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The Black Gaze Newsletter | January 2022

The Black Gaze Newsletter
The Black Gaze Newsletter
@theblkgaze
Dear Black Gaze Family, 
It’s 2022! I hope you are in good health and thriving following a productive and joyful start to your best year yet.

My people whose were made to endure.
My peoples all shapes and colours.
My peoples got more peoples with them,
That’s more peoples, more sisters and brothers.
My peoples stay strong as an ox.
My peoples will never fail.
My peoples will always remain,
Remain with a story to tell.
These words are from one of ‘My Peoples’ - a song by DJ Jazzy Jeff that sits on my all-time top 10. It has long held a special place in my heart as it is part testimony, part celebration, and part call to action.
My Peoples was one of the inspirations for launching The Black Gaze which I have always seen a window into the worlds of Black photographers from across the world. They are my peoples and as the song says, my peoples got more peoples with them.
Recent conversations with allies and pro-colonial gazers have reinforced the importance of providing a platform that enables my peoples to tell their stories. That’s one of the reasons why the Black Gaze is here to remain.
Friends. Allies. Family. We look forward to your continued support throughout 2022. Please continue to submit entries to our ongoing Q&A series and our new project, My Peoples (see below). Please continue to be a voice for change in conversations where we are not present. Please continue to share this newsletter and our social media content with your people.
Thank you.
@shotbyshaun
Open Call
Photographers Q&A
We are now accepting submissions for the next round of our Photographers Q&A series, an ongoing and thought provoking discussion with Black photographers from around the world.
Submit your Q&A now.
My Peoples
Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah
My Peoples is a brand new project in which photographers explore what ‘My Peoples’ means to them.
We are delighted to feature Akosua (pronounced: ‘A-koss-ya’) Viktoria Adu-Sanyah who has shared a moving testimony to her late father, Stephen Kofi Adu-Sanyah.
Read more
Discover
Bookshelf
Africamericanos
This book is a new arrival that has stormed its way on to my highly recommended list. In simple terms, you need this in your life and in your collection.
Africamericanos is a visual exploration of Afro-Latino identity and the African diaspora in Latin America as seen in the work of 34 contemporary photographers.
Surveying photography from all over Latin America, and based on extensive research, The Africamericanos gives special consideration to those from countries with the highest populations of Afro-Latino citizens and whose people have suffered the most systematic erasure of Afrolatino identity.
Buy now
Ken West: The Beauty of Everyday Thangs
This is another book that has stormed its way on to my highly recommended list. Again, you need this in your life and in your collection.
“Western history does not celebrate the magic of Black moments, the beauty of the normal. Ken West’s astute snapshots of daily life in all its poignancy -the extraordinary moments and the incidental - is changing that.”
- Jen Sudul Edwards, Ph.D., Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art, The Mint Museum
Buy now
Read
Dexter McLean: Portraits from Tower Avenue, Jamaica
In Tower Avenue, McLean revisits the community around Olympic Gardens, Jamaica where he spent his childhood. Inspired by a sense of togetherness and the importance of familial networks, this ongoing project features black and white photographic portraits of an intergenerational constituency of individuals living in the local area.
His long-term ambition is to create a collective portrait documenting the disabled community in Jamaica, drawing on his own experience of living with cerebral palsy, to challenge historical representations of Black and disabled communities.
Read more
Vast city of Lagos through a photojournalist’s eyes
Lagos-based Tom Saater has a rags to riches story and a unique insight into Nigeria’s biggest city.
Saater has seen Lagos from many angles: photographing everyone from the CEOs of massive corporations to the so-called Area Boys gang members, producing work somewhat reminiscent of renowned photographer Don McCullin’s 1950s portraits of the gangs of north London.
Read more
Women behind the lens: ‘She was too beautiful not to be photographed’
Etinosa Yvonne recalls a chance encounter with a Fulani woman in northern Nigeria.
Etinosa Yvonne is a self-taught Nigerian documentary photographer and visual artist based in Abuja. The primary focus of her work is the exploration of themes related to the human condition and social injustice
Read more
Rachel Seidu’s photographs go beyond the surface to reveal deeper cultural meanings
Lagos-based photographer Rachel Seidu takes viewers on an emotional journey through intimate and candid images of the cultural landscape that surrounds her.
Breaking down stereotypes surrounding African culture and challenging gender, sexuality, and racial preconceptions, her photographs invite contemplation on different lived experiences.
Read more
Roy DeCarava’s powerful portraits of 20th century Harlem
When you think about the most significant Black photographers of the 20th century, you’ve got a choice of two. One because he profoundly shaped the way Americans saw race, literally and figuratively. The other because of the aesthetic majesty of his photos. - John Edwin Mason
