William began his artistic endeavors as a modern dancer in High School under the guidance of Michael J. Goring.  While in high school, William received a year-long scholarship to the Teens at Graham Initiative where he experienced the vibrancy of Martha Graham’s dance technique.

William continued to dance during college and then took a year from school to travel through South America.  It was during this time that a passion for photography was born.  William was climbing waterfalls, swatting mosquitos in the amazon forest, getting lost in treacherous caves, catching altitude sickness on top of volcanos, and he even woke up in horror surrounded by thousands of sand crabs on the beach-all while toting his camera in hand.

For the past 13 years, Williams has devoted his life to working with inner city youth as a youth development facilitator with the mission on fostering transformation to our youth while building critical awareness.  William Orellana has worked at El Puente for the past 8 yrs where he gained tremendous experience on the social justice front and explored his humanity through youths development practice, activism, community organizing and marrying art for social change.

William is a social artist, educator and visual artist who is re-imagining the intersection of art, popular culture and social justice through still and moving pictures.  William’s aim is to preserve the many levels of Latino identity by building on a cultural ethnography through photography and film.