Seeing Black: Black Photography in New Orleans 1840 and Beyond

Kalamu ya Salaam and Eric Waters, two editors of SEEING BLACK: Black Photography in New Orleans 1840 and Beyond talk with Chelsey K. Shannon of UNO Press.

Situating historical inquiry alongside contemporary practices of Black image-making in New Orleans, SEEING BLACK: Black Photography in New Orleans 1840 and Beyond engages the photographic grammars, textures, multiplicities, and visual sounds of Black life in and outside the city. SEEING BLACK features over two hundred images by nearly ninety Black photographers whose work embraces the camera's visual power―discerning, beholding, and documenting people, places, events, collective memories, encounters, and ever-present moments of blackness. From the invisible to the obvious, the mundane to the spectacular, the overlooked to the seen, the erased to the remembered, the artists explore a range of photographic frequencies, styles, and rhythmic scores. SEEING BLACK invites us to explore historical and contemporary archives of Black life while challenging dominant viewing practices, asking who is taking the picture, who is in or missing from the frame, and how to shift our interactions with the visual image through an intentionally embodied Black gaze.

Free and open to the public; donations gratefully accepted. Donations support One Book One New Orleans' year-round community literacy outreach.

The Andre Callioux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice is accessible to community members who require mobility-related ADA accommodations. Parking near the venue is free, though somewhat limited. The nearest RTA stop is at N. Broad and Columbus.

Host or Publisher One Book One New Orleans