Kenny Lazo's partner, speaks about her experience after Kenny's abrupt death, April 12th, 2008.

The following week, we used our funds to rent a school bus and took 20-some activists with us from the city to Bay Shore, where we demanded justice for Kenny Lazo in front of the 3rd Precinct of the Suffolk County Police Department. The purpose of this was to connect NYC with Bay Shore so that the people of Bay Shore could literally witness our solidarity. There, we met with several of Kenny's friends and family members, including Kenny's mother, Patricia Gonzalez, and Kenny's father, Elfonzo Lazo who both traveled from out of state for the event. The event was held from 1PM-5PM, but the energy of the crowd was so powerful that we decided to stay until 6PM. As traffic passed, we received several car beeps in support of our cause. Several activists and artists spoke on the mic, condemning the obvious corruption of the Suffolk County police, and also police brutality on a national and international level. Speakers included: UK MC LowKey, MC Majesty, MC Eva Egypt, PSL's Frances Villar, March Forward!'s Edward Pages, ANSWER's Vanessa Frida, Kenny's partner, Jennifer Gonzalez, Rebel Diaz Art Collective's Marcel Cartier, Kenny's parents Patricia Gonzalez & Elfonzo Lazo, myself, and others. This event marked the 2nd year anniversary of Kenny's death.

Both events were later mentioned in PSL's Liberation newspaper which is distributed nationwide. Click here to read the article.

Kenny's father, Elfonso speaks on the mic, Patricia Gonzalez, Kenny's mother on the right.

MC Majesty on the mic, who enthusiastically hosted the April 3rd event.

MC Eva Egypt on the mic condemning the SCPD.

UK MC LowKey spittin' rhymes about police brutality.

Immigrant Rights, March 21, 2010, D.C.

One of my immigrant rights photos got published in today's Socialist Worker:

http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/25/renewed-fight-for-our-rights

And some other photos from last weekend will be published in Monday's paper edition of the Socialist Worker. So, if you get a chance, pick one up. :)

My Immigrant Rights set on Flickr from the March 21, 2010 demonstration in DC can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157623677035784/show

Weekend in DC -- Summer Teaser

This past weekend I traveled up to DC for the March on Washington, the annual anti war march organized by the ANSWER Coalition. I ended up attending 2 other events - and took a shitload of photos. :)

I'm still working on the March 20th photographs - I have to sift through about 800 of them (trigger happy). The demonstration was amazing, although a bit short (I'm comparing it to last year's march, where we marched to Crystal City and it took forever). There was an estimate of 10,000 people at the march. I had a severe headache the entire march so I wasn't too happy with the blazing sun. It was nearly 80 degrees out.


The picture above is of an AIPAC conference participant giving the finger to a protestor who...really hates Jews. Doesn't help at all considering we're protesting AIPAC as well, but with sound arguments. I hope they don't put us in the same category of crazy, LMAO.

Although the AIPAC protest was small, it was visually quite stunning. Code Pink had a strong visual presence and their pink banners and outfits really contrasted well against the gray Convention Center. You can see the whole set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157623674056522/show

After the AIPAC protest, I shot the Immigrant Rights rally at the National Mall where over 500,000+ immigrant rights activists camped out from 1-4:30PM. Around 4:30, everyone began leaving and marching passed the Capitol and Supreme Court. It was a powerful experience walking with so many people, many of them with their families.

Set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157623677035784/show

JUSTICE FOR KENNY LAZO - April 3rd @ the Brecht Forum

We're throwing a Police Brutality awareness / fundraiser event for Kenny Lazo on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010, at the Brecht Forum from 6:30-10:30PM. The event will be featuring several speakers including Jennifer Gonzalez (partner of Kenny Lazo), Juanita Young (mother of Malcolm Ferguson), William Bell (father of Sean Bell), Kathie Cheng of the October 22 Coalition, Monica Ruiz of the ANSWER Coalition, and several artist performances including, Badsportt, Peggy Robles Alvarado, Raul K Rios, featuring DJ Oja, and hosted by Majesty. We will also be showcasing photography by myself, artwork by Kenny Chan-Cruz, and showing ANSWER's Eddie Pages' 30 minute documentary short, "Police Terror: The Murder of Kenny Lazo."

There will be food and art to bid on, so bring your cash. We are raising money to pay for transportation from the city to Long Island the day of the 10th (Saturday, April 10th) so that city dwellers can support the people of Suffolk County, who are brutalized and antagonized by the racist Suffolk County cops on a day by day basis.

The above is the official flyer - please print and distribute, repost, twitter, facebook, etc....Thank you :)

2010, Haiti, Chile, Hawaii....

This first quarter of 2010 is rough. First Haiti, now Chile, and Hawaii preparing for the aftereffect tsunami.... The above is a photo of Chileans walking away from a bridge destroyed by the earthquake in Santiago, provided by Getty Images (sadly they did not credit the photographer). Here's the link to some other photos covering the aftermath of the quakes in Chile: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/02/world/gallery.large.chile/index.html

I ask myself, like many others, why natural disasters often hit the indigenous people of the world, and why is it that we suffer the most, in our impoverished conditions, with our cultures exploited.

I've been inundated with work these past few weeks, and I've wanted to post but have been reserved to post about ongoing projects. Sometimes I think just seeing the finished project without seeing the steps to completing can be more compelling.

I'm getting geared up to go to DC to march in ANSWER's annual March on the Pentagon on March 20th. I'll be organizing with other photographers so that we can achieve as much visibility as this movement needs. If you're interested in coming along and shooting, send me a message or drop a comment.

Peace.