Photography Exhibition Focusing on Urban Religion Opens with Panel Discussion

A photography exhibition in Trinity College’s Crescent Center for Arts and Neuroscience (CCAN) observes how religion plays out in people’s daily lives, in graffiti and street art, and in music and dance in urban community settings.

Urban Devotions: Images of Faith in the City, by Bronx-based photographer David González, was brought to CCAN’s Poon Family Gallery by Trinity’s Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which examines the influence of religion on politics, civic culture, family life, and other issues in the United States and around the world. The exhibition opened with a panel discussion and reception with the artist on September 26, 2025.

González said that he was first inspired to photograph religion when it helped organize fellow residents in the South Bronx to demand that their community be renovated and invested in, rather than destroyed and rebuilt. He said, “I saw the power of practical faith when I saw my whole neighborhood get redeveloped.”

Throughout the panel, González pointed out specific images in the gallery and began to tell the audience the stories about the people and situations reflected in them. He emphasized the necessity of building relationships with the communities he photographed before capturing people in their own environments.

González spoke about how he earned the confidence of the people he photographs. “I operate from a deep place of love. My work stems from my relationship with my community,” he said. “My goal is to be as honest as possible, accept people for who they are, and try to understand what they are going through.”

In addition to González, the panel included Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada, associate professor of religion at Kalamazoo College; Efraín Agosto, most recently a visiting professor at Williams College; and Pablo Delano, Charles A. Dana Professor of Fine Arts at Trinity College. The moderator for the event was Leslie Ribovich, associate professor of religious studies and public policy and law at Trinity, who also is the director of the Greenberg Center.

Delano and Ribovich collaborated to bring Gonzáles’ photography to Trinity with the support of both the Studio Arts Program and the Religious Studies Department. Ribovich said, “I thought this display would be a great way to talk about some parts of religion that are not as visible in institutional settings.”

Delano said that he wanted to bring the exhibit to Trinity because he was moved by the images. “I thought the Greenberg Center was a natural fit to work with,” he said.

In Ribovich’s course “Religion in Hartford,” students study how religion and devotion are represented in Hartford, and the exhibition’s religious imagery captured in New York City reflects many of the same themes explored in class. Kate Fitzgerald ’26 said, “I thought it was interesting to hear the stories about the photos and the neighborhoods they were taken in from the person who took them.”

Maldonado-Estrada, an ethnographer and specialist in urban religion, spoke about being an observer of public and private life of practicing religion in a city. “There is intimacy, but that gaze of others is always there because you are sharing the street with so many people,” she said.

Ultimately, Ribovich said, the goal of the photography installation is for the Trinity community to connect to urban environments and see the part religion plays. “I wanted to open people’s eyes to the way that religion operates in a city, and although this is not about Hartford, I do think there are a lot of parallels for us to think about,” she said.

Urban Devotions: Images of Faith in the City will be open for viewing in the Poon Family Gallery in Trinity’s Crescent Center for Arts and Neuroscience (CCAN), Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., until Friday, October 24, 2025.