Conference
WHEN
Thursday, April 23, 2026
1-7 PM EST
WHERE
19 Washington Square North
WHO
19 Washington Square North Faculty Fellows Program
Open to the Public
Our 19 WSN Faculty Fellowship project takes as its inspiration the Akkasah photography archive at NYUAD. With images dating from the late nineteenth century to chromatic contemporary landscapes, Akkasah contains over thirty thousand photographs of life in the Middle East and North Africa. Our objective is to learn about these photographs and to respond through an artist book combining Pardlo’s poetry and Ray’s photography. In close collaboration with NYUAD archivists, we will attend especially to themes of family and collecting: for example, what does it mean to meditate on the protective yet near-total absence of women in the Al Qassim Family Collection? How might we “see” family in the context of such absence? Similarly, what do we make of the early twentieth-century photograph in the Yasser Alwan Collection’s Egyptian Family Series of two women kissing? How does this demonstration of affection spin visualizations of intimacy when viewed among the collection’s many stoic wedding portraits? As an international collaboration, this project invites comparative inquiries regarding family photography collections at other NYU sites; for example, the family scrapbook of a Panamanian student relaxing in the late 1930s with her NYU New York cohort in Washington Square Park.
Our one-day symposium gathers artists and archivists whose work relates to family photography images stewarded by universities.
Image: Sharjah Aquarium, Al Khan: 2015; The Edge Collection; AD_MC_021; box number; folder number or item identifier; Akkasah Center for Photography, New York University Abu Dhabi.
Time: 1pm — Exhibition Opening, Komunidad: Filipinos in the UAE by Xyza Cruz Bacani
Xyza Bacani's documentary photography project focuses on the Overseas Filipino Workers (or OFWs) in the UAE. The project follows the daily lives of four Filipinos living in the country and provides a glimpse into their community. Xyza Cruz Bacani is a Filipina street and documentary Photographer. Working as a domestic worker for almost a decade, she used photography to tell the stories of her fellow domestic workers and others who were victims of human rights violations.
Time: 1:30pm — Artist Talk with Xyza Cruz Bacani
In conversation with Akkasah Archivist Jonathan Burr and NYU University Archivist Janet Bundle
Join artist Xyza Cruz Bacani in conversation with archivists at NYUAD and NYU New York, as they discuss family photography in NYU's archives.
Time: 3pm — Student Poetry and Photography Workshop, Translating Akkasah
With Gregory Pardlo and Montana Ray
This program is for students and other participants who want to explore making poetry, translations, and photographs in response to family photography from the Akkasah Photography Archive. The workshop will be led by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo and translator, photographer, and archival scholar Montana Ray.
Time: 5pm — Public Lecture: The House Archives Built, by Dorothy Berry
In conversation with Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
This talk focuses on the work of Dorothy Berry, Digital Curator for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Dorothy is the author of The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities (We Here Press, 2025), which is currently sold out in its third printing since being published in October 2025. Berry discusses family materials offered up to “the altar of higher learning” and struggles for access, accuracy, and locating joy in family photographs stewarded by institutional archives.
Time: 7pm — Poetry Reading with Gregory Pardlo and Jasmine Reid
With photographic translations by Montana Ray
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn is an acclaimed documentary photographer and curator with over 25 years of experience. Her work has been exhibited globally and is featured in seminal publications, including Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present and Photography: A Feminist History. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and the author of We Are Present: Portraits from 2020. Her work is centered on the preservation of photographic history, with a specific focus on photographers of African descent. Barrayn holds a Master of Arts in Art and Public Policy from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and serves as a faculty member at Rutgers University, Newark, and the International Center of Photography (ICP).
Xyza Cruz Bacani is an award-winning artist and writer based in New York. Bacani has been recognized as one of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders, Artpil 30 Under 30 Women Photographers, Forbes’s 30 Under 30 Asia, and BBC’s 100 Women of the World. She received multiple grants from the New York State Council of the Arts, WMA Commission, the Open Society Moving Walls Foundation, and the Pulitzer Center, and was one of the Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellows. She is also the author of We Are Like Air. Bacani’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of the City of New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, KADIST Collection, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Foreign Correspondents Club Hong Kong, NYU Special Collections, and numerous private collections worldwide.
Dorothy Berry is an archivist and writer whose work can be found in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Public Domain Review, and Lapham’s Quarterly. Her writing is informed by archival methodologies from a range of cultural heritage institutions, where she continues to implement creative methods to make archival collections related to Black life available more broadly.
Janet Bunde has served as the University Archivist at New York University since 2016. She earned an MA in History and a certificate in Archival Administration from NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science in 2007. She has worked in various roles in the New York University Archives and NYU Special Collections for the past 18 years. She also holds a BA in History, with a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies, from Haverford College, from which she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
Jasmine Reid is a poet for the people and the author of Interlocutor Goddess (Autumn House Press), winner of the 2024 CAAPP Poetry Prize, and Deus Ex Nigrum (Honeysuckle Press, 2020). An MFA graduate of Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, The Jerome Foundation, and Poets House, her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, among others. She was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, has taught at Cornell University and Pratt Institute, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, where she is a community organizer and an assistant professor at New York University. Find her at reidjasmine.com.
Gregory Pardlo is the author of Spectral Evidence, a Finalist for the 2025 Kingsley Tufts Prize and longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award. His collection Digest was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other books include Totem and Air Traffic, a memoir in essays. His honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He divides his time between New York and the United Arab Emirates, where he is Head of the Literature and Creative Writing Program at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Montana Ray translates from Spanish and Portuguese, most recently a monograph of Brazilian artist Yhuri Cruz, and writes in several genres. Her first book of concrete poetry, (guns & butter), was described by Cathy Park Hong as a mix of “Apollinaire with Pam Grier.” Her nonfiction exploring connections between the US South and Latin America and bellehood in Brazil won a NYFA finalist award. She is also an archival scholar and film photographer, and her current 35mm collaborative portraiture explores translating family photography. Ray holds an MFA in poetry and translation and a PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University and teaches at NYU.
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