UPCOMING
Wednesday, October 1
6:30 – 7:45 pm
Location:
651 Arts
10 Lafayette
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Dahkil Hausif & Russell Frederick – Open Studio
The Darkroom Diaspora: Griots of Visual Memory
Join us for Dahkil & Russell’s Open Studio!
The Darkroom Diaspora is a living archive and creative activation project centered on the powerful photographic legacy of visual activist Russell Frederick. For over two decades, Russell has documented the Bedford-Stuyvesant community and beyond with a discerning eye and deep commitment to Black life, resilience, and memory.
Faced with the challenge of declining eyesight, Russell began a new chapter of collaboration with griot and creative technologist Dakhil Hausif. Together, they set out to explore how to reimagine and revitalize his archive of over 40,000 images. What began as an experiment in creating an AI-based image generator evolved into something more expansive: a digital archive designed not only to preserve history but to make it accessible, interactive, and alive.
Through community dialogue and creative research, this collaboration birthed “The Streets Were Watching”, a visual memory project that uses public display, storytelling, and emerging technology to breathe new life into Russell’s work. This open studio shares a working demo of a future pop-up gallery experience—featuring select images installed outdoors and enriched with AI-powered metadata and oral histories Russell collected over the years.
Much like how modern digital images contain embedded data, these photographs carry emotional, cultural, and narrative metadata that deepen their resonance and invite reflection.
Learn more about Dahkil Hausif & Russell Frederick