Conversation: The Politics of Black Representation(s): Thoughts on Collectivity

Dr. Leigh Raiford, Delphine Sims, and Adrian Octavius Walker in Conversation

Thursday, September 3, 2020
4:00 - 5:30 PM PDT

On Thursday, September 3rd SF Camerawork was pleased to host a conversation between Dr. Leigh Raiford, Delphine Sims, and Adrian Octavius Walker. While the politics of Black representation has long been an intensely traversed and ongoing conversation, Raiford, Sims, and Walker seek to inquire after the relationship between these representations and collectivity. They explored collectivity, the creation of Black photographic groups, as a necessary and powerful constellation to speak to the uniqueness of individual artistry, the realities of needed support (financially, spatially, and conceptually); and the power in shared positionalities and political commitments. In dialogue with the spirit of SF Camerawork’s origins, Dr. Leigh Raiford, Delphine Sims, and Adrian Octavius Walker dedicated this talk to discussion about the etymological origins of collectivity “col-“ or to be together as it relates to Black photography. How do historic and newfound Black artist collectives negotiate the politics of Black representation? Where and when are they created and by whom? How do they succeed, fail, and evolve? In tandem with the collaborative nature of photography (again with togetherness as its prefix), how might collectivity be the means to advance, renegotiate, and transform Black subjecthood, photographic practice, and Blackness as it relates to and is part of a broader world of visual culture? It is through the expansiveness and bolstering of collectivity that, as art critic Antwaun Sargent succinctly describes, “there is an assertion of control over representation, and this effort has resulted in not a single portrayal of what constitutes Blackness, but a multiplicity of meanings.”

Dr. Leigh Raiford
Leigh Raiford, PhD is an Associate Professor and in the African American studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches and researches race, gender, justice, and visuality. Raiford is the author of Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle and the coeditor of, with Heike Raphael-Hernandez, Migrating the Black Body: Visual Culture and the African Diaspora and of, with Renee Romano, The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. Her work has appeared in numerous academic journals, including American Quarterly, Small Axe, Qui Parle, History and Theory, English Language Notes and NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art; as well as popular venues including Artforum,  Aperture, Ms. Magazine, Atlantic.com and Al-Jazeera.com.  Raiford’s essays have also been included in the collections Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, (Harry N. Abrams Press, 2003), edited by Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis; and Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity, (Duke, 2012), edited by Maurice O. Wallace and Shawn Michelle Smith. In 2019, she co-curated the group shows Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (with Essence Harden) and About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive.

Delphine Sims
Delphine Sims is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art Department at UC Berkeley, where she studies the history of photography in the Americas. Her research focuses on the ways in which race, gender, geography, and urbanity inform and redefine landscape photography. Most recently she was the Mellon Curatorial Intern at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive during which time she helped organize the 2019 exhibitions Unlimited: Recent Gifts from the William Goodman and Victoria Belco Collection and About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging. In 2018, she was a curatorial intern at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the photography department. Previously, Delphine was a curatorial assistant at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art also in the photography department. She has worked on numerous museum exhibitions and contributed writings to several catalogues, including Looking In, Looking Out: Latin American Photography, Laurie Brown: Earth Edges, and the forthcoming BAMPFA publication New Time: Art and Feminisms in the Twenty-first Century.

Adrian Octavius Walker
Adrian Octavius Walker is a mixed-media artist based in Chicago, IL by way of St. Louis Missouri. His work is inspired by the Black body, dynamics of the Black family, and archival work related to the African American experience and the untold stories they share. Working in both film and digital-format photography, Walker creates penetrating portraits influenced by his deep awareness of the nuances that pervade the human experience. His greatest milestone to date is being one of the prize-winning artists in The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today Competition currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Walker is currently represented by pt.2 Gallery Oakland, CA.

Support SF Camerawork

Becoming a member is the best way to engage with our programs, stay informed of exciting new exhibitions and events, and be a part of our vibrant photography community. If you're already a member and would like to support us further, please consider donating.