Meet the Artists
Expanding the Walls 2023
Between matter and memory: Expanding the Walls 2023 features work by the fifteen artists in the 2023 cohort of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s signature teen program, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community. This year’s exhibition marks the program’s twenty-third anniversary.
Founded in 2001, Expanding the Walls supports the photographic practices of high school students based in New York City through workshops, gallery visits, and discussions led by contemporary artists.
Expanding the Walls 2023 Artists
Anindita Mandal
Anindita Mandal is a ninth grader at Park East High School. She always likes to focus on education and what she can do to get extra work done. She likes to work out every day and do her makeup. She likes to paint once in a while and take pictures of nature. Two fun facts about her: she plays the piano and speaks three languages.
Axel Sambula
Axel attends the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice. He's a part of Student Government and helps organize school events, fundraisers, and clubs. He likes to work out, play games and sports, such as soccer and basketball, and take pictures. He likes to make a ton of visual art, including sculpting.
Brianna Mojica
Brianna Mojica is fifteen and in ninth grade, born and raised in Harlem. She helps other students with their catch-up work during lunch. She likes to write and read stories, and she is currently trying to write a book! Her favorite visual art forms are literature and sculpture because they allow for more creative realism and effort.
Daisy Lopez
Daisy Lopez is seventeen and a twelfth-grade student at DREAM Charter High School. She takes part in her school by participating in clubs, and likes to take walks, draw, and take landscape pictures, as well as portraits of people. She really likes cats even though she’s highly allergic to them!
Diego Mejia
Diego Mejia is sixteen and a sophomore at Cardinal Hayes High School. He’s involved in his high school’s TV channel and stage crew. He likes to watch films, listen to music, and hang out with friends. He likes to make abstract art, sculpture, and literature, and to go out and collect records.
Gael Vielma
Gael Vielma is a junior at East Harlem’s Park East. At home, he routinely assists his parents, alongside his brother. In his spare time, he collects cassettes, creates sculptures, and paints. His favorite album of all time is Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Josiah Utak
Josiah is a sixteen-year-old high school student born in Brooklyn and living in Harlem. His interests are photography and film. Josiah likes to spend much of his free time with friends, playing sports, riding bikes, and going on walks. He also likes to watch movies and TV and complete community service for school whenever he gets the chance. He likes to listen to rap and hip-hop during his commutes.
Mia Hinds
Mia Hinds goes to Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts and is a ninth-grade vocal major. She’s an artist within her community and brings joy and laughter into the rooms she enters. She loves to give back to the community by helping in any way possible. She enjoys music, drawing, and being alone in the comfort of her room. She also loves drawing and has recently been looking into a lot of collage work. Old fashioned cartoons are also something she’s been trying. Erykah Badu, MF DOOM, and The Altons are her favorite artists in the world!
Reyli Veras
Reyli Veras is a senior at Opportunity Charter School. He really enjoys being there for his classmates and helping them with whatever they need. He loves listening to music, playing video games, and playing basketball, and has always loved photography and taking pictures of his surroundings. His siblings’ interest in photography is a huge part of why Reyli was inspired to pick it up as a hobby and why he wanted to be a part of Expanding the Walls
Rouguiatou Diallo
Rouguiatou Diallo was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She’s currently in the twelfth grade and goes to A. Philip Randolph Campus High School. She loves to go shopping and help others in her community.
Ruben Lopez Suarez
Ruben Suarez is eighteen years old, and his favorite album is Igor by Tyler the Creator. He's a senior at the High School of Law, Advocacy and Community Justice. He tries his best to get as involved as he can in his school by setting up events and selling tickets. Ruben likes to listen to music, watch movies, read comic books, and be creative. He loves to create many types of art like photographs, paintings, collage works, and short films. He also has a white French bulldog named Lulo.
Seira Reyes
Seira Reyes is a fifteen-year-old who lives in Queens, New York. Her mother is Japanese, and her father is Ecuadorian. Seira usually spends her free time sewing, listening to music, cooking, drawing, or going out with her boyfriend. She does not like to be interrupted while she is in deep concentration, as she feels that it will disrupt her motivation to work and will lose that spark. Her favorite artists include Bauhaus, London After Midnight, Megadeth, Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, Anthrax, She Past Away and so many more. She likes to express herself through fashion and music and loves to find new songs to listen to. Although she is mainly interested in goth music, Seira will happily give a listen to other genres and has a very varied taste in music. She is very quiet when she cannot find someone who she can easily click with, but with the right people, she is extremely talkative and loud.
Soraya Fuentes
Soraya Fuentes is currently a junior at the High School for Environmental Studies. She’s been involved with her community by volunteering in programs that highlight her neighborhood and those who are a part of it. She likes to do hair, listen to music, make art, and go thrifting. When making art, she likes to draw mostly eyes and flowers. Her favorite musician is Amy Winehouse.
WengRui Tong
WengRui Tong is a ninth grader at Manhattan Hunter Science High School. In school, she’s part of the Botany, Mural, and Key clubs, all of which help the school community feel livelier. Key Club helps both the school and her community outside of school with volunteering, donations, and funding. In her free time, she enjoys reading, listening to music, and playing badminton. She likes making abstract art and scribble drawings. She’s also really into fashion and photography, creating and mixing and matching outfits and taking photos of things she comes across in her daily life. She is also currently helping paint a dragon mural in her art class!
Yaniel Garcia
Yaniel Garcia goes by Ya (pronounced “Ja”) and goes to New Heights Academy Charter School. He is a part of Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis), where they talk about problems that are happening around the community and what they can do to try to fix them. He helps with the BroSis community garden, where they give vegetables and fruits to people who need them. He likes to make any type of art as long as he can express himself completely. He enjoys going to his BroSis chapter, playing games, and going to the gym.
