Aware that the lens can function as the tool of the voyeur, the artists instead choose a closeness and proximity with their subjects, whom they know intimately. The captions and writing about their subjects form the necessary context and consent for the art to have more value beyond aesthetics. The photographs have a texture through which you can almost hear the rustling of the leaves and the crashing of the waves. The viewer becomes immersed in a fluid space of Afro-Indigenous survivance and futurity. (185)
-Tatiana Esh, “Dark Chorus”
How do the written texts relate to the images? How do they complement each other? What other aspects are revealed when you look a the text and the images together?
I’m New Here: Black and Indigenous Media Ecologies is a collective rallying call against colonialism. Seven artists interpret the relationship between Black and Indigenous communities to each other and the land. (181)
The group exhibition brings together communities that span beyond the borders of people who subvert the colonial technology of the camera to create the conditions for intimacy between themselves and the people with whom they create the image. (184)
Pick ONE of the artists showcased in the exhibition and analytically connect his/her/their work (and explanations) with ONE of these quotes from Tao Leigh Goffe’s curator statement.
a. The photographers featured in this exhibition present a vision of Black and Indigenous shared ecologies that hinges on the speculative capacity to imagine these entangled and distinct histories of struggle and survival. Beyond the narrative of racial suffering as totalizing, the Dark Laboratory is a space where campfire stories, fables, ancestral myths, and legends come alive at night.
b. Together members of the collective imagine and are inspired by the clandestine and fugitive itineraries of Native and Black people across the Americas of refusal. We understand what blooms at night and what needs the dark to grow.
c. We listen for echoes of this Afro-Indigenous dialogue in the landscapes and seascapes of the Americas. Native presence for thousands of years across the Americas is often overlooked or taken as a given and distant past. The dialogue of call-and-response that we imagine between Black people, forcibly transported here, and Indigenous people is taking place all at once in the future, present, and past. Since at least the sixteenth century, the Black Native dialogue has existed over generations, and it is one of shared bloodlines and extended kin.
According to the 2020 census, New York City is home to the largest Latinx population of any American city: almost two and a half million of its total 8.8 million inhabitants. Latinxs are the second-largest group in the city, almost equal in size to whites (28.3 per cent versus 31 per cent), and could become the largest group by the next census. If they once lived mostly in enclaves on the Lower East Side or in Washington Heights, they are now spread all over the city. The Bronx is almost fifty-five percent Latino; Queens is almost a third; Latinxs are about one out of five Brooklynites and Staten Islanders, and about one out of four Manhattanites. The Latinx population growth during the past decade has come not from migration but from births, and that trend has resulted in a very youthful population: Latinxs account for more than a third of New Yorkers under the age of eighteen.
The need for documentation
In that above mentioned context, Nuevayorkinos becomes more than just a way to showcase how Latinx New Yorkers see themselves—it is a take on the identity of the city itself. In their words:
NuevaYorkinos is a digital archival and multimedia project preserving NYC Latino and Caribbean culture and history through family photographs, videos, and stories. Established in February 2019, NuevaYorkinos seeks submissions from Latino and Caribbean New Yorkers taken within the five boroughs before 2010. For historically marginalized communities, storytelling is an act of decolonization. In a city whose Black, Brown, and immigrant communities find themselves in a constant fight against displacement, it is a way to combat gentrification. By showcasing stories from across the city, NuevaYorkinos celebrates the collective beauty, love, and resiliency of immigrant New York.
Expand on the NuevaYorkinos’ logic of photography and storytelling as acts of decolonization. What do you understand by these claims?
Class Activity
Instructions:
.In six groups, explore the following Instagram accounts:
Group 1 and 2: Nuevayorkinos
Group 3: Veteranas and Rucas
Group 4: Maximo Colon
Group 5: Rollie 6 x 6
Group 6: Jamel Shabazz
.Pay attention to the photographs, the types of posts, captions, hashtags, and overall visual aesthetics used.
.Report on your findings and analysis.
Discussion Questions
.Why most posts in Nuevayorkinos are celebrations—birthday parties, baptisms, trick-or-treating, dance parties, graduations, weddings, family reunions. What do you think is the purpose of this joyful narrative?
.Veterans and Rucas want to reframe and celebrate SoCal Chicana’s past by sharing their stories. How do their posts work toward achieving that?
.Why do you think Maximo Colón sheds light on artists, musicians, and public performances?
.How do you interpret Joseph Rodriguez’s interest in private spaces and intimacy in Latinx communities?
.What effect do Jamel Shabazz’s frontal pictures have? What type of conversation do they generate with the viewer?
