Dystopia a.k.a. Privileged Mediocrity will be a series of artworks about systematic unfairness in America. I will focus on making photographs that act as a document of our time using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices. In my work to date, I have explored a range of urban and rural landscapes, and developed a series of portraits investigating race, color, and subjectivity with a goal of including varied expressions of Blackness in the photographic canon.
For my new series, I will capture the subtleties of societal power and its impact on the built environment of America and the construction of public and private space. Specifically, my project will explore how racism, capitalism, and power have shaped our country and planet, and how that can be seen and experienced in everyday life.
Racism can be seen in infrastructure and planning nationwide, from the human and built environment impacts of redlining and unsustainable public housing; to spaces where homeless communities are able to exist temporarily before they are dismantled; to the grouping of bus depots, refuse sites, and power plants in proximity to low-income communities (usually of color). Much of our nation’s public and low-income housing has been built in areas that have high pollution rates, lacking public transportation, and within environmentally unsafe zones (i.e., floodplains). Many of the choices made that resulted in these lived and built realities have been documented and are both obvious and subtle in their expressions. This project seeks to explore the subtleties of the experience across racial, class, and gender lines. We all exist within this planned experience, and I am interested in interrogating experiences that intersect with and diverge from my own.
As a Black man in America, I have always lived with the fear of visiting places outside of major cities in our country. In addition to exploring built environments in urban and suburban spaces, this project will also give me the opportunity and impetus to visually experience places that I wouldn’t normally explore. I will examine a wide range of different histories that have shaped our country. Some examples include: photographing the Native Americans who often work in the national parks that were established on land stolen from their own tribes, the history of confederate monuments, the United States’ occupation of Hawaii and the sovereign groups that formed in resistance and are building out their own communities, and impact of redlining in our major cities. I also want to elevate the representation of people of color in the fine art canon; and to create opportunities for conversation about race, representation, and rural/suburban/urban life.
The art world and business are heavily focused on serving communities that can afford to be involved. Underserved communities rarely have the opportunity to experience art, let alone the time or knowledge to produce artistic work. My goal as an artist has always been to bridge the gap in viewership, between the art business and the public, who are often unconcerned with art world ideals.
