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Email PageArcadian Gardens
June 30, 2005- September 17, 2005
Akintola Hanif - Hyze
Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery
516 W 25th StThe Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of "Arcadian Gardens/The Bity: A Photo Journal of Life and Death in East Orange, 2003-2005." The show features the photography of Akintola Hanif, also known as Hyze.
Comprised of some 60-odd color images, the show documents the lives of the young people of a New Jersey housing project called the Arcadian Gardens (called The Bity by its own residents).
"I decided to concentrate on The Bity because I saw so many beautiful and unappreciated people whose story wasn't getting told," says Hyze. "Their whole world occurs within a four-block radius. They're 30 minutes from Manhattan but they might as well be living in another world."
Many of the Bity's residents are members of the Bloods gang. "Outsiders are quick to condemn the gangs without understanding why the people in them have made the choices they did," notes Hyze. "But the gangs are their family."
Born in Brooklyn 32 years ago, Hyze first began to express his creativity as a ten-year-old graffiti artist. He called himself DEST then and ran with the CWK and AOK crews. When he turned 19 his pals started calling him Hyze. The young artist moved to New Jersey in 1996 and started studying photography at Gibbs College in Montclair a couple of years later, a course of study he later pursued at the Fashion Institute of Technology. These days he works as the staff photographer for YouthBuild Newark, a federally-funded organization offering higher education, job training, and job placement to youths at risk.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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