Whatever circumstances may befall a child, a certain youthful enthusiasm for life will always find its place. Simon Fulford, a Jersey City photographer and performance artist, has spent most of his career capturing the enthusiasm in children who have been born into unfortunate circumstances such as physical disabilities or homelessness.
These photographs, now being exhibited at the community gallery at 111 First St. through April 13, capture a multitude of empowering images of smiling children often classically portrayed as helpless.
At the debut reception on March 23, over 100 people walked through the rectangular gallery to view those photographs. They found complimentary things to say about Fulford’s subject and how he pursues it.
Looking at one of the photographs closely, Philippe Belhache said Fulford’s pictures “show reality.” Belhache, a painter who is originally from France, said Fulford’s photographs break European stereotypes about America being obsessed with pop culture. “That’s what America is,” Belhache said, pointing to a photograph of child in a wheelchair playing basketball. “It’s not MTV. It’s a kid in his backyard with a tire and an old chair, and he’s having fun with it.”
The children who suffer from various handicaps occupy a large portion of the exhibit. Rather than focus on the disability, though, Fulford’s work manages to capture the child in everyday moments. Some children are playing sports. Others are attending to their academic studies. In all these instances, the children are as much engaged in routine activities as any other child. One after another, the message in Fulford’s work becomes abundantly clear: Children with disabilities are not disabled.
Delivering a social message in an art setting is nothing new to Fulford. As an undergraduate in Weslyan, he merged photography and sociology into his senior thesis. Throughout the 1990s, he primarily photographed children with disabilities, a subject that was nationally recognized in a project titled “Kindred: Tennessee Portraits” that traveled throughout Tennessee’s museums and moved on to other national galleries.
The remaining part of the exhibit focuses on homeless children. Fulford’s photographs of these children stem from his executive director position at Art Start, a non-profit organization that brings art workshops for children to homeless shelters.
While homeless children may not always have disabilities, they are disadvantaged. In a similar vane to the children with disabilities, these portraits examine the strong side of these children’s personalities despite the obstacles in their way.
“Simon’s work is very cutting-edge and it fits very well with the current trend,” said Jennifer Vaughn, a gallery director in New York City’s Chelsea area. “It’s a difficult subject that he’s dealing with and he’s managed to translate it into a fine arts medium.”
The photographs are up for sale, and a quarter of all the money will go to Art Start.
Performance piece
Aside from his photographs, Fulford has explored his artistic side through modern dance. Merging elements of performance art and the Japanese Botoh dance, he entertained spectators at the exhibit’s opening reception with his latest piece, “Swan Song.”
Hidden in a wooden crate with wheels, Fulford was pushed into the audience’s view by a deejay. After throwing some several hardboiled eggs into the audience, the deejay began playing a variety of nature sounds as Fulford emerged from the box like a newborn child.
Exploring themes of birth, love, death, and torture, Fulford attached a rope to his ankle that allowed him to pull himself upside down. “It was about being fully alive,” Fulford said of the sundry feelings he displayed in the performance.
He said that the Japanese form of dance was created in response to the nuclear holocaust.
“I thought it was playing off the feelings in the photos,” said B.J. Ervick, a Jersey City resident, after watching the performance. Comparing Fulford’s struggle of being tied to a rope with the similar struggle that the children in the pictures face with their disabilities, Ervick said the piece brought together a range of overwhelming emotions. Impressed with Fulford’s commitment to disadvantaged children, Ervick said the show was “great for the building.”