DCC Art Gallery

"Unquiet Images" The Plight of the Immigrant Worker is Focus of DCC Photo Exhibit

Poughkeepsie Journal photographer Darryl Bautista and Dutchess Community College photography instructor Lowell Handler will showcase their photos of immigrant workers in an exhibition called “Unquiet Images” at the Mildred I. Washington Art Gallery from Nov. 19 to Dec. 14.

An opening, which the public is invited to attend, will be held on Nov. 19 from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Bautista began covering the issue of immigrant workers while working in Guam in 1999. Hundreds of Chinese nationals began arriving in fishing boats from the Fujian Province in China, hoping to gain access to the United States through its territory in the Western Pacific. Bautista moved back to Poughkeepsie soon after, continuing to cover immigration, photographing Latin American and Caribbean workers who were involved in Poughkeepsie’s Main Street renaissance, as well as “Black Dirt” farmers in Orange County, N.Y. Bautista graduated from DCC before attending New York University.

Handler is currently working on a collaborative effort with the Southern Poverty Law Center that will document immigrants, vigilantes and white supremacists. One of the locations for the project is Farmingville, N.Y., where five white teenagers set fire to the home of an immigrant family’s rental home. More locations will include Douglas, Ariz., a border town that is home to many Mexican immigrants, Mason City, Iowa and Gainesville Georgia. The latter two cities have been affected by large numbers of immigrant workers while at the same time seeing increased membership in organized white nationalist groups. Handler has a bachelor’s degree in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and a master’s degree in media studies from The New School, also in New York City.

In addition to attending the gallery opening, both photographers will take part in a gallery talk about their photos on Nov. 27 at 6 p.m. The public is invited.