HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Reframing the Black Photographic Archive

Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University

Reception 1:00 - 1:30 pm 

Photographic images have always had a profound effect on how the Black body is assessed, denigrated, and appreciated, from the first discovery of photography in the 1840s. Over the past forty years Dr. Deb Willis has written extensively about the interplay between imposed representation on the one hand, and on the other hand, family portraits and contemporary images of Black Americans focusing on self-presentation. Central to Willis’ camera and written work is an ongoing critique that focuses on how the display of the Black body affects how we see and decode images. Willis considers the notion of beauty: how it is now perceived, what it meant in the nineteenth century, how it was and still is denied, and how best to describe it today given the overabundance of images circulating in social media and the archive. Willis will discuss the complexity of a gaze that is active as it questions the past and present. In her view, images are informed by memory, storytelling, and politics. As a professor, curator, and photographer, she has found countless quotes about how Black people throughout the diaspora have self-identified with the use of the camera. She continues to explore how photographs are consumed by interweaving stories about identity, representation, selfhood, and memory, while including conversations about the camera, selfies, and photo-booth imagery. All of this promotes a discussion on self-reflection, which then produces a sense of empowerment through archiving such images. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)