A new exhibition brings together the most evocative portraits from the photographer’s extraordinary archive.
Read more
Watch
Ken West: Revolutionary Black Normalcy
Every day Black / Life / Hustle / Grace / Love / Heroes / Villians / Thangs.
Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin: Creators in Residence
Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin is one of two inaugural Los Angeles Public Library Creators in Residence. Boyd-Bouldin’s work is centred around photo essays of urban environments and the changing landscapes of the places that hold meaning for him and his community. 
Africamericanos in Cali: Artists appropriating their territory
This short video shows Africamericanos at work in their community.
Kamoinge Collective: The Black Woman Power and Grace
This B&H Photography Podcast features Russell Frederick, Delphine Diallo and Jules Allen of the Kamoinge photography workshop who discuss African-American photography of the past sixty years and the role that Kamoinge has played in nurturing and presenting that photography.
Martin Parr: Advice to Young Photographers
You are probably going to fail, so unless you are obsessed, almost like a disease, you are not going to make it.
Martin Parr offers advice to young photographers.
Left of Black | Dr. Tina M. Campt: The Black Gaze in Art
What is a Black gaze? Does it merely imply a world view held conjointly by those of African descent? Or is it a way of seeing that forces us to confront Blackness and anti-Blackness and our relationship with both?
Events
Roy DeCarava: Selected Works
David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by Roy DeCarava (1919–2009) at its London location. This will be the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in London in over thirty years and the first presentation of his photographs in the city since inclusion in Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power exhibition in 2017.
  • Until 19 February 2022
  • Tuesday - Saturday, 10am-6pm
  • David Zwirner Gallery, London
More info
Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite
Throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the transformative idea that “Black is Beautiful.” This exhibition—the first dedicated to Brathwaite’s remarkable career—tells the story of a central figure of the second-wave Harlem Renaissance.#
  • 5 February - 8 May 2022
  • Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing Gallery, Reynolda, Winston-Salem
  • Advanced book is recommended
More info
Deadline
Autograph: Marketing and Audience Development Assistant
Deadline: Monday 14 February 2022 at 5pm (GMT)
Autograph is looking for an enthusiastic and creative person to join their Marketing and Audience Development team.
Apply now
Impressions Gallery: Curator
Deadline: Monday 28 February 2022 at midday (GMT)
Impressions Gallery are seeking to appoint a Curator to work as part of their small and dedicated team. The Curator will be responsible for the delivery of exhibitions, commissions, and other curatorial projects in line with Impressions Gallery’s vision and mission.
Apply now
August Sander Prize for portrait photography
Deadline: 25 February 2022
The prize is designed to promote young artists working in the field of documentary and conceptual photography. In honour of August Sander’s seminal contribution to portrait photography, the candidates’ photographic work should primarily focus on portraiture.
The prize is awarded every two years. National and international artists aged 40 (on the closing date of the competitio) and under who work mainly with photography are eligible to enter.
Submit your entry
Teen Portrait Competition
Deadline: 29 March 2022
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced its Teen Portrait Competition, which is open to students between the ages of 13 and 17 residing in the U.S and its territories.
Teens are invited to submit original portraits in the medium of photography to this national competition hosted by the Portrait Gallery’s Teen Museum Council.
Artwork by the grand-prize winners for each of the two age groups (13–15 and 16–17 years old) will be displayed in the Portrait Gallery in the summer. The grand-prize winners’ artworks will be on view near the special exhibition “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today,” which showcases portraits made by artists ages 18 and older.
Submit your entry
Visura Project Grants for Freelance Visual Journalists
Deadline: 30 April 2022
The deadline for Visura Project Grants has been extended to 30 April 2022. This is a grant opportunity for Freelance Visual Journalists worldwide working on stories about climate change, environmental justice, gender equality, racial justice, and human rights. There is no application fee.
Submit your entry
F-Stop Magazine - Amusement 2022
Deadline: 15 March 2022
Issue 112 of the F-Stop magazine will explore the theme of amusement. The featured artist is chosen from the work that is submitted to the issue. This is an opportunity to showcase Black joy. There is no application fee.
Submit your entry
Get involved
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We are open to takeovers of our Instagram and Twitter accounts. If you would like to run a takeover then contact us.
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The Black Gaze Newsletter
The Black Gaze Newsletter @theblkgaze

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