Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing

Description

Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation questions how the Black female body, specifically the Black maternal body, navigates interlocking structures that place a false narrative on her body and that of her maternal ancestors. Drawing on a wide range of scholarly inquiry and contemporary art, this book addresses these misconceptions and fills in the gaps that exist in the photographic representation of Black motherhood, mothering, and mutual care within Black communities. The essays and interviews, paired with a curated selection of images, address the complicated relationship between Blackness and photography and in particular its gendered dimension, its relationship to health, sexuality, and digital culture – primarily in the context of racialized heteronormativity. This collection, then, challenges racist images and discourses, both historically and in its persistence in contemporary society, while reclaiming the innate brilliance of Black women through personal stories, history, political acts, connections to place, moments of pleasure, and communal celebration. This visual exploration of Black motherhood through pictures made by Black woman–identifying photographers thus serves as a reflection of the past and a portal to the future and contributes to recent scholarship on the complexity of Black life and Black joy. This book emerges from the project Women Picturing Revolution. For more information, visit womenpicturingrevolution.com Contributing authors: Tomi Akitunde (founder and editor-in-chief of mater mea), Grace Aneiza Ali (New York University), Emily Brady (University of Nottingham), Lesly Deschler Canossi (Women Picturing Revolution), Nicole J. Caruth (independent curator), Haile Eshe Cole (University of Connecticut), Atalie Gerhard (Saarland University), Kellie Carter Jackson (Wellesley College), Rachel Lobo (York University), Zoraida Lopez-Diago (Women Picturing Revolution), Salamishah Tillet (Rutgers University), Scheherazade Tillet (A Long Walk Home), Brie McLemore (University of California, Berkeley), Renée Mussai (Autograph London), Marly Pierre-Louis (independent curator), Jonathan Michael Square (Parsons School of Design), Susan Thompson (independent curator), Jennifer Turner (Hollins University), Sasha Turner (Johns Hopkins University), Rhaisa Kameela Williams (Princeton University) Contributing artists: Nydia Blas, Samantha Box, Renee Cox, Andrea Chung, Nona Faustine, Adama Delphine Fawundu, vanessa german, Ayana V. Jackson, Lebohang Kganye, Deana Lawson, Qiana Mestich, Marcia Michael, Zanele Muholi, Wangechi Mutu, Keisha Scarville, Mickalene Thomas, Mary Sibande, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Our Mother, My Muse Salamishah Tillet and Scheherazade Tillet Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation Lesly Deschler Canossi and Zoraida Lopez-Diago Part One: More Black and More Beautiful: Social Media & Digital Culture in the Rewriting of Self 1 Regarding the Pain of Our Own Brie McLemore 2 Beyond “Welfare Queens” and “Baby Mamas” Jennifer L. Turner 3 Black Motherhood Online: A Reimagined Representation Kellie Carter Jackson 4 Thotty Mommies Marly Pierre-Louis Part Two: “Turning the Face of History to Your Face”: Seeing the Real Self Through Representations of Black Motherhood 5 Motherhood in the work of Deana Lawson Susan Thompson 6 Photographic Afterimages Rachel Lobo 7. “I Like to Make Pictures of Children” Emily Brady 8 Losses Not to Be Passed On Atalie Gerhard 9 Speaking of “unspeakable things unspoken” Sasha Turner Part Three: “You Are Your Best Thing”: Self-Care as a Site of Resistance 10 Black Birth Matters Nicole J. Caruth 11 Worth a Thousand Words Haile Eshe Cole 12 Three Black Mothers in a Cleveland Cabaret Rhaisa Williams Part Four Part Four: “In Search of My Mother’s Garden, I Found My Own”: Black Female Photographers and the Matrilineal Space 13 Letter IV: Where Are They? – M/othering R/evolutions Renée Mussai 14 Every Day is Mother’s Day in My Book Jonathan Michael Square 15 The Motherland Between Us Grace Aneiza Ali 16 The Impossibility of Breathing When the Sun Covers Your Face Marcia Michael Part Five: “The Assertion of the Lifeforce”: A Selection of Works Curated by Women Picturing Revolution Afterword Régine Michelle Jean-Charles Contributors Artists