Hira Hassan’s Photographs Convey Bronx Spirit to Humans of New York

Hira Hassan, a proud Bronx native and 2020 Fordham graduate, is turning into a outstanding voice in New York City storytelling. Her highly effective road images, which goals to counter detrimental stereotypes of the Bronx with genuine depictions of the borough’s neighborhood and tradition, earned her a spot in Brandon Stanton’s epic “Dear New York” Humans of New York exhibit that took over Grand Central Terminal this fall. She says the expertise allowed her and her fellow Bronxites to really feel represented.

Hassan sat down with Fordham Magazine to debate her work and the way her time as a CSTEP scholar at Fordham bolstered her dedication to her neighborhood.

How did it really feel to have your work shared on such a large public scale as a part of the “Dear New York” Humans of New York exhibit?

I consider I used to be the one Bronx photographer whose work was featured, so it felt actually wonderful and exquisite to have the ability to showcase my pictures and to be included. I heard a variety of optimistic suggestions from folks throughout the nation. It actually allowed me to understand my very own pictures much more than I had up to now—to see that they resonated with of us who are usually not even essentially from the Bronx. And in addition they actually resonated with folks from the Bronx, attending to really feel represented inside this actually big exhibition.

Did your experiences as a Fordham scholar affect your work and your perspective on neighborhood engagement and repair?

Shout out to CSTEP! They have been actually the primary ones to show me in regards to the Bronx’s historical past so completely, whereas combining it with service-learning initiatives within the Bronx and with different local people organizations. The care with which they taught me in regards to the Bronx can also be the care I attempt to use with my images—each showcasing all of the tales of resilience and the way folks have overcome, whereas additionally actually displaying the struggles and the way folks have suffered due to bigger systemic points.

Fordham additionally has a STEP program for highschool and center faculty college students, so I’ve been concerned with the STEP and CSTEP communities since highschool. I grew to become a mentor for the STEP program, so then I used to be in a position to form of return and train highschool and center faculty college students. It was very full circle.

How did rising up within the Bronx form your worldview? Did it gas your need to fight detrimental stereotypes related to inner-city neighborhoods?

The Bronx all the time will get a lot hate; it’s form of loopy. I joke with my pals that it’s a full-time job simply defending the Bronx, so I wished to showcase issues that go in opposition to the stereotypes. That’s not the fact, and my lived expertise showcases there’s a lot neighborhood; there’s a lot love and pleasure within the Bronx.

I believe images is only one means for me to focus on the borough by a extra optimistic lens. I really feel just like the pictures have been a byproduct of the connection that I’ve been in a position to make with folks.

I’m not attempting to sugarcoat something or be toxically optimistic both. I do spotlight a variety of the struggles and the problems that individuals within the Bronx are dealing with, and I additionally spotlight how folks have been resilient, how they’ve been joyful, and the way, , regardless of all of it, they’re nonetheless right here.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Check out extra of Hassan’s pictures included in Dear New York under, and a wider choice of her work on her Instagram account.