at an arm’s length: Expanding the Walls 2025 features photography by the fifteen artists in the 2025 cohort of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s signature teen program, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections between Photography, History, and Community. This year marks the program’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
The phrase “at an arm’s length” suggests both physical proximity and emotional reserve, a desire to be close, yet the need to distance oneself. The artists in this exhibition capture a cautious intimacy shaped by the bittersweet edges of adolescence, exploring what it means to be in community while choosing what to share and what to hold close.
Using techniques such as soft focus and black-and-white imagery to obscure detail and evoke a sense of timelessness, the images resist easy legibility. The works in at an arm’s length invite others to consider what it means to look without fully knowing.
at an arm’s length: Expanding the Walls 2025 is co-curated by Maya Davis and Abigail Gordon, the Studio Museum in Harlem and MoMA Curatorial Fellows; Adaiya Granberry, the Robert Rauschenberg Curatorial Fellow; with Ally Caple, Expanding the Walls Coordinator, Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Expanding the Walls 2025 participants.
25 Years of Expanding the Walls
Expanding the Walls is a free, eight-month, photography-based program for a select group of students enrolled in high school or GED program.
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.
Past Exhibitions