Question Bridge: Black Males

Saturday, July 25, 2020
1:00 - 2:30 PM PST

Question Bridge: Black Males
Film screening and artist talk with Chris Johnson
Moderated by Elena Gross

On Saturday, July 25th, SF Camerawork was excited to host a conversation with artist Chris Johnson moderated by Elena Gross. Chris Johnson discussed the pivotal transmedia project Question Bridge: Black Males which he created along with Hank Willis Thomas. Question Bridge: Black Males is an innovative transmedia project launched in 2012 that facilitates a dialogue between Black men from diverse and contending backgrounds and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine Black male identity in America.

Chris Johnson (Creator/Co-director) originated the Question Bridge concept with a 1996 video installation he created for the Museum of Photographic Arts and the Malcolm X library in San Diego, California. His photographic artwork has been published and exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute, the Oakland Museum and numerous galleries and is represented in collections including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1994, he co-produced and directed The Roof is on Fire with Suzanne Lacy, which was broadcast on KRON-TV. Chris Johnson has served as President of SF Camerawork Gallery, Chair of Cultural Affairs Commission for the City of Oakland under Jerry Brown and Director of Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography.  Additionally, he authored the The Practical Zone System: for Documentary Photography; currently in its 6th edition. Currently, he is Chair and a Full Professor of Photography at the California College of the Arts, where for ten years he served as President of the Faculty Senate.  He is also the Media Wall Project Manager and Public Art Management Team member for Oakland Museum/Port of Oakland. 

Elena Gross (she/they) is an independent writer and culture critic living in Oakland, CA. She received an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from the California College of the Arts in 2016, and her BA in Art History and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2012. She specializes in representations of identity in fine art, photography, and popular media. Elena was formerly the creator and co-host of the arts & visual culture podcast what are you looking at? published by Art Practical. Her research has been centered around conceptual and material abstractions of the body in the work of Black modern and contemporary artists. She has presented her writing and research at institutions and conferences across the U.S., including Nook Gallery, Southern Exposure, KADIST, Harvard College, YBCA, California College of the Arts, and the GLBT History Museum. In 2018, she collaborated with the artist Leila Weefur on the publication Between Beauty & Horror (Sming Sming Books). The two performed a live adaptation of their work at The Lab, San Francisco. Her most recent writing can be found in the forthcoming publication This Is Not A Gun (Sming Sming Books / Candor Arts).     

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