HYCIDE explores the roles we create for ourselves and those created for us, challenging the status quo while bearing witness to the feared, neglected and misunderstood.
Our Mission: Stories of survival and freedom. No judgment.
HYCIDE Founder Akintola Hanif to Open New Art Space in Newark
Jun 20, 2025
HYCIDE magazine founder Akintola Hanif celebrates the June 27, 2025 opening of HYCIDE XPANSE, a Newark arts axis that will serve as a production hub and offer free classes in photography, photojournalism, meditation and yoga.
The event, held from 6:00pm - 9:00pm at 33 Halsey Street, will feature Black & White Redux, an exhibition of images from HYCIDE’s Black & White Book, which extols the power of Black culture…
Photographer Akintola Hanif’s Remarkable Images Celebrate Black Love and Community
Feb 28, 2019
Akintola Hanif has been documenting his community in and around Newark, New Jersey, for the better part of two decades. The photojournalist and filmmaker first self-published his magazine, HYCIDE, in the summer of 2011, debuting each new issue at local art galleries and cultural venues and attracting hundreds of fans and followers to popular events…
{Portraits} Restored
Akintola Hanif is an artist living and working in Newark, New Jersey. His work is heavily rooted in cross-cultural photojournalism, fine art photography, media coverage, documentation of quality of life, education, and class issues. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of HYCIDE, a photography magazine dedicated to subculture, art, and conflict. In 2015, Hanif worked with “Project Connect” from Bridges Outreach Inc, a homeless assistance organization…
Life, Love and Honor in Newark’s Housing Projects
Oct 19, 2016
For some, the thought of Newark’s housing projects conjure up images of crowded brick high-rises with tight hallways and dangerous, dimly lighted corners. But Akintola Hanif sees a very different scene when he photographs there — a place where children play and people love and live their lives as a large community.
“These people are mothers, fathers and students,” he said, “who have…”
‘OFF WHITE’ Asks Us to Reckon With Quotidian Violence
Oct 20, 2016
Headlined “What Is the Constant Cycle of Violent News Doing to Us?” the piece explores how the ceaseless flow of brutal images in the media can affect public mental health. Among the bits of advice offered by grief counselors and psychotherapists is the suggestion that viewers should consider taking a break from the routine of watching the news.
But it’s not enough to turn away from the churn of images; perhaps we need to suffer through it, to confront its truths…
Newark Mural Along Route 21 Largest on East Coast
May 25, 2016
The Newark Downtown District is giving “street art” a new meaning…
“This mural stretches nearly a mile and half down McCarter Highway along the Amtrak retention wall. It’s almost the length of 25 football fields or the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s the largest mural on the East Coast, the second-largest in the country…
Newark - Through The Eyes of its Homeless
Nov 04, 2015
The camera is a powerful tool for Sarah VanAllen. It gives her a chance to forget she's homeless --even if it's only for a couple of hours a week - and to interrupt the daily grind of looking for work and permanent housing.
"It's something to escape (with), something to relax to,'' she says.
VanAllen, 49, is taking a photography class in Newark, one in which her classmates understand her plight. All of them are homeless, too…
Happy Hour with Akintola Hanif
Nov 6, 2014
Our Happy Hour series took a back seat to our other monthly segments or did it really? Maybe we were busy shadowing a very special creative… Maybe we had to attend all of his events in the past year…
Maybe we had to kick it with him in his studio… Maybe we roamed the streets of Newark in search of his subjects… Maybe for an entire year we gathered a ton of footage of Akintola Hanif and learned what it takes to create a Subculture and Art journal called HYCIDE magazine…
Newark's decay turned into art: City's crumbling infrastructure is focus of photo exhibit
Oct 27, 2013
Large-format photos of spectacular urban decay have become a fashionable art subject in the past few years. Detroit is a star in this sort of thing, but lots of midsize industrial towns — from Gary, Ind., to New Orleans — will do.
So in a way, “Newark, Can You Be Thus? — A Creative De-struction,” which opened in the City Without Walls gallery on Crawford Street…
New HYCIDE Magazine Turns Lens on Inner-City Life
Jun 4, 2011
Amiri Baraka, the famed poet and political activist from Newark — and father of South Ward Councilman Ras Baraka — joined members of the local art community who gathered at the Aljira gallery Friday to celebrate the launch of online arts and culture magazine HYCIDE.
Renowned photographers Jamel Shabazz and Ernie Paniccioli were also in attendance, lending their support to a project they see as picture perfect…
Orange photographer's work in Hycide magazine sheds light on Essex County's lesser-known groups
Jun 12, 2011
‘A subculture is a group that exists within pop culture, but somehow deviates,” says Akintola Hanif, a photographer and filmmaker whose first short feature about gang life, “Moral Panic: More Heat than Light,” was shown at the Newark Museum in 2008.
Hanif is the in-house documentarian at YouthBuild Newark, and he has just published the first edition of a new quarterly photography magazine…
Filmmaker looks at 'human side' of gangs
Oct 25, 2008
"In the '90s, when the gangs came, it was all the people I grew up around," said Hanif, an Orange filmmaker and photographer. "They were me without the school, without photography, without a family who exposed me to the arts."
In his film "Moral Panic," which will be screened at 3 p.m. today at the Newark Arts Resource Center on Broad Street, Hanif invites the public to look at gangs through his lens…
If Newark is in the Middle of a Revival Why Don’t Newarkers Know About It
Jun 15, 2015
Is the City of Newark undergoing a Renaissance? Maybe. Is it benefiting the people who live in the city? Maybe not.
Those were the key questions Monday night at the town hall discussion sponsored by the Center for Cooperative Media of Montclair State University. “Renaissance or Gentrification – How Do We Discuss Redevelopment in Newark” took place…
Pros and cons: Is Newark's 'tidal wave' of redevelopment a renaissance or gentrification?
Jun 16, 2015
The panel gathered at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center for a Town Hall meeting hosted by Montclair State University entitled "Renaissance or Gentrification?: How do we discuss redevelopment in Newark?" devoted to discussion on the changes afoot in Brick City, and how they are covered in the media…