Ricky Flores grew up in South Bronx, and began taking photos of his friends, family, neighbors — and the conflicts and hardships that defined the borough — after he purchased his first camera in 1980.

New York-based artist and curator Yelaine Rodriguez designs dresses and sculptures, visually exploring the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. She uses her sewing machine as a paint brush to emphasize the political struggles

As a fan of hard-boiled crime thrillers, my taste in the fictional genre is bent toward the likes of Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block and James Lee Burke, just to name a few.

This project supports my European debut at the Entangled Black Americas International Conference, Jan 19-20, 2017 at the University of Bielefeld, Germany.