Alum and faculty member Martine Fougeron GS '06 and Assistant Curator Pauline Vermare curate a show of ICP alumni: Allen Agostino PJ '14, Cate Dingley PJ '14, Nicolas Enriquez PJ '14, Christopher Occhicone PJ '14, and Theo Zierock PJ '14.
Here are five photographers captivated with the stories they have found hidden within the shadows of New York City. The subjects of their work remain in the dark corners by choice or inadvertently by the situation in which they have found themselves: they live in the "Hole," a neighborhood in Brooklyn below sea level, squatting in trailers; they strip in Times Square's last peep show; they roam the streets as a chapter of the Latin Kings gang; they are addicted to drugs and alcohol in a tent city; and they gamble at a crumbling aqueduct on the edge of Queens.
"That's a secret private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private they couldn't possibly explain in public." — Lieutenant Doyle, from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window.
As the photographers embed themselves into these small self-contained societies, they observe and study but make no claim on objectivity; objectivity is impossible with true intimacy. Just like the camera, the window acts as a portal into another world but it is also a barrier. The glass and mirrors are a trick to make you believe you are really there.
Hitchcock was inspired by the great photographer Robert Capa, whose brother Cornell founded the International Center of Photography. All five photographers completed the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography program at ICP last year, and met the curators through it as well; the circle is complete.
Photographers: Allen Agostino, Cate Dingley, Nicolas Enriquez, Chris Occhicone & Theo Zierock
Curators: Pauline Vermare & Martine Fougeron
ALLEN AGOSTINO is a photojournalist and long-term documentary photographer. A graduate of ICP's Documentary Photography & Photojournalism program in 2014, he was invited back to teach a class he created called Digital Reverence later that year in September of 2014. Allen has worked for Al Jazeera America, News Day, The Toronto Star, Narrativley, and Inside Toronto. Now based out of Toronto, he plans to pursue long term projects in Detroit where he will continue documenting issues facing contemporary American society. His project The Hole was published as a three-part series by Narrativley. It was also featured on German public television by ARD Germany. It has been shown in numerous film festivals around the world.
CATE DINGLEY started taking photographs at the age of fourteen in her hometown of Kansas City. She has been in gallery exhibitions across the U.S. and was shortlisted by Fotofilmic in 2013. She graduated from the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism program in 2014 from ICP, and was awarded a scholarship from the Lisette Model Foundation. Cate currently lives in Brooklyn, where she works on her personal documentary projects and freelances as a photojournalist. She was recently honored to be a finalist for Conscientious Magazine's Portfolio Award and for the First Book Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies.
NICOLAS ENRIQUEZ was born in the city of Cali-Colombia in 1993. He graduated from the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism program at ICP in 2014. His most influential work The Bloodline, documenting the Latin Kings gang, has helped him to develop an interest in urban conflict and political and human rights issues. He currently works as a freelance photographer for the New York Daily News and his work has been published in different media outlets such as The New York Times, American Photography, Getty images, PROOF, and New York Daily News.
CHRISTOPHER OCCHICONE was born and raised in New York where he is currently based as a freelance photographer. He is a graduate of the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism program at ICP where he was awarded the George and Joyce Moss scholarship and was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop. He work has been featured at Visa Pour L’Image and was a finalist for LensCulture's Visual Story Telling Award. His work has been featured on Al Jazeera, Panorama, Featureshoot, and AlterEco+. Prior to photography he did graduate work in public health at Harvard and Conflict Resolution at The Whitehead School of Government, and taught in Italy and Poland.
THEO ZIEROCK is a photojournalist and documentary photographer. Born in Bolzano, Italy in 1990, he graduated in Political Science and Theory of Photography in 2013 from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. During his studies he interned for Paolo Verzone in Paris, AFP in New York, and ran the photographic department of the university newspaper Züricher Studentenzeitung. In 2014 he completed the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism program at ICP and was selected for the 27th Eddie Adams Workshop. His work has been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, Emerge Magazine, La Repubblica, CBS, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, and Al Jazeera. He is based in Italy.