The Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Avenue is marking 15 years with an exhibition made almost entirely by the people it has taught, and the show closes this Friday, Oct. 30. Two weeks later the center opens its next major show, a survey of the New York photographer and filmmaker Harvey Wang.

Built in the Bronx

Built in the Bronx: 15 Years of the Bronx Documentary Center fills the main gallery at 614 Courtlandt Avenue in Melrose. Curated by Michael Kamber and Alexa Pacheco, it gathers work from the center's three teaching programs: the Youth Photo League for middle and high school students, the Senior Photo League it runs with Bronx senior centers, and its adult workshops. Alongside them hang community portraits and long-term projects developed at the center, including photographs from the Jerome Avenue Workers Project and work made in Claremont Village.

Part of the show follows former adult students who went on to build careers in photography. The result runs across generations, from teenagers holding a camera for the first time to older Bronx residents drawing on decades of their own lives.

A second show, Emerging Visions: Photo Education Around the World, is on view at the center's annex at 364 East 151st Street through the same date. Both galleries are open Thursday and Friday from 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

Wang's World opens Nov. 13

On Friday, Nov. 13, the annex opens Wang's World: Photographs and Films of Harvey Wang, with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The show runs through Jan. 10, 2027.

Wang has spent decades photographing people from every walk of life, and he documented the East Village through the 1970s and 1980s. He has published six books of photography, among them Harvey Wang's New York (1990), Holding On: Dreamers, Visionaries, Eccentrics and Other American Heroes (1995) and Flophouse: Life on the Bowery (2000), the last two with David Isay. His photographs have been shown at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the New-York Historical Society and the Museum of the City of New York. The exhibition puts his still photographs and his films side by side.

Two screenings with Q&A sessions follow at the annex at 6:45 p.m.: Harvey Wang: From Darkroom to Daylight on Saturday, Nov. 21, and Harvey Wang: The Last New Yorker on Tuesday, Dec. 1.

Photobook talks in between

The center's Tim Hetherington Photobook Library hosts evening talks at the main building at 6:45 p.m. Serhii Korovayny presents Love Letter to Donbas on Wednesday, Nov. 4, in a conversation moderated by Bernadette Tuazon, director of photography for CNN Digital. Andrew Lichtenstein presents This Short Life on Friday, Nov. 6. RSVPs are taken on the center's events page.

Or pick up a camera yourself

The center's adult workshops are open now. An introduction to wedding photography meets Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 starting Oct. 29 for $300, limited to 10 students. A two-day introduction to large format photography runs Saturdays, Nov. 7 and 14, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for $250, also capped at 10. Classes are offered in English and Spanish, and the Youth Photo League is a free after-school program.

By the center's own count, more than 65,000 people have visited its exhibitions over the years, and about 70 percent of its visitors are Bronx residents.

Getting there

The main building is at 614 Courtlandt Avenue and the annex is at 364 East 151st Street, a short walk away. The 2 and 5 trains stop at Third Avenue and East 149th Street, a few blocks south. The center can be reached at (718) 993-3512 or info@bronxdoc.org.

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