Sam Barzilay
Sam Barzilay grew up in Greece and fell in love with photography at a young age. He attended Tufts University and graduated in 2000 with a BA in philosophy. In 2001, he graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts with a BFA in Photography. Barzilay also got an MFA in photojournalism at the University of Westminster in 2007, That same year Barzilay began working at the New York Photo Festival as Curatorial Coordinator and worked there through 2011 becoming the director of exhibitions and, subsequently, festival director. In 2009, he was a guest curator for the Lishui Photo Festival, a biennial event in Lishui, China. From 2010 through 2011 Barzilay was a member of the board of advisors for the Guatephoto Festival. Barzilay has also participated in prestigious events including the Prix Pictet, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Houston FotoFest, and the New York Photo Awards as reviewer, nominator, and judge.
In 2011 Sam Barzilay cofounded PhotoVille, an annual open-air exhibit in New York City dedicated to building a community around photography, a profession that can be isolating. One of the main principles of Photoville is accessibility, removing obstacles so photographers of all backgrounds can break into the field. The organization brings young people into the same space as established artists and gives them the same respect. Through fostering conversations and sharing perspectives photographers and passerbys alike are able to connect through art and humanity.
PhotoVille displays photographs in shipping containers, exhibiting diverse narratives through visual storytelling, from religious and cultural experiences to systemic injustices and many more. Sam Barzilay has been committed to sharing his passion for photography and creating a strong artistic community that extends a hand to those in all stages of their creative careers.
I first met Sam when he knocked on my door unexpectedly with his wonderful brother Ezra, at the time, a distinguished Schweitzer Fellow at the Tufts University Medical School. Sam was a freshman who wanted to enroll in EPIIC, and Ezra was protective of what that would mean for a dual-degree A&S, and Museum School student. The word was out that apparently we were a very demanding curriculum.
They also announced themselves as Salonika Jews, a Greek community almost entirely destroyed by Nazis. They said their family had fled to the hills to join the Partisans and that is how they survived. Somehow, perhaps they knew about my family's background. (I was gifted by them with a leather-bound volume of the history of Jews in Salonika, which I treasure.)
Sam entered the 1998 cohort where the theme was Global Crime, Corruption, and Accountability.
Early on, it was evident to me that Sam's intellectual curiosity, intelligence, and boldness would evince itself in an immersive and distinctive project He, together with Shorena Shaverdishvili, traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan, to conduct a remarkable research project on crude capitalism and the excesses of the beginning of oil exploitation in the country. Sam proved himself to be a remarkable photographer and chronicler. Below are some photographs of his powerful rendering from "OIL FIELDS" Sam, enrolled in Tufts University's Museum School, was among my very first students to fulfill my dream of the interdisciplinarity merger of culture, politics, and society, and in enrolling blazed a path for many others.
Now Sam has proven himself an extraordinary force in the global world of photography and has created and embedded Photoville as a distinctive and powerful Institution in the highly demanding and competitive NYC artistic and cultural worlds, and as a dedicated mentor of both professionally accomplished and emerging photographers and artists. Currently, we are working with Marc Asnin to potentially mount an exhibition of Final Words both at Photoville and subsequently as a touring self-contained shipping container exhibition available for college campuses and other locales of public education on the death penalty.
Below are photographs of his EPIIC project on “OIL FIELDS”
