Coming Soon: Gray Zones

Gray Zones: Unmaking the Myth of a Polarized Nation The Puffin Cultural Forum | 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ 🗓 Opening Reception: Saturday, October 3, 1PM – 4PM 🎤 Panel Discussion: 2PM (featuring exhibition photographers & curator Danny Wilcox Frazier) Featured here, photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz (@carlosjavierortiz ) from Inherit America 1.) Dudley, North Carolina | September 2011 — A family gathers to celebrate a one-year-old girl’s birthday at the offices of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. 2.) Chicago, Illinois — Albert Vaughn was known as the neighborhood guardian—an older teenager who played basketball with younger children and tried to keep them out of trouble. Friends and family gather on the block where he was killed to remember “Lil Al.” Carlos Javier Ortiz (born in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a director, cinematographer, documentary photographer, and visual artist whose work explores urban life, social justice, and the enduring impact of structural inequality. Through photography and film, Ortiz combines personal narratives with broader social and political histories, creating work that fosters empathy and critical engagement with contemporary issues. Influenced by traditions of social realism and humanist storytelling, Ortiz examines themes of race, migration, violence, labor, and community resilience. He is the recipient of a National Geographic Explorer Fellowship (2021) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016). Ortiz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in the permanent collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Worcester Art Museum, the George Eastman Museum, and the Library of Congress. His photography contributed to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s landmark Atlantic essay, The Case for Reparations. Based in Chicago, Ortiz teaches documentary filmmaking at Columbia College Chicago and serves on the board of the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Carlos Javier Ortiz will be joining the panel conversation during our opening— don’t miss this opportunity to meet him and several of the other extraordinary photographers in this exhibition! – #bergencountynj #njart #njphoto #viifoundation #njevent

Gray Zones: Unmaking the Myth of a Polarized Nation The Puffin Cultural Forum | 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ 🗓 Opening Reception: Saturday, October 3, 1PM – 4PM 🗣 Panel Discussion: 2PM (featuring exhibition photographers & curator Danny Wilcox Frazier) Featured here, photographs by Tyrel Iron Eyes (@ista_maza ) from (Un)Disturbed Use and Occupation 1.) Sheridan WY – September, 2022 2.) Dakota Access Pipeline Veterans Day – November 11, 2016 Hau mitakuyapi. Tyrel Ista Maza emaciyapi, na Inyan Woslal Han hematahan. Sihasapa na Hunkpapa maLakota, na Ihanktowanna Damakota. Hello my relatives. My name is Tyrel Iron Eyes, and I come from Standing Rock. I belong to the Sihasapa and Hunkpapa Lakota bands, and the Ihanktowanna band of Dakota. Tyrel belongs to the Standing Rock Lakota and Dakota Nation, spending his life within Oceti Sakowin territory. His photography focuses on Lakota/Dakota histories within his people’s homelands, emphasizing the Treaties, their implications, and their ongoing violations. As a photographer, an archaeologist, a hunter, and a Lakota, his identity is tied inextricably to the land. Tyrel Iron Eyes will be joining the panel conversation during our opening— don’t miss this opportunity to meet him and several of the other extraordinary photographers in this exhibition! – #njart #photojournalism #photoexhibition #nycart #bergencountyevents

Gray Zones: Unmaking the Myth of a Polarized Nation The Puffin Cultural Forum | 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ 🗓 Opening Reception: Saturday, October 3, 1PM – 4PM 🎤 Panel Discussion: 2PM (featuring exhibition photographers & curator Danny Wilcox Frazier) Featured here, photographs by Ron Haviv (@Ronhaviv_VII) from Glimpses of America 1.) Protestors clash with DHS/ICE police at an ICE facility after a No Kings rally in Portland, Oregon against policies of the U.S. government on March 28, 2026. 2.) An Illinois state police officer stands outside the Broadview ICE and detention center, October 2025. Ron Haviv is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and an award-winning photojournalist. He co-founded VII Photo Agency and The VII Foundation, where he currently serves as a director. He is dedicated to documenting conflict, post conflict and raising human rights issues around the globe. His work in the Balkans was used as evidence to indict & convict war criminals at the international tribunal in The Hague. President H.W. Bush cited Haviv’s photographs documenting paramilitary violence in Panama as one of the reasons for the 1989 American intervention. His photography is in museum collections around the world and he has published five monographs. Haviv is the subject of numerous documentaries, including National Geographic Explorer’s Freelance in a World of Risk. He has written opinion pieces for the Washington Post and The New York Times and spoken at TEDx along with numerous other media outlets and lectures at Universities and conferences. Ron Haviv will be joining the panel conversation during our opening— don’t miss this opportunity to meet him and several of the other extraordinary photographers in this exhibition. – #njphoto #njarts #photoexhibition #nycartists #photojournalism