PHOTO BY HER.
“Dancing in the Reign of Violence,”
excerpt from the print series, Children of the Sun
I always loved the stories my parents told me as a child. As I lay there, halfway into a dream, Daddy would read the fantastic fantasies of Virginia Hamilton or Ezra Jack Keats. From flying slaves to black children playing gleefully, in the snow. I found myself lost in between pictures from edge to edge. Looking back, it seems that narration through bold, colorful pictures is the oldest form of storytelling I know.
I picked up film after realizing that the stories I found myself lost in, no longer contained people that look like me. As I found myself seeing, creating, and doing things my parents never dreamed of, I realized nothing in the magazines, art or other forms of media looked quite like what I was seeing with my very own eyes. I reached back and explored the canon of documentary photographers, from Roland Freeman to Gordon Parks, but I was left feeling like a piece of the story was missing.
excerpt from the print series, Children of the Sun
I always loved the stories my parents told me as a child. As I lay there, halfway into a dream, Daddy would read the fantastic fantasies of Virginia Hamilton or Ezra Jack Keats. From flying slaves to black children playing gleefully, in the snow. I found myself lost in between pictures from edge to edge. Looking back, it seems that narration through bold, colorful pictures is the oldest form of storytelling I know.
I picked up film after realizing that the stories I found myself lost in, no longer contained people that look like me. As I found myself seeing, creating, and doing things my parents never dreamed of, I realized nothing in the magazines, art or other forms of media looked quite like what I was seeing with my very own eyes. I reached back and explored the canon of documentary photographers, from Roland Freeman to Gordon Parks, but I was left feeling like a piece of the story was missing.
The greatest purpose of their work is to
understand now. With that in mind, I set out to create,
because what lies between then and now is central to the Black
identity. What lies between then and now, is progress.
The anthropological work of Deborah Willis focuses on Black photography through time. To be Black means to have a consideration of historical context beyond the average majority. That context is what defines our pain, our suffering, our joy. Knowing what we’ve overcome is how we dance in the reign of violence. It’s how we remain unapologetically Black, when there is nothing to apologize for in the first place. Knowing the sacrifices that led us from the work of then to my photography now, is what captures my mind and my eye. If free labor led to the birth of a nation, then we are the natural-born heirs. We are the children of those fields, that renaissance, and that mid-May walk to work down a Montgomery road. As I look up to the sky and feel my melanin tingle, it’s clear to me we are children of God, children of the Holy Spirit, Children of the Sun.
The anthropological work of Deborah Willis focuses on Black photography through time. To be Black means to have a consideration of historical context beyond the average majority. That context is what defines our pain, our suffering, our joy. Knowing what we’ve overcome is how we dance in the reign of violence. It’s how we remain unapologetically Black, when there is nothing to apologize for in the first place. Knowing the sacrifices that led us from the work of then to my photography now, is what captures my mind and my eye. If free labor led to the birth of a nation, then we are the natural-born heirs. We are the children of those fields, that renaissance, and that mid-May walk to work down a Montgomery road. As I look up to the sky and feel my melanin tingle, it’s clear to me we are children of God, children of the Holy Spirit, Children of the Sun.