Country of Origin: USA, Santa Clara, California

Based In: Chicago, IL

Main Medium: Photography

About
I'm a husband to my beautiful wife and help raise the two beautiful children I inherited through the marriage :) After that, I actually find these questions almost too broad to answer well... I'm an avid reader, you'll rarely find me without a book. I facilitate a book club called Kongo Square Literary Society... I don't separate my artistic pursuits from my political orientation... I want my work to contribute to transforming the world, not escaping it. I love people and making relationships. My practice with photography is ultimately about developing and enhancing connection. I particularly love documenting and interviewing Black elders. I've been training Capoeira Angola for 11+ years and have a lifetime goal of doing a cartwheel when I'm 95. I love to laugh, share and stay curious about the world around me. I LOVEEEEEE Black people and all the dynamic ways we can be ourselves...I've taught film, photography, history, architecture, and social studies courses at independent African-Centered institutions for most of the last 10 years. I talk lots of shit and enjoy a good joke. Seun Kuti is my favorite musician, and it's been super cool to me that we've formed a friendship over the years.

About their Work
Through photojournalistic-style portrait photography, I explore historical and contemporary relationships between people of African ancestry in an effort to forge meaningful understandings and connections along the continuing lines of language, geography, culture, and history. This work has taken him across the United States, as well as through Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Cuba and 6 underwhelming hours at the Burkinabe border. While certainly honest, my work is neither neutral nor objective, as I ground my photography within the social, political, and aspirational tenets of Pan-Africanist praxis and just plainly loving Black people. My work presumes the humanity of black people, oft-ignored or obscured from the outset in mainstream discourse. My greatest aspiration through photography is to present black life as it is, as it unfolds, and to use that as a catalyst for joy, dialogue, inspiration, organizing, and movement work.