BRONX, NY.- John Rowe, award-winning photographer and documentary filmmaker, and Manuel Mendive, Cuba's most renowned artist, collaborated on an exhibition of photographs, paintings and sculpture on view at The Bronx Museum of the Arts through November 4, 2018.

The two artists met in Cuba. Rowe saw Mendive leaving a performance of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, mutual friends connected them and Rowe was invited to Mendive’s home/studio outside of Havana, Manto Blanca. After seeing Rowe’s book OMO VALLEY Mendive invited Rowe to work together with a folk dance group in the rainforest of Cuba. The exhibition at the Bronx Museum - Manuel Mendive: Nature, Spirit and Body” contains their joint work.

John Rowe has spent decades photographing and filming people and cultures worldwide, including in Southeast Asia, India, Mongolia, China, Japan, Africa and Cuba. Rowe’s current work in Cuba includes documenting an historic visit by President Obama, a Rolling Stones concert, the Fidel memorial, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and coverage of Cuba’s National Boxing Team in training. In 2016, an exhibition of Rowe’s images of the National Ballet of Cuba, including its Prima Ballerina Viegnsay Valdes, was featured at the Gran Teatro de la Habana during the 25th International Festival of Ballet. A second ballet exhibition is scheduled at the Gran Teatro for October 28, 2018.

Rowe's work in Africa focused on recording the life, changing cultures, and challenges of tribal people in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. His richly illustrated fine art book OMO VALLEY, with Foreword by Steve McCurry, was released in 2017. Rowe also directed and produced the acclaimed full-length documentary film Omo Child: The River and the Bush which has won twenty-five festival awards, been featured on PBS, and been instrumental in creating a profound cultural shift through powerful compelling real life stories.

John Rowe’s work has been seen at | published by the Annenberg Space for Photography, Explorers Club, Gran Teatro de la Habana, Fabrica de Arte Cubano, Center for Fine Art Photography (C4FAP), John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts | National Geographic, NBC News, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, L'Oeil de la Photographie and The Explorers Journal among others. Rowe is a guest lecturer and Honorary Professor for audio visual arts at ISA, The Fine Arts University in Havana. He will be returning to the annual Eddie Adams Workshop in October 2018 as part of the faculty, mentoring and teaching emerging photographers.