Photoville, a 15th-annual festival showcasing over 90 photographic portfolios from around the world, is a celebration of the diverse and whimsical, as well as the hard-hitting and thought-provoking. This year's festival, on display at Brooklyn Bridge Park and other New York locations from May 16-30, features a range of exhibits that highlight the beauty and complexity of the human experience. One of the most whimsical exhibits is Old Apples, which celebrates the unique and bizarre nature of apples, with no two apples being the same in nature. The festival also delivers a satisfying range of hard-hitting reportage and documentation, including collections on turbocharged wildfires in the western US, racial inequalities affecting water access, and the chaos brought by ICE to American communities. In light of efforts by the Trump administration to erase the reality of trans people, Photoville offers two exhibits that attest to the enduring nature of trans lives. Special Girls, featuring the work of photographer Remsen Wolff, showcases 1990s-era photos of trans women and gender nonconforming individuals, including crossdressers and drag queens. The photos are a feast for the eyes, with their beautifully captured range of colors, textures, and posings of the human body. Archivist Jochem Brouwer, who was an associate of Wolff’s during his lifetime, made a promise to the photographer that he would make his body of work known to the world. With showings of Wolff’s photos in Amsterdam and now New York, he is doing just that. Lexi Parra’s portfolio of work The Avillas documents what happens after the titular family’s matriarch self-deports amid terrifying threats directed toward immigrants in the United States by the Trump administration. The photos make for an extremely difficult reminder of what happens when a beloved member of a family is torn away from it. Puppies Behind Bars is another moving collection, the fruit of the nearly two years that photographers Ashley Gilbertson and Ava Pellor spent in the men’s maximum security Green Haven, documenting the program where those incarcerated raise puppies to become service dogs. The Women’s Grass by Blackfeet Nation photographer Whitney Snow documents the intricate web of cultural knowledge and practice that has grown around sweetgrass, a plant long used by the Blackfeet in both religious ceremonies and as medicine. The festival is a celebration of the diverse and whimsical, as well as the hard-hitting and thought-provoking, and it leaves visitors feeling better and more connected to the world.
