Cheryl Dunn

LSS NYC

“The Whiles NYC”

2025 October 17 to December 7

Long Story Short is pleased to present The Whiles NYC, a solo exhibition by New York–based filmmaker and photographer Cheryl Dunn, on view from October 17 through December 7, 2025, at 52 Henry Street, New York, NY 10002. Known for her unflinching documentation of the city’s pulse—from underground scenes to moments of civic upheaval—Dunn turns her lens inward to reframe decades of visual practice into new narratives of urban life, rhythm, and resilience.

Drawn from her vast archive, The Whiles NYC gathers photographs that map the choreography of movement through the city: crossing streets, skating curbs, dancing on rooftops, or pausing mid-fight. Searching her files by intuitive tags—“BIRD,” “BROADWAY,” “CROSSWALK”—Dunn uncovers clusters of images that speak to one another across time, tracing what she calls “the random connective threads” that form the living story of New York.

As Dunn reflects, “The streets are like a canvas where a piece of wood in a trash can becomes a beautiful sculpture, where rooftops are a spiritual respite from the streets—yet still part of the same pulse, the same club.” The resulting groupings reveal not only the visual poetry of the city but also its emotional architecture—how we move, communicate, love, fight, dance, and survive within its ever-shifting frame.

Presented alongside these photographs is BLACKOUT NY 2003, a short film that captures one extraordinary night when the city lost power and found connection. Shot in near-darkness during the 29-hour blackout that followed the trauma of 9/11, the video radiates both danger and elation as strangers turned neighbors—sharing melted ice cream, impromptu barbecues, and street-corner dance parties.

Dunn’s enduring practice—rooted in empathy, spontaneity, and the poetics of public life—has been recognized in major exhibitions including Art in the Streets at MOCA Los Angeles and Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines at the Brooklyn Museum. Her acclaimed films, including Everybody Street (2013) and Moments Like This Never Last (2020), extend her vision beyond still photography to chronicle the lives of artists and outsiders who define New York’s creative core.

The Whiles NYC coincides with the forthcoming release of Dunn’s new photography book of the same title (Fall 2025), offering a layered portrait of a city in constant motion—its fleeting gestures, collisions, and quiet revelations caught in the “whiles” between chaos and grace.

Cheryl Dunn is a documentary filmmaker and photographer based in New York City. Since the late 1980s, she has captured the vitality and volatility of urban life, focusing on the people who strive to leave their mark on the city. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, Tate Modern, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Geffen Contemporary, and the Oakland Museum of Art. Dunn is the author of several photography books, including Festivals Are Good (2017), Some Kind of Vocation (2007), and Bicycle Gangs of New York (2004).