“Wards of Newark” is far from Acevedo’s first major showing. In addition to photography, he works across various mediums, including drawing, animation and projected image. His work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, El Museo del Barrio and others.

Yet the Newark exhibition, which runs through Oct. 30, is a show of a different kind.

Acevedo, Tillet and Shakur spoke individually by phone and video with The New York Times about the exhibition. The interviews have been combined, condensed and edited.

Why is this exhibition outdoors?

SHAKUR Art doesn’t simply have to exist indoors. Having access outdoors helps spark dialogue and civic engagement, and tells our story. It also helps communities appreciate representation and seeing themselves depicted in art across the city.

Many people have photographed Newark. Salamishah, what drew you to Manuel’s images in particular?

TILLET Through Manuel’s eyes, you get this breadth and depth and diversity and dynamism of Newark at a time when there are the most stereotypes about its impoverishment, its crime in terms of the crack-cocaine epidemic. Then you have Manuel, who’s living in the city and showing us the depth of humanity.

Manuel, how did what you saw in the media about Black and brown people in Newark differ from what you saw every day, growing up in the city?

ACEVEDO Representation of Caribbean and African diaspora people has always been unjust. I had to contend with why we were being represented this way when in fact I could walk out of my house, go on to my porch, talk to my neighbors and hang out with my friends in a way that was never shown. I felt all I could do was point the camera to my reality, which was the opposite.