Long tables covered in red and white checkered cloth are stacked with aluminum trays filled with empanadas, tostones and chicharron de pollo. The chatter of visitors gets louder as more people fill an old house with its low ceilings and creaky floorboards. Friends toast over the table of food with wine, water or the sodas that fill a nearby cooler. It would be easy to mistake the gathering for a family reunion instead of a photography exhibit.
In a way, Thursday night at the Museum of Bronx History, was both.
The Bronx based Nuyorican photography collective, Seis Del Sur have been together over a decade and have shared history for much longer.
Their new exhibit at the Museum of Bronx History, HISTORIAS: The Stories Behind The Images is an interactive trip through the shared experience of the Puerto Rican community in the South Bronx from the 1970s through the 1990s, a time of devastation and systemic neglect in the neighborhood, but also one of resilience, strength and a community coming together.
“We wanted to begin to address those issues and show the vibrance of the community, but also some of the deeply problematic aspects of growing up in the South Bronx,” said Seis Del Sur Photographer, Ricky Flores.
Flores’s image, “Southern Blvd. Fire” shows light streaming in through the smoke and wreckage of a burned out building on Southern Boulevard and Longwood Avenue in 1980. It stands in contrast to the image, “Men on Longwood” depicting men gathered on the sidewalk in 1982, talking and engaging with each other. One man polishes the shoes of the man in front of him, another holds a giant boom box (radio/cassette player) and a crowd gathers around men sitting at a card table.
Scan the QR codes on the bottom of the photos’ wall label to read more information about the history of the photographer and the images.
“These men and women were bridging two worlds, leaving one behind, filled with warmth and light, into another that held promises of a better future in an endless gray,” said Flores on the interactive page for “Men on Longwood.”
“The rewards are only to be obtained through generations of sacrifice, or so they believed,” Flores added.
The exhibit is part of a larger effort on the part of the Bronx Historical Society to collect, document and educate the public about the Bronx’s Latino history. Stories which – until recently – according to Seis Del Sur photographer and New York Times journalist David González said were ignored.
“This place assiduously avoided the contemporary history that we lived through,” said González. “Not only lived through, but we survived through.”
In contrast, González said that photographers from the Bronx during that time didn’t sugar-coat the way they portrayed their community and all it had been through.
“What we have come up with is a multifaceted portrayal of the place we come from,” said González.
Before the exhibit’s premiere wrapped up for the evening, everyone came together in celebration of González’s retirement from the Times, cheering, reminiscing and reaffirming their commitment to serving the community they call home.
And like a family reunion, the Seis Del Sur collective has expanded and new generations come of age.
For the first time since its formation, the Seis Del Sur collective included work by female photographers in its show: Carmen Mojica and Abigail Montes. Mojica’s photo “Rubble” shows men trudging through the dust and rubble of a completely leveled building in the South Bronx in the early 1980s. She remembered the toll that the destruction of entire neighborhoods took on her.
“I didn’t live in these buildings, but I was confronted with them everyday,” said Mojica.
The show’s outlier was Montes, whose photos were taken as recently as 2018. She’s the youngest of the photographers featured in HISTORIAS.
“I’m the only one in this group who didn’t live through the fires, but I feel them in my heart as much as anyone,” Montes said.
Her photographs capture a more recent window into daily life in the South Bronx like, “Los in Concert on Simpson Street” in 2017. It shows an aerial view of musicians playing guitar and drums on the corner of Simpson street just beneath the train.
“The most beautiful thing about the Bronx is its people and their tenacity,” said Montes.
Montes sees the Bronx through the shared history and experience of her community and continues to pass along her pride to the next generation.
“Now I get to teach nine-year-olds how to pick up a camera and tell their stories and how beautiful they are because they’re from the Bronx, not in spite of it.” Montes said.
HISTORIAS: The Stories Behind The Images is open now at the Museum of Bronx History on Bainbridge Avenue. View it Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. until the end of January 2025.
