Through Solace’s Lens: The EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship
A Photo Journal By Solace Cabral Hill
The Tishman Environment and Design Center’s EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship was designed to build movement across generations. EJ Fellows bring decades of community organizing, design thinking, and movement-building experience to the Fellowship, and they bring their families and children into the community as well. Over time, these connections have helped create an intergenerational ecosystem where relationships, stories, knowledge, and creative practices are shared across generations.
The Tishman Center is proud to feature the work of Solace Cabral Hill, a 13-year-old photographer from Buffalo, New York, whose images offer a remarkable perspective on the final chapter of the EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship’s 2024-2026 cohort.
Solace first became interested in photography in 2024, when he joined a photography club as a sixth grader at Park School in Buffalo. But his connection to the EJ Disrupt Design community began years earlier. Since the age of nine, Solace has accompanied his mother, Rahwa Ghirmatzion, to EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship retreats, witnessing firsthand the relationships, stories, and creative practices that shape this work. Rahwa, former Executive Director of PUSH Buffalo, became an inaugural EJ Fellow in 2021 and continued her involvement with the Fellowship as a technical coach for the second cohort of EJ Fellows, who recently completed their two-year fellowship.
In July 2026, Solace brought his camera to Hawaiʻi for the 2024-2026 cohort’s final retreat, on the unceded territory of the Kānaka Maoli Peoples in Honolulu. Through his photographs, he documented the journey unfolding across communities on the island, capturing moments of reflection, celebration, cultural exchange, connection, and collective leadership through his uniquely youthful lens.
His images capture something that can be difficult to put into words: what it looks and feels like to be part of an environmental justice community.
Rather than simply documenting a retreat, Solace offers us a window into the relationships at the heart of the Fellowship developed over several years during the last two cohorts. His images draw our attention to the moments between formal fellowship work sessions and the laughter, connection, and joy that make collective movement work possible.
Solace is not approaching this community as an outside observer. He has spent years witnessing the people and relationships that make up this ecosystem. His camera gives us a glimpse of what he has seen and experienced along the way.
At 13, Solace is developing his own creative practice and perspective. Through his photography, he is documenting a community that has helped shape his understanding of environmental justice while creating a body of work that is distinctly his own. Solace’s work demonstrates how these practices can emerge organically within an intergenerational movement ecosystem—and how a young person can transform what they witness into their own form of storytelling.
His photographs offer a fitting reflection on the Fellowship’s broader invitation to reimagine and design a bold future.
We invite you to experience Solace’s photo journal of the EJ Disrupt Design community experience through the lens of the next generation of EJ leaders.
Filipino/a Women in traditional dance- I chose this photo because the movement captured the beauty and emotion of the significance of the dance. The contrast of the colors of their outfits, the expressions on the dancers' faces, and the light as the sun began to set while the rain started made for a cool shot.
I chose this photo because Ceiba was really into the dance and was mesmerized by the performers.
This photo was taken on a beach where people’s families go to have a good time; on this same beach, there is an active military firing range. I originally took this picture to show the tree's imperfection, but now, after learning some of the history, this tree can be used as a metaphor for Hawaii’s imperfection caused by the military and the ever-growing corporate rein on tourism.
I selected this photo because of the accomplishment it shows and how far people have come on this Fellowship journey with the Tishman Center for Environment and Design. This keepsake will always remind them of their Fellowship
This photo shows the depth of culture and how it can bring us together in ways unimaginable. This was the opening ceremony, and we gave our respect to Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii.
I chose this photo because it shows the people who hosted us and served as great local guides by recommending places to eat and beaches to visit. This photo shows their well-deserved certificates for completing the Fellowship.