Timeless and organic, Charlie De Keersmaecker’s project ‘Down By The River’ projects the honesty and freedom exhibited in yet-to-be-tested youth. The lack of technology and purposeful clothing lend a timeless quality to the series, allowing the viewer to project themselves into the scene and connect with each image, taking you back to a time when there was uncertainty yet endless opportunity.

The adolescent boys in Pablo Solórzano’s photographs inhabit a world burning around them. They have cigarettes, joints, blunts, and crystal pipes, but little else. They blow smoke in the face of chaos.

This work is very coherent, using a language that, while fragmentary, is clear and direct. Each picture reinforces the storyline by introducing the viewer to a different character or detail from the by-gone era of the dance hall. I love the portraits and feel that the tight crop and melancholy expressions – hardened by the use of flash – create a productive tension. This take-no-prisoners approach to the subject matter invites nostalgia and for me, captures this generation’s distanced but fascinated relationship to our past.

This portrait stopped me when I first saw it, and then when I read the caption, it stuck with me even more. There’s something about the calm dead gaze of this guy, his relaxed demeanor as he sits atop a white plastic chair stacked on top of another white plastic chair, and studies us from behind his makeshift face mask.

There are so many elements in this portrait that give it energy: the way we can see the contours of his very serious face though the thin fabric of his mask, the anonymous globalized camouflage street fashion he wears, the irony of plastic chairs (stacked up) at a camp of protest for environmental causes. In many ways, I can see this as a universal portrait of a new young generation of activists who are intent on making their future world better for all of us.

By posing people of color in the style reminiscent of immigrants a century earlier, Paolo Galletta makes a strong political statement. He is reminding us ‘we are all immigrants’. This powerful and compelling series uses photography to connect the past to the present, reminding us that migration and immigration are about finding better lives.

In this series, The Last Days of Sara, artist Elena Paraskeva uses strong color and surrealism to address the complexities of gender identity. I choose this work because I enjoy the fabricated reality and the crisp way the work is presented. Each image plays out as its own narrative - at times tender, but also aggressive and destructive - as the main character struggles to accept a self that they no longer see as viable. The series uses artifice and exaggeration to address the very real subtles of gender identity and expression.

These self-portraits were taken at the height of the AIDS crisis - before effective drugs were available and in a political and social climate that was extremely hostile to those living with and dying from the disease. These are resolutely not photographs that describe or reassert that suffering. O’Conner speaks of a party atmosphere in the sessions and this comes through, some are playful and all seem to be enjoyed. One can presume and imagine the enjoyment and exchange as the instantaneous results allowed by the polaroid medium were passed around. Skills were shared, results assessed, poses reposed, and the release stayed in the hands of the sitters. These strong and self-asserted portraits flow counter to the stream of imagery we have from the era.

Rafael Goldchain created an incredible project about his family. Old family photo albums are always fascinating and Golchain put himself in them as the only subject. The result is a funny and interesting body of work of incredible self-portraits portraits, each one representations of his ancestors, real or fictional.