What We Do

SHINE reimagines the early 20th-century ‘Main Street’ community photography studio as a sacred place that guides us to see ourselves and each other in new ways. Through artist residencies and commissions, exhibitions, publishing, and public programs—including classes, lectures, and conferences—we foster a space for the public and campus. Occupying 3,500 square feet and equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment and technical support, SHINE provides free resources to the entire Greater Newark, New Jersey creative community.

Who We Are

SHINE is led by artists, educators, and advocates who are “in and of Newark.” It is a socially engaged art project that is site-specific to Newark, NJ, Rutgers University-Newark, and the history of the Hahne & Co. building as a luxury department store.

SHINE is inspired by and dedicated to the monumental photographer James Van Der Zee. Before Van Der Zee’s lauded career in Harlem, NY, he began in 1911 at the Hahne’s department store portrait concession, where he worked as an assistant in the darkroom and later as a photographer. The work of Dr. Deborah Willis—through her research, convenings, and artwork—has been a guiding light for SHINE.SHINE is a foundational studio of Express Newark that evolved from a proposal made in 2006, P.S. Newark. Ten years later, as the project was becoming a reality, the name “Shine” was inspired by art historian and Newark, NJ native Nikki A. Greene, Ph.D., from her lecture, “Rhythms of Grease, Grime, Glass, and Glitter: The Body in Contemporary Black Art,” at the 2016 Black Portraiture(s) II Conference at NYU. Greene referenced the book by fellow art historian Krista Thompson, Ph.D., titled Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice.

Contact 

shineportraitstudio@gmail.com

Location

3rd Floor, Room 319

Hours

Mon – Sat, E-mail SHINE for more information