♪
Lawrence Agyei: My artistic identity
is defined by where I'm from.
Being that I was born and raised in Italy,
but I'm also originally from Ghana and now,
I've been in Chicago for more than ten years.
So what does it mean to miss Chicago?
It's just a feeling, it's an energy thing.
It's honestly my first day of high school,
um, just remember seeing pretty much
all Black kids in the school
and I was just like, Wow.
For the first time, I did not feel alone.
Because for a long time in Italy,
I was the only Black kid in the whole school.
There were not enough images of Black people
just having a good time, or you know,
spending time with their families,
anything like that.
And one of the main reasons why I do what I do,
is because I want to be able to change those type of images,
right?
I wanted to change that perception
and share it to the world.
My goal as a photographer,
my goal as a storyteller,
is to keep telling these stories.
Keep telling these amazing stories
that can change the way that we see
the whole Black experience.
[INAUDIBLE]
♪
♪ ” Image” by Brian Bennett ♪
♪
Gabriella Angotti-Jones: Photographing Black
female surfers
is just a reclamation of the spaces
that we were once relegated from.
One of the most powerful things you can do for Black women
is to have us visualize and be anything we want to be.
And having that visual can create
just so many possibilities
and just open up one's imagination
to what one can be.
♪
In Los Angeles, there's been a very coordinated effort
to keep Black and Brown bodies away from public oceans
and public beaches.
In Manhattan Beach,
there used to be a resort that was only for Black people
and it was taken away.
Us going back to these spaces
and occupying them is just showing people that,
we've always belonged here,
we always will be here,
and we're just going to continue to shred.
♪
As a photojournalist, I have to keep pushing for space
to be made for us, and for our stories to be told
and for me to even occupy space
because who else is going to do it, you know?
♪
♪ ” Vibe” by Chris Runner ♪
♪
Lauren Woods: Being Black and Queer
from the South,
you already have so many odds against you.
You're not really seen as a person,
but a spectacle, experiment, something to fear,
something to hate, something to fetishize.
Having lived these experiences,
I really wanted to push against that,
and that's why it's so important to me as a photographer
and storyteller to celebrate and uplift Blackness
and Queerness and those identities,
because our lives matter, our stories matter,
and our beauty within and without
deserves to take its space in the world
to combat all that darkness.
♪
In Charlotte, it's experiences, it's story, it's history.
There is, you know, a lot of trauma, a lot of blood,
a lot of tears.
But there's also a lot of resilience,
a lot of strength, a lot of beauty,
a lot of magic.
It means a lot to show people like,
"Yes, you are worthy,
you are important,
you're amazing."
♪
♪ ” Six AM” by Inner Wave ♪
Julien James: I want my work to capture Black culture
in this more poetic way.
Like the bike culture,
I try to shoot that in a fine art way.
So it's a lot of focusing on eye contact
and shooting in black and white
to capture the vulnerability.
♪
I wanted to make sure that my son grew up seeing
multiple representations of men of color.
I grew up seeing you're a musician or you're an athlete.
I didn't see men being emotionally vulnerable,
I didn't see men being emotionally available.
So I want to capture Black men in that light
so when my son can grow up,
he knows it's okay to be emotional,
it's okay to cry, it's okay to feel other things.
You don't have to be tough all the time.
[CHEERING]
♪