Collaborative Portraiture, April - May 2023
In the spring of 2023, I had the honor of being selected to be a part of a photography residency exploring work in the exhibition “Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue” at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, CA.
Hosted by the Black Image Center and guided by our teaching artist, Nesanet Teshager Abegaze, this residency asked us to consider the concept of “dialogue” in its many forms. We explored ways of image-making that honored our ancestral lineages, while also nurturing possibilities for future generations.
The work I created alongside 11 other residents was displayed at Band of Vices Gallery from June 3-17, 2023.
Created as a culmination of my participation in the 2023 Black Image Center x Getty Residency, “Collaborative Portraiture” is a series dedicated to the deconstruction of dialogue and visual communication.
Drawing from the longstanding friendship and dialogue between Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems, this project explores how the camera, the photograph, and the act of portraiture itself can be vehicles of communication.
These photographs were selected from intimate portraiture sessions with various friends, family, and acquaintances. For each shoot, my subject and I took turns photographing each other, hoping to put our different approaches to portrait-making in conversation. Kept constant through each shoot was the camera, my mother’s old Minolta XG-1 SLR, the 45mm lens, and the portrait orientation of the images.
Through this handoff of the camera, this project also looks to prod at the ideas of ownership, power, and agency within the image-making process.
Many thanks to James, Liahnna, Joey, Noah, Christian, Cameron, Brian, Mylan, Mr. T., and Trish for holding time and space with me as we brought this project to life.
Hosted by the Black Image Center and guided by our teaching artist, Nesanet Teshager Abegaze, this residency asked us to consider the concept of “dialogue” in its many forms. We explored ways of image-making that honored our ancestral lineages, while also nurturing possibilities for future generations.
The work I created alongside 11 other residents was displayed at Band of Vices Gallery from June 3-17, 2023.
︎︎︎
Created as a culmination of my participation in the 2023 Black Image Center x Getty Residency, “Collaborative Portraiture” is a series dedicated to the deconstruction of dialogue and visual communication.
Drawing from the longstanding friendship and dialogue between Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems, this project explores how the camera, the photograph, and the act of portraiture itself can be vehicles of communication.
These photographs were selected from intimate portraiture sessions with various friends, family, and acquaintances. For each shoot, my subject and I took turns photographing each other, hoping to put our different approaches to portrait-making in conversation. Kept constant through each shoot was the camera, my mother’s old Minolta XG-1 SLR, the 45mm lens, and the portrait orientation of the images.
Through this handoff of the camera, this project also looks to prod at the ideas of ownership, power, and agency within the image-making process.
Many thanks to James, Liahnna, Joey, Noah, Christian, Cameron, Brian, Mylan, Mr. T., and Trish for holding time and space with me as we brought this project to life.
Diptych from gallery display in June 2023
