How have Black artists, activists, and everyday practitioners used photography to situate themselves in a world structured by anti-Blackness? Such efforts are not simply about creating a comforting self-image that contrasts to the violent colonial uses of photography; they are also about examining the ways photography can serve as a pedagogical tool for knowing oneself and imagining new modes of being in the world. In this talk, Leigh Raiford considers a range of Black archives to illuminate the photographic object as a site for negotiating ideas of belonging, iterating shared values, and exploring the longing for home and kin.

Image credit: Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup), from the Kitchen Table Series. Courtesy National Gallery of Art