LAST PAGE: Markus Essien, 55
The new program coordinator of the Flower City Arts Center’s photography program talks about his job, the path he took to it
By Mike Costanza
Q. Can you give us a brief description of your duties as program coordinator?
A. I’m coordinator for a middle school photography program and a high school photography program. The middle is called “Studio 678” and then the high school is just called “High School Photo Club.” The middle school is an analogue program, so they shoot on film and develop it in the darkroom. The high school program is digital. They do still photography, but they also do a little bit of videography.
Q. You’ve spoken of the possibility of expanding those programs. How might the Flower City Arts Center expand them?
A. Right now, we offer one middle school group and one high school group. There was a time when we had a larger group for middle school that we may split into two different days. There’s opportunities also in film making, as there are yearly teen film festivals that are sponsored by WXXI (Rochester’s PBS station). I was just talking yesterday with a teacher about how we might…help support students who want to enter that festival. Sort of like an incubator. My concern would be, in some of those things, that adults get too involved in the process and they’re not really created by the students. We were just talking through what it might look like to create an environment where students could use adults as resources but not have adults do the work. There’s a teen film festival through WXXI that’s screened at the Little (the Little Theatre in Rochester).
Q. Before moving to Rochester, you spent 23 years as a school teacher and administrator, most of them with private schools. How did your career take you to the Flower City Arts Center?
A. Arts have always been a part of my life, certainly as a musician, poet, writer, filmmaker, and so when I moved here with my wife, it was actually her who helped me know that this type of job was available. It just sort of felt like a perfect marriage for me. I’d already done 15 years in administration. It was nice to get back closer to the teaching, but also have arts be the prominent piece.
Q. You edited one feature film and were the assistant director of another in the early 2000’s. More recently, you produced and directed an episode about the late Black Panther Party member and disability rights activist Brad Lomax for the “American Masters” television series “Renegades.” The episode was recently shown at the Little Theatre. Yet, you now express your visual creativity through 35 millimeter still photography. How did that transition come about?
A. A lot of people start as photographers and become filmmakers. I’m sort of doing the backwards path. I was starting as a filmmaker, and becoming very fascinated and inspired to do film photography. Specifically film, not doing digital, so getting in the darkroom and developing. I’m actually beginning that journey. I am using film, black and white film. I think my boss describes me as a documentary photographer. I really like to capture things untouched, not setting things up or not someone that’s posed.
Q. You also write poetry. Have any of your works been published?
A. I have some things that were published online through The Brooklyn Poets, but I’m actually currently working on a first book. That would be images and words, so photography and poetry.
Q. It appears that your work at the Flower City Arts Center allows you to combine many parts of your professional and artistic lives. Is that correct?
A. Absolutely right. I feel like this job has been…a dream job where I can use the both the eye of the educator, the eye of the artist, and create programs for the students, but also create an environment for the teachers and be a part of the community. It seems like it checks a lot of the boxes, for sure.