FREE FILM : NYC LES Opening Party
All skill levels of photographers were invited to come pick up a roll of 35 mm and to celebrate the kick off of WORTHLESSSTUDIOS’ FREE FILM : NYC at the Lower East Side Girls Club 402 E 8th St, New York, NY 10009 on Thursday March 8 from 3pm–5pm.
FREE FILM : NYC follows the footsteps of the previous iterations as a meditation on community and local culture. The Airstream-darkroom will take up residency in a given neighborhood and distribute free rolls of film to the general public, and WORTHLESSSTUDIOS will partner with local community organizations and hold youth workshops where students will learn how to use a film camera, focus a lens and process and print film using professional equipment provided by FREE FILM. Over the course of the next year and a half, the project will make its way around New York to document each borough, neighborhood by neighborhood.
After documenting Red Hook’s cultural activities and community, FREE FILM : NYC’s second neighborhood is the Lower East Side, where WORTHLESSSTUDIOS has partnered with local nonprofit The Lower East Side Girls Club to host the Airstream-darkroom, distribute film and teach photography classes to young people. Participating photographers of all ages will shoot within the boundaries of one neighborhood at a time, responding to the prompt “ONE SQUARE MILE.” Destiny Mata, Lower East Side Girls’ Club Artist-in-Residence will teach a series of workshops for up to 10 students. Upon completion of the project across NYC neighborhoods, WORTHLESSSTUDIOS will produce a FREE FILM : NYC book.
“I’m beyond excited to reactivate our Airstream with local NYC photographers. The New York photo community has been a major contributor to the FREE FILM project from the beginning and I can’t wait to see how we photograph ourselves and the communities we live in.”
Neil Hamamoto, Founder and Creative Director of WORTHLESSSTUDIOS
