53375923
Tony Rocco’s mother traveled from Colombia to give her family a fresh start in South Philadelphia. Yearly, Rocco travels back to his family’s native country to give back to the community.
“I find I really enjoy my time down here. It’s something I never would have known about if I didn’t come,” Rocco said last week via a phone interview from Colombia, where he is spending his summer readying facilities for an exchange program he plans to begin this fall.
Rocco has taught in a North Philadelphia middle school for 14 years. His day hours are spent lecturing about the intricacies of computer science with afternoons reserved for photography instruction. Two years ago Rocco, who was born and raised at Fifth and Tasker streets, began a program near Bogotá, Colombia, where he teaches students of all ages in the small village aspects of photography.
“I built a dark room there and now I really enjoy teaching classes, more so even than the result. I find it more interesting how the student got there and why they did it, instead of just [the final photograph],” the 42-year-old said.
Rocco has continued to grow the program over the past couple years and is ambitiously gearing up for an integration between his Philadelphia- and Colombia-based students. The educator’s conception of the coming exchange will involve a year-long interchange of images and communication between both sets of students, culminating in trips that will bring participants to their counterparts’ hometown.
“Every week we would trade photographs, videos and stories about particular themes. Ultimately, my plan is to have the kids travel … I’m really putting all my effort into it,” Rocco said, adding that there are about 12 Philadelphia-based and nearly 40 Colombia-based students. “Bringing the kids from Philly isn’t the hard part. The hard part is going to be bringing the kids from Colombia.”
Rocco began the arduous process of inquiring about passports for his Latin American contingent last week and he anticipates lots of red tape and fundraising needs. But despite the large obstacles, he is confident the cause is worth the additional effort.
“When it’s done there will be this cultural exchange and really nice exhibit in Colombia and Philadelphia of the students’ work,” he said. “You will be able to see how they see the same kinds of things. We will be touching on the concept of family and maybe one child’s vision of family. And then we can see the Colombia child and the Philadelphia child, how they see themselves and their communities.”
Rocco attended St. Nicholas of Tolentine School, 913 Pierce St., before moving to Masterman and eventually Central High School. With a Colombian mother and Italian father, Rocco vaguely remembers the various ethnicities that composed his community.
“I don’t remember any other Colombian family on the block. Well, there was two more, but I was related to one as distant cousins,” he said. “There were Dominican and Puerto Rican families. The older I got, the more mixed the neighborhood got.”
With an early interest in art, Rocco originally enrolled as a film major at Temple University. He soon became frustrated with the need for a crew to capture images and decided to dabble with still pictures.
“I decided to take photography classes. I ended up really liking photography more than film, but I finished the program and I ended up taking all the photography classes I could,” Rocco said. “I like it just me and my camera. The kind of photography I do is documentary. I just walk around and try and capture some special moments.”
After filling contact sheets with photos of families, Rocco decided to broaden his subject matter to the community at large.
“I branched out to South Philly because it was my neighborhood … I got introduced to it in college and around that time was when I went to Colombia for the first time,” he said. “Right after my photo I class, I looked at my images and they had no soul. I didn’t know what to photograph. I took a bunch of film [in Colombia] and came back with all these amazing photos. I was just this raw photography student. I was enamored with Colombia.”
Today, Rocco, who makes his home in Northern Liberties, is known for capturing images of the people of Colombia. Working with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program for the last few years reminded Rocco of his connection to the South Philadelphia section, as he spent countless days in the Italian Market with local artist Michelle Ortiz producing the Journey’s South installation “Different Paths, One Market.”
“At Ninth and Montrose, we created a gallery space there and I put my photographs up,” Rocco said of the exhibit no longer on view. “Michelle’s mom worked on the market for 20 years and the people know her, so we had an in with the Mexican vendors. It was easier to approach them. To get the stories we really wanted, they had to trust us.
“People just associate those people with the fruit — it’s the guy that sells me the fruit, an object. Now, all of a sudden, there is a story behind the person and you see them in a new way.”
Currently, Rocco is focused on getting his exchange project in place in the remaining month or so before he returns to teaching duty in Philadelphia. In his limited time he must make sure the farming town has working Internet in order to exchange photographs with Philadelphia and that there is someone in place equipped to oversee the photography class in Colombia during his absence.
“It’s a really wonderful way of [working in] my passions,” Rocco said. “It’s most rewarding working down here [in Colombia], where the need is really great and the students really appreciate anything that I do.” SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
53375918
53375928
